I suffered from the wrong interpretation myself for a long time, and I think it’s worth a brief explanation as to why it is wrong. It’s clear why so many people misunderstand it, and I’m incapable of providing a concise, correct explanation to other people myself. But I like to see other people try, and hope one day to come across an elegant explanation that I can plagiarize.

Thirded.

They occasionally upgrade services for free, and rarely raise prices. They support a variety of base Linux images, including Arch (which, when I first switched to them, was rare). The control board is functional, and they’ve got all the features needed to implement VPN subnets, DKIM, etc. without having to use the DNS provider’s tools (assuming you are using a different provider). There’s also a command-line tool for managing your VPSes with them. Reasonably priced, the usual array of options from cheap to expensive, easy to add resources, and so on. Servers in the US and Germany (and maybe others? I haven’t added a VPS in a while).

When I first started self-hosting, not all of this was standard. I can’t say I’ve looked at the market in a few years, so perhaps their offerings are standard now, but when I moved from another hosting provider, Contabo stood out. I have been quite happy; perhaps the best thing I can say about them is that I haven’t had to contact their technical support in the past couple of years.

P.S. the only cautionary thing I’ll say it’s that they’re a German company. While you can never trust any VPS provider from a data security POV, Germany is a 5-eyes country, and so sits in my “least trustworthy” list; as in, they’re least likely to put up any resistance if one of the surveillance states asks for access to your data, or to tell you about it before they do. For me, this doesn’t matter, and frankly I don’t have enough knowledge to choose a better option if I needed it. Since I don’t, and since I’m not using my servers for anything that’s currently considered subversive, it isn’t yet a worry for me. But FYI.

Thanks!

Agreed: some items are basic functionality that should reliably and easily work. Image & video uploading are among them. I’ll add some verbiage on the CryptoPad page about options which have been rejected simply because they don’t support the most basic features.

It’s funny: I’ve been similarly searching for a good chat platform, and there are two things which I personally don’t care much about, but which a couple of my family members are insistent about: typing notifications; and gifs - as in, a widget where you can search for short gifs from e.g. Gfycat and have them inserted. My wife absolutely requires the latter.

That being said, my position on emoji responses are almost a core feature for a social media platform IMO. They’re fast, easy, non-cluttering feedback, eliminating the need to type out some inane, two-word response. It’s infuriating (to me) that Lemmy doesn’t support them; it leads to such illuminating responses as “So much this!”, “Yes!”, but worst of all the lack subverts up/downvotes, which should be a tool for designating interest, not agreement. Not having emoji reactions muddies and dilutes any value voting has.

Pixelfed is an interesting suggestion. It always feels like it’s intended to be public. Were you thinking each user would have to configure default privacy settings?

You may be right. I think I read that post visibility was configurable; if I can narrow the field sufficiently I’ll start installing them and checking how they work. I do think federation would have to be disabled on any AP server.

I can see how to restrict to followers but haven’t yet found how to stop anyone being able to follow you.

Yeah, that would be a blocker.

I think for me, if a new user has to set up the privacy settings to stop them posting everything public, that’s probably not the right platform.

Agreed. The service must be at least configurable to be private-by-default.

BTW there is PixelDroid as a dedicated Pixelfed app, but it’s only on Fdroid.

I think I found an iOS app, too… but I looked at so many servers last night I may be misremembering.

The table isn’t rendering on my mobility client, so I’m going to delete it from the post; I’ll keep the CryptoPad document going as long as I can, but it’s open edit, and I’m hoping others will contribute to it.

Argh! I’ve posted a similar question; basically, I want a private alternative to Facebook, with wall-like functionality. The second minimum requirement is that there be an iOS app that makes posting easy – including initiating a picture or video capture. So:

• #1: private, b/c it’s family sharing toddler pictures
• Also #1: super user friendly, because (100% - 1 person) involved are non-technical
• Also #1: has to have a better user tool than an SPA. No web interface can ever be anywhere as good as a native app can be, and I will die on that hill.
• #2: emoji reactions, and threaded comments

I’m not interested in installing and evaluating a dozen different servers, so like you I’ve been hoping that people with similar goals would narrow down the field a bit. There’s no way I’d convince enough of the family to go along with evaluating all of the options anyway, and IME what works fine for me can often fall apart when other people come onboard.

I’d convinced myself that Friendica – venerable, proven, reasonably popular – would fit the bill, especially because the design doesn’t assume public-by-default, like Mastodon or Lemmy, and the potential damage of exposed content, either through my misconfiguring the server, or some upgrade assuming users want everything public by default, is high. I’d prefer a project where the developers assume private-by-default, and invite-first. Lemmy isn’t really right, because we’re following people, not communities; Mastodon has a better model, following users, but then its conversation threading is kind of shit for this purpose, and its reaction feature set is anemic. Circles was perfect, and beloved by the key parent involved, until it first made half of her posts invisible to her (and only to her and her husband), and then locked her out. This doesn’t surprise me much, as Circles is based on Matrix, which frankly has the worst cryptography management I’ve even encountered. But if you’re saying Friendica is that painful to post media on, then it won’t work.

