goblin

[goblin-social]

Well, hello word, @jv here.

This is the blog for throwing some news about Goblin, the fediverse-based tumblr clone I'm working on.

The idea is to develop an open-source platform that replicates some of the most peculiar intricacies of tumblr, that anyone can upload to a server, and become part of a federated network that works, in a way, as one. A tumblr-owned tumblr, if you will, that is much more resilient to financial woes than our current beloved hellsite.

None of the current platforms running on the fediverse offers an user experience close to tumblr. And more important: all of them lack the features that make the magic of tumblr happen: Reblogs, html posts, talking in the tags, etc.

So ... let's make one ourselves. The idea is to take one of the mastodon clones and, add the missing features and launch it to the world to use. For purely personal reasons (I know javascript/node much better than any other language) I have forked Firefish, which is itself a fork of Misskey.

The development is being done at https://github.com/johnHackworth/goblin, and yeah, Goblin is the working name of the project.

I have an instance running at http://goblin.band/ . It's closed for new users, and it's extremely unstable at the moment, barely anything more than a very badly configured firefish server, but if anyone wants to poke around let me know and I can allow you to register.

So what it's in the plans for a version 1.0 that I feel confident doing myself (though any help is also accepted, of course)?

[done] Add support for reblog chains

[done] Add support for html posts

[in progress] Change the default editor for a block editor that allows to add content without having to write HTML

Manage notifications (especially what happens when someone reblogs a reblog, which is not supported by Firefish)

Review all the UI to remove any firefish or misskey references, remove unused sections.

Add tumblr-style tag system

Review the UI and polish it a little bit

What's in the plans for that 1.0 that I have no idea how to do / I know I'm terrible doing it myself?

Find a way to package everything so it's easy to install on a server without having to manually install a bunch of dependences.

Actually make my goblin.band server ... a proper server. With HTTPS and all the fancy stuff, you know.

Figure out if this thing actually federates with other servers out of the box or if I have to do anything to make it happen.

Figure out what's best for file storage. Probably disallow uploading anything that's not images, but see what to do with uploaded files and such.

So, if anyone wants to help, as we devs say, Pull Requests accepted!

/cc @echo @analytik2

[jv]

how do you recommend people choose the right fediverse tumblr alternative for them? other than trying them all i mean. i assume there is a good deal of interoperability between them as that was the whole point of ActivityPub but from my experience on lemmy it's still not perfect.

Oh well, all of them have their pros and cons.

Kobold.page and Goblin.band are two different servers, both using Goblin as a platform

Wafrn and Goblin both try to replicate tumblr user experience, and both have some things and not others: Wafrn has Asks and Goblin hasn't, but on the other side Goblin has rich content posts (font types, colors, images or videos in the middle of the post instead of as an attachment) and Wafrn hasn't, etc.

Blorbo.social is more limited (content-wise) than either Goblin or Wafrn, but it's using Mastodon as their platform, so it's much more bug-free and well-tested than Gobbo or Waffle.

So it's a matter of trying! the good thing about the fedi is that if you start on a server and at some point you decide you want to try something else, you can bring your entire account to a new server(or even platform) with ease!

[wafrn]

Im starting to thing in allowing more html content on stuff, so let me know what styles youre gona allow

[goblin-social]

[goblin-social]

It's been two days since Goblin started allowing anyone to register freely and people are already being amazing: @[email protected] has created a set of styles to make goblin look much closer to Cohost. You can read here about how to apply them to your account.

[jv]

I’m very happy of how the alt-text UI in goblin has turned up, because it warns you when you haven’t add any description to an image:

And then gives you a happy green thumbsup when you describe your image:

[jv]

fuck it, I just made Goblin registration open-for-all for a while, just in case anyone fleeing from cohost want to take a look. I’ll probably will make it invite-only again in the next few days (I really, really don’t think my server could handle a lot of people joining), but if anyone wants to take a look at what we have been doing with our yet-another-misskey-hardfork, feel free to join (just make sure you check your spam folder for the confirmation email)

[goblin-social]

So yeah, for a while at least, Goblin.band new user registration is open without any invite code being needed

[goblin-social]

Ahem, hello, hello, this is goblin speaking.

I have a ... changelog ? to post? the fuck?

yeah, gobbo development has been slow as fuck for a few months. Basically frozen. But now I'm back from vacation and my Rimworld addiction has subdued (kind of) and the monkey controlling my brain seem to be pointing me towards Goblin again, so here we are.

Changelog: 21/08/2024

Fixed a long running issue that made Goblin stop fetching tumblr posts, sometimes for a long long time (until someone pointed me out that they weren't getting their tumblr subscriptions and I restarted the server). If you are interested in what was going on: Basically, if a tumblr blog someone has followed from goblin went private (only viewable by tumblr logged users, which deactivates its RSS feed), Goblin was still trying to fetch its posts. Since the requests failed, the blog was still flagged as 'needs refresh' and at the top of the queue, so Goblin was trying again, and again, and again, and again. Once the number of blogs in this condition was larger than the number of blogs that are checked in every RSS lookup, they pretty much took over the queue, not letting anything else ever update.

