6 ms·

Reading the comments here it seems that people are missing the point by just joining one of those instances. It is not about just using some alternative to Twi

by jeena 11y ago

Reading the comments here it seems that people are missing the point by just joining one of those instances. It is not about just using some alternative to Twitter, the real advantage begins when you host it yourself so that you can own your own content and post whatever you want (not what some company wants you to) and (perhaps) syndicate to other services like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc. I just gave a small talk about all this last week: https://jeena.net/media/2016/IndieWeb-Jeena.pdf https://jeena.net/media/2016/IndieWeb-Jeena.pdf

girvo 11y ago
GNU Social is similar in concept to the POSSE (Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere) idea, isn't it?
- jeena 11y ago
  As far as I can see GNU Social only POSSEs to Twitter, but that is a good start anyway.
- mxuribe 11y ago
  POSSE is along the lines of a higher set of principles to aspire to: in essence where some system under your control is the first place that you publish your content (social posts. blog posts, photos, pretty much any of your content)...And then, your content gets sent out to other distribution points (e.g. facebook, twitter, etc.). It basically increases the value of your web presence to a system that you can control, instead of depending on an outside platform that may not have your interests as its primary goal. While GNU Social is one (out of many) types of tools/platforms that can implement/help achieve some of those POSSE principles. See also: http://indiewebcamp.com/principles http://indiewebcamp.com/principles
_ak 11y ago
I don't see hosting myself as an advantage. In the end, all you do all day is to maintain all the tools and apps that you host yourself.
- INTPenis 11y ago
  Not really. I've been running a Jabber server and a GNU Social node for about a year now and I can tell you it takes maybe 1 hour a week of my time for patching. I have automatic security updates enabled on both systems but I tend to login from time to time and do a dist-upgrade on them manually.
  - jaredklewis 11y ago
    Sure, but I'd say 1 hour/week is quite a bit more than the a normal person would like to spend on maintaining apps (probably 0). Why someone would want to run their own instance of their favorite web app when most are given away for free, no maintenance required.
    - zwarag 11y ago
      Because there are people out there who got priorities where other just do opportunism.
    - jeena 11y ago
      > when most are given away for free Free as in beer, not as in liberty, that is my problem and why I want to run my own instances. You might not value freedom as high as I do.
    - INTPenis 11y ago
      The average person is not supposed to maintain their own node for these services. That's why they have us who give our free time and our VPS accounts to host such things. It basically comes down to trusting Big Media or trusting your neighbour with your data. I personally doubt we'll see a big breakthrough for Big Media alternatives because people go where their friends are. I am unfortunately expecting fragmentation in that field, sort of like reverting back to the early days of the internet when us nerds who could connect were considered a subculture. Now that everyone can connect we're creating a subculture of people who choose not to use Big Media and instead gravitate towards smaller and less centralized alternatives. That doesn't matter though, I have always enjoyed being on the fringe and I believe I will continue enjoying my time there. :)
st3v3r 11y ago
"Reading the comments here it seems that people are missing the point by just joining one of those instances." No, they're not. They just want to get started and go. They don't want to deal with hosting or configuring servers. Many of them might not even have the equipment to do it. That's the experience they've gotten from Twitter, and most people like that.
- jeena 11y ago
  Yes, many people value convinience above freedom. This doesn't make it moral or good.
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    Oh please, get off your high horse. There is absolutely nothing more moral or better than the approach this is taking.
riffic 11y ago
Another benefit most people don't realize aren't the individuals that self-host a Gnu social instance, but those organizations that should own their own social infrastructure and namespace. Trusting a single entity (Twitter) with that is a bit absurd.

by jeena 11y ago

girvo 11y ago

GNU Social is similar in concept to the POSSE (Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere) idea, isn't it?

jeena 11y ago
As far as I can see GNU Social only POSSEs to Twitter, but that is a good start anyway.
mxuribe 11y ago
POSSE is along the lines of a higher set of principles to aspire to: in essence where some system under your control is the first place that you publish your content (social posts. blog posts, photos, pretty much any of your content)...And then, your content gets sent out to other distribution points (e.g. facebook, twitter, etc.). It basically increases the value of your web presence to a system that you can control, instead of depending on an outside platform that may not have your interests as its primary goal. While GNU Social is one (out of many) types of tools/platforms that can implement/help achieve some of those POSSE principles. See also: http://indiewebcamp.com/principles http://indiewebcamp.com/principles

_ak 11y ago

I don't see hosting myself as an advantage. In the end, all you do all day is to maintain all the tools and apps that you host yourself.

INTPenis 11y ago
Not really. I've been running a Jabber server and a GNU Social node for about a year now and I can tell you it takes maybe 1 hour a week of my time for patching. I have automatic security updates enabled on both systems but I tend to login from time to time and do a dist-upgrade on them manually.
- jaredklewis 11y ago
  Sure, but I'd say 1 hour/week is quite a bit more than the a normal person would like to spend on maintaining apps (probably 0). Why someone would want to run their own instance of their favorite web app when most are given away for free, no maintenance required.
  - zwarag 11y ago
    Because there are people out there who got priorities where other just do opportunism.
  - jeena 11y ago
    > when most are given away for free Free as in beer, not as in liberty, that is my problem and why I want to run my own instances. You might not value freedom as high as I do.
  - INTPenis 11y ago
    The average person is not supposed to maintain their own node for these services. That's why they have us who give our free time and our VPS accounts to host such things. It basically comes down to trusting Big Media or trusting your neighbour with your data. I personally doubt we'll see a big breakthrough for Big Media alternatives because people go where their friends are. I am unfortunately expecting fragmentation in that field, sort of like reverting back to the early days of the internet when us nerds who could connect were considered a subculture. Now that everyone can connect we're creating a subculture of people who choose not to use Big Media and instead gravitate towards smaller and less centralized alternatives. That doesn't matter though, I have always enjoyed being on the fringe and I believe I will continue enjoying my time there. :)

st3v3r 11y ago

"Reading the comments here it seems that people are missing the point by just joining one of those instances." No, they're not. They just want to get started and go. They don't want to deal with hosting or configuring servers. Many of them might not even have the equipment to do it. That's the experience they've gotten from Twitter, and most people like that.

jeena 11y ago
Yes, many people value convinience above freedom. This doesn't make it moral or good.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  Oh please, get off your high horse. There is absolutely nothing more moral or better than the approach this is taking.

riffic 11y ago

Another benefit most people don't realize aren't the individuals that self-host a Gnu social instance, but those organizations that should own their own social infrastructure and namespace. Trusting a single entity (Twitter) with that is a bit absurd.