I’m leery of Humhub because of the quasi-commercial nature, and its youth. I’ve had too many experiences with initially semi-commercial platforms shifting, either suddenly or slowly, to increasingly commercial positions – moving features from the “free” to the “paid” column. Vendor lock-in is a real issue with a dozen users.

So if Friendica is out, maybe Pixelfed? It seemed to me to be mostly indistinguishable from Mastodon, but if they have better comment threading, reactions, and I need to re-evaluate the AP clients to see if any would be user-friendly enough for the parents. I’ve used mostly Fedilab, and I’m not sure it’s ideal. For one thing, it doesn’t have support more than basic reactions: you can boost or favorite, but I am – and I think you are probably – looking for something with more variety, like emoji responses, right?

I’m watching the other reactions here, and my post on this topic is here. I may post a summary – there are comparison charts, but they all tend to focus on feature set and fall short on the overall use case. On my thread,

• Misskey was recommended as Facebook-like, and in particular, some of its forks have features the core project is missing. I always got the impression Misskey was a Mastodon-analog, which would make it not a good fit, so I’ve skipped over it. With Friendica out, I’m going to put Misskey back on the “possible” list.
• Diaspora has also been recommended and is near the top of my list.
• Smithereen was recommended, but the sparsity of the documentation – not even a list of features – put it down low on my list.
• Hubzilla has a lot of documentation; it focuses a lot on content management – assets, calendars, document sharing, etc. – which will be fine if “easily post content to a feed” and “follow a user and view a stream of their posts” is a first-class interaction model.
• Pixelfed is still an option. I just need to confirm/refute my “Mastodon, with pictures” perception. If my perception has been skewed by the fact that I’m interacting with Pixelfed through a (mainly) Mastodon app, then maybe it’ll work. However, there isn’t AFAICT a Pixelfed app, so if the only way to get to a more wall-like view is through a web interface, it’s not going to work.

@[email protected] is also looking for this feature set / use case. I kind of feel as if it’s more useful to think about this as a use case, because almost all of these projects can claim some or all of the requested features, and yet not satisfy what we’re looking for in terms of user experience. This would be a great opportunity for another tool: a wiki with a list of applications & features, but with a discussion section and focused on winnowing projects by consensus about suitability. Again, lots of software that have the necessary functionality and which could be wrangled to do this, but still fail to be a good tool for the objective.

Edit

Probably not the best place to do this, because I’m the only one who can edit this, but:

I deleted the table, as it wasn’t rendering on some mobile clients. The table was re-created in CryptoPad.

I’ll go find a collaborative, wiki-like document thing with discussions that isn’t G**gle.

Edit 2

The table is now here, as a CryptPad document. In an exercise of trust, it’s open to edits. If vandals wreak too much damage, I’ll restrict access, but that’ll require creating accounts and requesting access, and all that shiz.

That’s a good idea. I can’t say I’ve prayed much attention to the CBD content. Maybe I’ll give that a try, although being nauseous for four hours is almost not worth experimenting with.

How did you get your invite?

It doesn’t. It belongs in c/insanepeoplefacebook

Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s not CHS. From what I’ve read, CHS is similar to overdosing, and is mostly associated with habitual users. The very first time I got stoned, decades ago, I spent the entire night in my car parked outside of a friend’s house trying to not be violently ill. Since then, after legalization, I’ve gotten mildly stoned on edibles a couple of times to no ill effect, but the third time the nausea was back.

I’ve found no reference about it online. I’ve asked about it, online. I don’t know of it’s allergies in my case; if I mini-dose - amounts small enough that I can’t notice any effect, but more than homeopathic doses - I’m fine. But as soon as I take enough to geta even a mild high, bang: nausea.

It’s really frustrating, because I suffer from chronic lower back pain (thanks, Army!) and I’d even gotten a prescription (before it was recreationally legal in my state) in an attempt to achieve the pain relief associated with cannabis.

I’ve now chalked it up to a paradoxical effect. I suspect the anti-nause mechanism in THC is behaving differently in my biome and instead triggers nausea. Maybe that can be classified as an allergy? Although I expect if it were a traditional allergy, any amount would trigger nausea. And a little cannabis doesn’t make me a little sick; it’s either all or nothing.

My other theory is that it’s zero-G sickness. When I get high, I get a head-spinning effect, and that sort of thing over a long term induces nausea in me.

I don’t know what the fuck it is, but it’s gods-damned annoying.

I, for one, have never seen that bumper sticker. So you’re good with me.

I can’t speak for other Americans (USA, in particular, which is who I assume you meant), but for me it’s the nature of the oligarchical regime and their views on individualism. I’ve read the Chinese CSL, and spent a couple of days in a session presented by international lawyers and security professionals explaining what it meant for our business, how we needed to navigate it, and how it was being implemented. It’s scary.

Information is power; specific information about you is power over you. It’s control.

