6 ms·

Are there any good decentralized message boards? Biggest question seems to be how does the community deal with spam (and spam taking a large amount of space).

Are there any good decentralized message boards? Biggest question seems to be how does the community deal with spam (and spam taking a large amount of space). But other than that I could see a lot of people willing to host nodes for free.

flukus 6y ago
Email mailing lists/discussion groups. Decentralized and already familiar to everyone from the HN crowd to grandma.
doomlaser 6y ago
Some people might remember Hotline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Communications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Communications Independent forums might be due for a comeback as well, with modern technological amenities
- tectonic 6y ago
  Hotline! What a great piece of software. I learned to code as a teenager in a hotline group dedicated to RealBASIC. Such fond memories of that decentralized platform.
- LegitShady 6y ago
  Your hosting can be attacked too, so that's another complication.
- superkuh 6y ago
  I spent all of high school on hotline servers but it was never very decentralized. Not compared to a real federated protocol. It's client-server where servers register themselves with trackers which keep lists of server and return the list to clients when they ask. KDX is the "modern" open source implementation of the Hotline/Caracho concept. I still think usenet is the way to go. It's a robust federated system. Sure most people will use a few servers but there's always the easy open to switch to a new one. I even posted on misc.invest.stocks today using eternal-september.org text only access.
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    KDX isn't open sourced as far as I know. There were open source hotline servers if I remember correctly.
fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
Usenet is still around :) I also tried aether once, and it seemed sort of interesting.
ekianjo 6y ago
you mean forums since the Web 1.0?
Meekro 6y ago
Doesn't need to be decentralized, just a phpBB forum behind Cloudflare would still work. Cloudflare is one of the few companies that hasn't become censor-happy (except that one time..)
- nexthash 6y ago
  The one time I believe you are referring to is when Cloudflare banned the Daily Stormer, which is a far-right, neo-Nazi, white supremacist, misogynist, and Holocaust denial message board website that promoted the genocide of Jews. It went far beyond the domain of free speech into advocating violence against people, not to speak of its horrific hatred and racism. Reason enough for anyone to ban it.
  - gjs278 6y ago
    yawn. they still banned someone they didn't legally have to.
  - jlawson 6y ago
    "But they're really really actually super-duper truly totally bad!" isn't a valid argument, since many, many people can use it and they will. There is nothing about your personal beliefs and morality which obviously places them above that of anyone else in any absolute sense. They're just your beliefs. We do not have the option of 'ban views that are actually bad'. We only have the option of banning views that lack power, or banning nobody. Fun questions: Many, many people think your views should be banned. What gives you the right to silence them while don't have the right to silence you? Would you equally ban far-left, neo-Stalinist, black supremacist, misandrist, or Holodomor denial message board website that promotes the genocides of whites? Why or why not?
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      I think saying "We do not have the option of 'ban views that are actually bad'" is like saying "We do not have the option of saving lives" because everybody dies. I also think it's inconsistent to declare morals are all relative while arguing for your free speech ideals. In a forum with moderation, voting, and frequent banning of people.

flukus 6y ago

Email mailing lists/discussion groups. Decentralized and already familiar to everyone from the HN crowd to grandma.

doomlaser 6y ago

Some people might remember Hotline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Communications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Communications Independent forums might be due for a comeback as well, with modern technological amenities

tectonic 6y ago
Hotline! What a great piece of software. I learned to code as a teenager in a hotline group dedicated to RealBASIC. Such fond memories of that decentralized platform.
LegitShady 6y ago
Your hosting can be attacked too, so that's another complication.
superkuh 6y ago
I spent all of high school on hotline servers but it was never very decentralized. Not compared to a real federated protocol. It's client-server where servers register themselves with trackers which keep lists of server and return the list to clients when they ask. KDX is the "modern" open source implementation of the Hotline/Caracho concept. I still think usenet is the way to go. It's a robust federated system. Sure most people will use a few servers but there's always the easy open to switch to a new one. I even posted on misc.invest.stocks today using eternal-september.org text only access.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  KDX isn't open sourced as far as I know. There were open source hotline servers if I remember correctly.

fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago

Usenet is still around :) I also tried aether once, and it seemed sort of interesting.

ekianjo 6y ago

you mean forums since the Web 1.0?

Meekro 6y ago

Doesn't need to be decentralized, just a phpBB forum behind Cloudflare would still work. Cloudflare is one of the few companies that hasn't become censor-happy (except that one time..)

nexthash 6y ago
The one time I believe you are referring to is when Cloudflare banned the Daily Stormer, which is a far-right, neo-Nazi, white supremacist, misogynist, and Holocaust denial message board website that promoted the genocide of Jews. It went far beyond the domain of free speech into advocating violence against people, not to speak of its horrific hatred and racism. Reason enough for anyone to ban it.
- gjs278 6y ago
  yawn. they still banned someone they didn't legally have to.
- jlawson 6y ago
  "But they're really really actually super-duper truly totally bad!" isn't a valid argument, since many, many people can use it and they will. There is nothing about your personal beliefs and morality which obviously places them above that of anyone else in any absolute sense. They're just your beliefs. We do not have the option of 'ban views that are actually bad'. We only have the option of banning views that lack power, or banning nobody. Fun questions: Many, many people think your views should be banned. What gives you the right to silence them while don't have the right to silence you? Would you equally ban far-left, neo-Stalinist, black supremacist, misandrist, or Holodomor denial message board website that promotes the genocides of whites? Why or why not?
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    I think saying "We do not have the option of 'ban views that are actually bad'" is like saying "We do not have the option of saving lives" because everybody dies. I also think it's inconsistent to declare morals are all relative while arguing for your free speech ideals. In a forum with moderation, voting, and frequent banning of people.