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I am currently working on setting up a non-profit and plan to operate the platform just like Wikimedia runs Wikipedia. I see non-profit as the only viable, sust

by dt3ft 3y ago

I am currently working on setting up a non-profit and plan to operate the platform just like Wikimedia runs Wikipedia. I see non-profit as the only viable, sustainable alternative in the long run. I am planting a seed, hoping others will join and help me build it, and soon enough enable me to step down. I have a full time job on the side and a family to take care of, and running this as a one-man-show is not an option. Tech stack: keycloak (auth) dot net core 6 typescript + react react router 6 bulma I plan to open source both the backend API and the frontend client. API documentation: https://api.flingup.com/swagger/index.html https://api.flingup.com/swagger/index.html A penny for your thoughts? Comments?

sailfast 3y ago
I agree that a non-profit whose incentives are aligned to support the communities and users that are on the platform is the right way to go. Unfortunately also predicting a number of sites get stood up as competitors and then eventually pendulum back and forth until some sort of network-effect equilibrium emerges but this looks promising. Not as familiar with dot net core and how it handles traffic scale up / DB reads. I'd gather it works OK for that sort of use?
- pkos98 3y ago
  Lots of high-scale software runs on. NET like Stackoverflow or many Azure services. From programming paradigms it's essentially a Java clone so you scale vertically across OS threads (using abstractions like Tasks) and increase efficiency using async IO.
  - sailfast 3y ago
    Thanks for the answer!
bunnyfoofoo 3y ago
On Safari, getting: "Timeout when waiting for 3rd party check iframe message." And nothing loads. Works in Firefox though.
ivolimmen 3y ago
As a long-time reddit user I applaud the idea. It looks cool and I personally think that you are correct that any kind of social media (for the future) that would not feed on its user base (ads and selling user data) should be offered by a non-profit. Personally I would not have issues if a non-profit would still offer ads it's social media site; they needs income as well, right? Just hope they would not offer the ad companies the data of it's user base.
sdwr 3y ago
Doesn't sound promising to me. Pretty sure that the "real" path to success involves putting 100% in, to the point of artificially seeding the posts and comments for weeks/months. "Social" means already having an enticing place for people, whether you make it or fake it. You sound like you've already given up and are done with the project. Referencing wikimedia is putting the cart before the horse, that's fine when you already have millions of views and sweet sweet non-profit cash, but getting there is the hard part. TL:DR site is ok, will to win is not there
- wkat4242 3y ago
  What you describe sounds more "fake it till you make it" than "will to win" :)
  - sdwr 3y ago
    Potato potato!
ofrzeta 3y ago
Interesting tech stack. Are you running on Linux? What's the hardware / cloud?
- dt3ft 3y ago
  Bare metal dell tower for the time being. Linux is coming when redis caching layer is added, and I’d like to move keycloak on a linux node as well.
justsomehnguy 3y ago
> A penny for your thoughts? when you open Reddit (or any of its clones) you see a bunch of posts. They may resonate to you, they may not, but you do see them. Opening your site present me with nothing.
- codetrotter 3y ago
  Do you have JS disabled or something? OP’s page loads fine for me and shows content
  - justsomehnguy 3y ago
    DDG on Android, but now it loads too. When I commented previously I've got that stupid loading animation, site header, site footer and nothing more. Which means the front page is served dynamically instead of from the cache and what there is no indication what there would be anything to be loaded (blank space instead). Considering I received some updoots for the previous comment I presume I wasn't alone with a blank page.
kokanee 3y ago
I have a fairly negative/pessimistic take on this model, but it’s my truth: Wikipedia, in my experience, is littered with some of the most aggressive, psychologically manipulative, and persistent ads of any major site. They just happen to be ads imploring me to donate to Wikipedia.
- SahAssar 3y ago
  I agree that Wikipedias donation banners are very aggressive and the whole "Wikipedia has cancer" idea certainly seems plausible. At the same time does any other top-10 site have a non-profit motive?
  - kokanee 3y ago
    An idea I would be interested in is some kind of public-private partnership for operating internet services like social media, search, and wikis, which are necessary for the public good but have no viable economic model. The government provides the public funding and private entities build and operate the services, because no one wants to log into a government-operated reddit clone to look for onlyfans leaks. Maybe this could be accomplished with grants instead of donations?
    - kaba0 3y ago
      I think a reddit-like community could easily operate on a donation-based basis. Every development is open-source, and the operation costs are displayed on the site with a progress bar for the month until filled. It would be trivial amounts so it may not even need to be displayed, will be paid so fast.
  - muzani 3y ago
    Top 50? Top 100? I think scaling donations is difficult. Wikipedia makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year, but its closest competitor, Google, makes hundreds of billions of dollars. But to the average person, a hundred million dollars is a hell lot of money. So people get cynical. Also it's possible that donation models just don't work well. Dwarf Fortress is one data point. It was decent money at $15k per month, then people dropped 7 million dollars on the Steam release on the first month.
gigglesupstairs 3y ago
Hey, are you aware of WT.Social? It’s run by Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia Guy) and he just released its second version. The philosophy of your product seems aligned with his. See if you wanna contribute or partner: https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1668266400723488769 https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1668266400723488769
- dt3ft 3y ago
  Thanks, I wasn’t aware of this project. I doubt he’d be interested, but I’d love to shake his hand and ask him for an autograph. That man is a legend! I’ll check it out!
angrais 3y ago
Why do the endpoints start with capital letters? It's the first time I've seen it and it's so unusual. Why?
- Avery3R 3y ago
  It's extremely common in asp.net apps
undefuser 3y ago
I wonder how you plan to deal with certain types of content, like piracy, porn, gore etc.