As for the government, I think it’s more a matter of the fact that China is far more well positioned and equipped to surveil US assets. Russia is bumbling, pre-occupied, and doesn’t make any computer components we use. Chinese chips, on the other hand, are in everything. The US is worried that, in a conflict, we could discover that China is able to simply… turn off all of the F35s. Or shut down or coopt firing systems on our war ships. Or disable coms or NV gear of ground troops. All of our modern equipment is computerized to more or lesser degree, and the failure of even seemingly simple resisters, sourced from China, could result in misoperation of gear, at best. If the espionage is more sophisticated, with more important components, it’s conceivable China could locate and monitor assets; missiles which ignore counter measures and always hit because the target is broadcasting a homing signal.

Most off these hypotheticals are probably not within the realm of current technology, and that what access China is able to embed in computer components is far more limited. But we don’t really know, and it’s far more dangerous to underestimate than to overestimate capabilities.

Agreed. By @FundMECFSResearch’s distinction, you (well, Americans) could choose to not pay taxes. You literally are able to not do it. Of course, you then have to deal with the consequences, but it falls in the same category of “optional.”

Gender-affirming surgery is “optional.” Eating food other than cat food is optional. Simply having the ability to make a choice between two options is not sufficient to justify saying both options are satisfactory.

Exactly. Mastodon-ish would be unsuitable as a server for a number of reasons: the loose, but still expected, character limitation; the lack of emoji responses; generally poor threading support; and the overall subscription feed-like model. OTOH, it’s based on a follow-the-user model, which is nice. I’m less familiar with Friendica, but AFAIK that’s also a follow-the-user model.

The issue with Federation is the general expectation that these are public places. You can lock them down, but that’s not what they’re designed for, and in my case, the risk of misconfiguration exposing a bunch of toddler pictures that the parents want to keep private is too high. I think of the server is federated-by-nature, then it must also be paranoid-by-default; I don’t trust share-public-by-default projects to not introduced something in an upgrade that exposes data. At least if the base presumption of the developers is that all information is private by default, the risk is limited to true accidents rather than false assumptions.

ActivityPub is enticing. It’s an exciting spec, and offers many client options. I’m worried only about those base assumptions.

Photoprism’s app space is pretty bad, but there is an completely hacky yet reliable solution for Android:

1. PhotoBackup
2. The PhotoBackup server on your Photoprism server
3. A cron job that runs the photoprism import command every few minutes.

Since I’ve had this set up, it’s worked as well as Google Photos ever did for keeping my phone snaps synced to the server. It’s been more reliable than SyncThing for my data, reacting and syncing faster, and it doesn’t mysteriously periodically just stop running like SyncThing.

I don’t know if PhotoBackup is available for iOS, but if it is, it works a treat.

Honestly, I think Android is fucked for debugging stuff like this. I installed a program on mine and my wife’s phones - different makes & models - and configured them exactly the same, including the app settings in the OS. Mine works perfectly and barely shows up in battery use, near the bottom. Her’s drains her battery even when she’s not using it, regularly running at 50% of total battery consumption.

With Android YMMV is the rule, rather than the exception. There’s just too many variables.

It’s the main way I sync my phone.

I have a different app for photos, but SyncThing on my phone, and on my desktop, and again on one of my home servers, do most of the download and data syncing.

Occasionally I’ll have to manually run SyncThing; I’m not certain that Android is reliably starting it after reboots, but for the most part it just does it’s thing really reliably. There is a lag; it can take a few minutes for changes to sync - it’s not immediate. For me, this isn’t a problem, and I’d rather that than a battery suck, so I haven’t messed with it.

Probably. It depends on the device, because there’s no standard dictating this, but I would guess most routers reserve reserved IPs.

Nothing wrong with having a key pair, but yeah, most of the content in Nostr is unfortunately cryptocurrency related.

Yeah, despite the strong anti-crypto sentiment on Lemmy, this is exactly the problem that projects like Nostr is trying to solve by integrating Lighting as a first-class payment system in the ecosystem.

Services get paid for by one of four ways:

• Harvesting and reselling of user data. Which is wildly unpopular, and why a lot of people are on Lemmy and not Reddit or Facebook.
• Ads. Which is also unpopular and again why people come to services like Lemmy
• Pay-for-service, which is what you’re suggesting, only via crypto, which is easier than accepting credit card transactions, and safer for users.
• The hosted paying for it out of the goodness of their hearts. So, charity. Sometimes there’s corporate charity, and that’s nice, except for the potential for money coming with strings attached, now or eventually.

Someone always pays; its expensive to host a popular instance. People suggesting you should host for free are selfish freeloaders, so know that some people understand that hosting costs, and sympathize with with your desire to offset that cost.

I like the volunteer micro-transaction model. Those who can afford to pay some amount for good service, and hopefully this provides welfare for those who can’t afford to pay. But the cryptocurrency space is a mess at the moment, and an economical currency (probably proof-of-stake rather than proof-of-work) needs to gain some traction, and overcome a lot of ignorant bigotry.

I like to internalize this as a victory, and the utter humiliation of the person who offended me. They said “Sorry.” That’s admitting defeat!

I agree. I do appreciate the spirit of OP’s comment, that we are agents. I observe a lot of people who blame everything but themselves for their circumstances, and take responsibility for nothing.

However, sometimes you get the meteorite, and sometimes the meteorite gets you; we’re none of us 100% in control of our fates.