4 ms·

I have such nostalgia for the blogosphere. The one thing it's missing is post privacy; I want to be able to journal privately (like on Dreamwidth) but also use

I have such nostalgia for the blogosphere. The one thing it's missing is post privacy; I want to be able to journal privately (like on Dreamwidth) but also use my own hosting and not rely on someone else's platform. I've been toying around with writing my own social media software along those lines, using servers. Some noodling about on that topic: https://www.brainonfire.net/blog/tag/social-media/ https://www.brainonfire.net/blog/tag/social-media/

bena 8y ago
That doesn't seem like an insurmountable obstacle.
drharby 8y ago
I figure any cms could offer that via privileges
- phyzome 8y ago
  Sure! And that's what Dreamwidth offers... except I can't run my own DW. (Well, it's open source so I could, but it's kind of huge, and I would be the only user!) I'm basically thinking of federated DW.
  - stevenicr 8y ago
    self hosted wordpress does all this out of the box I think. I have one site where I have public posts and pages and some pages are "password protected" - so they are viewable by a select few associates, and a few pages are either saved as draft or pulished privately in the admin backedn / dashboard - which makes it easy to retrieve and edit and such. There are free plugins like buddypress wihch can make more complex systems, private, public, semi-private groups for friends and content, stuff like that. Many others like s2member and such. only trickery is if you have a widget displaying a list of published "pages" on your site, you may need to get into that widget and tell it to not display page 10398 if that is one you are trying to keep under wraps and yet be available for your secret friends, published, but not listed as another comment mentions with docuwiki, and I think youtube has a similar option. there are many auto backup options with basic free plugins too, so I think WP would cover what you are describing. Definitely need added security plugins as these are auto targetted for breaking into regularly, good ones are free and available. You could always put it in a sub folder and add in an htaccess extra htpasswd to lock it down further and such of course as well.
chriswarbo 8y ago
This doesn't sound like a use-case for a Web site to me. How about sending yourself emails, categorised into their own maildir or IMAP folder, or even a brand new account? That would inherit security from your email setup (which is monotonically more secure than systems which delegate password resetting to your email account). You can read and write them online or offline using a variety of readers and editors, including some self-hosted browser-based clients (e.g. RoundCube, etc.). You also get a bunch of tooling for free, e.g. for backups (offlineimap, isync, etc.), indexing/searching (e.g. mu), etc.
- phyzome 8y ago
  I agree, websites are the wrong tool. What I'm envisioning is a desktop or phone app where you author posts and comments and read other people's posts and comments. The information is stored locally, but published out via a dumb server, with end-to-end encryption. Essentially, the server becomes an async dumb pipe (can just use WebDAV for this) or optionally a synchronous dumb pipe (if you add in a streaming protocol for notifications, such as websockets). The software could also push up a static website made of any public posts, I suppose. :-) I feel quite strongly that most users would benefit from their own device being the system of record for their posts, with the server functioning as coordination point and secondarily as an emergency backup. (I'll be posting in more detail about this if you follow my blog's feed.)
  - chriswarbo 8y ago
    Ah, when you said "private" I thought you meant something that wouldn't be shared with anyone (e.g. a personal diary). You're right that some other solution would be better for "private but shared" content (although it would likely be tricky w.r.t. both security and psychological/social aspects like getting people to follow good practices to prevent leaks).
    - phyzome 8y ago
      Oops, yes, that was definitely less than clear. :-)
genezeta 8y ago
I use a wiki (Dokuwiki in particular). Some parts are public, some parts are private, and some parts are public but unlisted. Not perfect, but it works for me.

bena 8y ago

That doesn't seem like an insurmountable obstacle.

drharby 8y ago

I figure any cms could offer that via privileges

phyzome 8y ago
Sure! And that's what Dreamwidth offers... except I can't run my own DW. (Well, it's open source so I could, but it's kind of huge, and I would be the only user!) I'm basically thinking of federated DW.
- stevenicr 8y ago
  self hosted wordpress does all this out of the box I think. I have one site where I have public posts and pages and some pages are "password protected" - so they are viewable by a select few associates, and a few pages are either saved as draft or pulished privately in the admin backedn / dashboard - which makes it easy to retrieve and edit and such. There are free plugins like buddypress wihch can make more complex systems, private, public, semi-private groups for friends and content, stuff like that. Many others like s2member and such. only trickery is if you have a widget displaying a list of published "pages" on your site, you may need to get into that widget and tell it to not display page 10398 if that is one you are trying to keep under wraps and yet be available for your secret friends, published, but not listed as another comment mentions with docuwiki, and I think youtube has a similar option. there are many auto backup options with basic free plugins too, so I think WP would cover what you are describing. Definitely need added security plugins as these are auto targetted for breaking into regularly, good ones are free and available. You could always put it in a sub folder and add in an htaccess extra htpasswd to lock it down further and such of course as well.

chriswarbo 8y ago

This doesn't sound like a use-case for a Web site to me. How about sending yourself emails, categorised into their own maildir or IMAP folder, or even a brand new account? That would inherit security from your email setup (which is monotonically more secure than systems which delegate password resetting to your email account). You can read and write them online or offline using a variety of readers and editors, including some self-hosted browser-based clients (e.g. RoundCube, etc.). You also get a bunch of tooling for free, e.g. for backups (offlineimap, isync, etc.), indexing/searching (e.g. mu), etc.

phyzome 8y ago
I agree, websites are the wrong tool. What I'm envisioning is a desktop or phone app where you author posts and comments and read other people's posts and comments. The information is stored locally, but published out via a dumb server, with end-to-end encryption. Essentially, the server becomes an async dumb pipe (can just use WebDAV for this) or optionally a synchronous dumb pipe (if you add in a streaming protocol for notifications, such as websockets). The software could also push up a static website made of any public posts, I suppose. :-) I feel quite strongly that most users would benefit from their own device being the system of record for their posts, with the server functioning as coordination point and secondarily as an emergency backup. (I'll be posting in more detail about this if you follow my blog's feed.)
- chriswarbo 8y ago
  Ah, when you said "private" I thought you meant something that wouldn't be shared with anyone (e.g. a personal diary). You're right that some other solution would be better for "private but shared" content (although it would likely be tricky w.r.t. both security and psychological/social aspects like getting people to follow good practices to prevent leaks).
  - phyzome 8y ago
    Oops, yes, that was definitely less than clear. :-)

genezeta 8y ago

I use a wiki (Dokuwiki in particular). Some parts are public, some parts are private, and some parts are public but unlisted. Not perfect, but it works for me.