by dt3ft 3y ago

sailfast 3y ago

I agree that a non-profit whose incentives are aligned to support the communities and users that are on the platform is the right way to go. Unfortunately also predicting a number of sites get stood up as competitors and then eventually pendulum back and forth until some sort of network-effect equilibrium emerges but this looks promising. Not as familiar with dot net core and how it handles traffic scale up / DB reads. I'd gather it works OK for that sort of use?

pkos98 3y ago
Lots of high-scale software runs on. NET like Stackoverflow or many Azure services. From programming paradigms it's essentially a Java clone so you scale vertically across OS threads (using abstractions like Tasks) and increase efficiency using async IO.
- sailfast 3y ago
  Thanks for the answer!

bunnyfoofoo 3y ago

On Safari, getting: "Timeout when waiting for 3rd party check iframe message." And nothing loads. Works in Firefox though.

ivolimmen 3y ago

As a long-time reddit user I applaud the idea. It looks cool and I personally think that you are correct that any kind of social media (for the future) that would not feed on its user base (ads and selling user data) should be offered by a non-profit. Personally I would not have issues if a non-profit would still offer ads it's social media site; they needs income as well, right? Just hope they would not offer the ad companies the data of it's user base.

sdwr 3y ago

Doesn't sound promising to me. Pretty sure that the "real" path to success involves putting 100% in, to the point of artificially seeding the posts and comments for weeks/months. "Social" means already having an enticing place for people, whether you make it or fake it. You sound like you've already given up and are done with the project. Referencing wikimedia is putting the cart before the horse, that's fine when you already have millions of views and sweet sweet non-profit cash, but getting there is the hard part. TL:DR site is ok, will to win is not there

wkat4242 3y ago
What you describe sounds more "fake it till you make it" than "will to win" :)
- sdwr 3y ago
  Potato potato!

ofrzeta 3y ago

Interesting tech stack. Are you running on Linux? What's the hardware / cloud?

dt3ft 3y ago
Bare metal dell tower for the time being. Linux is coming when redis caching layer is added, and I’d like to move keycloak on a linux node as well.

justsomehnguy 3y ago

> A penny for your thoughts? when you open Reddit (or any of its clones) you see a bunch of posts. They may resonate to you, they may not, but you do see them. Opening your site present me with nothing.

codetrotter 3y ago
Do you have JS disabled or something? OP’s page loads fine for me and shows content
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  DDG on Android, but now it loads too. When I commented previously I've got that stupid loading animation, site header, site footer and nothing more. Which means the front page is served dynamically instead of from the cache and what there is no indication what there would be anything to be loaded (blank space instead). Considering I received some updoots for the previous comment I presume I wasn't alone with a blank page.

kokanee 3y ago

I have a fairly negative/pessimistic take on this model, but it’s my truth: Wikipedia, in my experience, is littered with some of the most aggressive, psychologically manipulative, and persistent ads of any major site. They just happen to be ads imploring me to donate to Wikipedia.

SahAssar 3y ago
I agree that Wikipedias donation banners are very aggressive and the whole "Wikipedia has cancer" idea certainly seems plausible. At the same time does any other top-10 site have a non-profit motive?
- kokanee 3y ago
  An idea I would be interested in is some kind of public-private partnership for operating internet services like social media, search, and wikis, which are necessary for the public good but have no viable economic model. The government provides the public funding and private entities build and operate the services, because no one wants to log into a government-operated reddit clone to look for onlyfans leaks. Maybe this could be accomplished with grants instead of donations?
  - kaba0 3y ago
    I think a reddit-like community could easily operate on a donation-based basis. Every development is open-source, and the operation costs are displayed on the site with a progress bar for the month until filled. It would be trivial amounts so it may not even need to be displayed, will be paid so fast.
- muzani 3y ago
  Top 50? Top 100? I think scaling donations is difficult. Wikipedia makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year, but its closest competitor, Google, makes hundreds of billions of dollars. But to the average person, a hundred million dollars is a hell lot of money. So people get cynical. Also it's possible that donation models just don't work well. Dwarf Fortress is one data point. It was decent money at $15k per month, then people dropped 7 million dollars on the Steam release on the first month.

gigglesupstairs 3y ago

Hey, are you aware of WT.Social? It’s run by Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia Guy) and he just released its second version. The philosophy of your product seems aligned with his. See if you wanna contribute or partner: https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1668266400723488769 https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1668266400723488769

dt3ft 3y ago
Thanks, I wasn’t aware of this project. I doubt he’d be interested, but I’d love to shake his hand and ask him for an autograph. That man is a legend! I’ll check it out!

angrais 3y ago

Why do the endpoints start with capital letters? It's the first time I've seen it and it's so unusual. Why?

Avery3R 3y ago
It's extremely common in asp.net apps

undefuser 3y ago

I wonder how you plan to deal with certain types of content, like piracy, porn, gore etc.