Added an image viewer: If you click on any image in your timeline, you'll get a full-screen version of the image hovering over everything else. If you click it again, it will open the image in a new tab.

Fixed how images appear on reblogs: Big pictures are no longer bleeding over the right margin of a post.

[changes]

Threaded Replies are here!

Ever find it difficult to figure out what someone is replying to? Same! Now, when you reply to someone’s reply, it’ll create a nice indented thread. 

Reply to a thread by clicking the reply icon at the bottom of a comment or tapping the meatball menu on a reply, then hitting “Reply.” 

Collapse a thread of comments with “Hide replies” or load more with “Show more replies.” 

Threads are only one level deep—replies to a thread will show at the end of that thread. 

You’ll be notified when someone replies to you.

This should help keep conversations in replies more organized, meaning you don’t have to scroll back to find the beginning of an exchange: It’s in a thread!

[pillowfort-social]

wow what a concept

[goblin-social]

Right?

[staff]

✨Ad-free Browsing is becoming Tumblr Premium ✨

You read that right: We’re upgrading Ad-free Browsing to a bigger, better package—based on your feedback and wishes. We hope you like it!

So, what’s in the box?

Alongside the beloved ad-free dash, every month, Premium subscribers will get one free Blaze and a free item in TumblrMart (except Premium itself, and some of the badges you have to earn)—to gift or use for yourself—as well as increased posting and liking limits and early access to experimental features like Communities and Patio! All for $6.99/month or $69.99/year (that’s 15% off when paying annually).

Check it out!

Are you a current ad-free browser? You’ll get an email from us about the price change and have 30+ days to decide if you want to keep your subscription. In the meantime, you’ll have Premium at the current price. You can manage your subscription right now here.

Questions? Visit the Help Center or let us know over at Support.

[pillowfort-social]

✨Pillowfort has ad-free browsing for $0.00✨

Pillowfort is free to join by signing up for our waitlist or with an invitation key from an existing user. (Also hi, yes, we're not dead. We've been busy.)

And if you are looking for ways to support Pillowfort in a way that can fit your budget by allowing you to choose the features you want to subscribe to: Consider Pillowfort Premium! Here's what we offer (so far):

🖼️Multiple Avatars (up to 200 Avatars) 💪Larger Uploads (2MB to 6MB) 🔳 Premium Avatar Frames Coming Soon: Promoted Posts - Users will have the ability to promote shitposts posts! This has been a highly requested Premium Feature. All promoted posts will go on a separate page all users will have the ability to opt-in to view. Gifting - Users will have the ability to gift Pillowfort Premium to other users.

And the best part? Pillowfort Premium is an al la carte subscription model which means you get a choice. By subscribing to Pillowfort Premium you help us keep the lights on and help pay our staff because 100% of every Pillowfort Premium subscription goes towards Pillowfort. We don't have corporate investors or stakeholders. We're a woman-owned independent social media platform who has been user-funded since the very beginning. Pillowfort is a LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, 18+ and Kink-Friendly community for fans & creators alike. No NFTs. No transphobic billionaires throwing tantrums. No crypto bullshit. And we stand in solidarity with human artists by being one of the few platforms prohibiting Generative AI on our platform.

[pillowfort-social]

Listen, if we had a nickel for every time the rumors went around that we were created "because of Tumblr's NSFW Ban" we would have a fully funded platform with the ability to hire more than a handful of part-time Staff and be able to release features even quicker.

[goblin-social]

I just wanna mention that Goblin also offers ad-free browsing for €0 and on top of that, it allows your avatar to have cat ears. ANIMATED cat ears.

[goblin-social]

So basically Goblin development have been kind of halted for a few weeks, because I've been working on a new project at my day work that depletes my programming itch for the rest of the day. Now it has reached a point where it's starting to get boring (The day-job project), so I expect me to start wanting to do some dev on my free time once again soon :)

[grickle14]

The Gremlin I.T. crew tended to cause more problems than they fixed.

[goblin-social]

Me

[goblin-social]

PSA: I’m working in a feature that would match your reblogs from tumblr posts in Goblin in tumblr itself, if you have your accounts linked (and choose to do so). Since the only way to test the actual tumblr integration is posting in the actual production server, if you check Goblin.band’s local timeline you may see a pretty decent number of testing posts littering the timeline. Sorry about that :D

[goblin-social]

And well, I'm reblogging the previous post from Goblin, so if you are seeing this reblog from tumblr... it's working as expected, at last ;)

[goblin-social]

PSA: I'm working in a feature that would match your reblogs from tumblr posts in Goblin in tumblr itself, if you have your accounts linked (and choose to do so). Since the only way to test the actual tumblr integration is posting in the actual production server, if you check Goblin.band's local timeline you may see a pretty decent number of testing posts littering the timeline. Sorry about that :D

[goblin-social]

Well, friends, this is a reminder you can request a goblin.band invite using this form:

Goblin.band invite request

Remember: If you are interested in goblin only to 'park' your url, please don't bother: any account without even the basic activity will pro

It may take some time (I just sent another batch of invites, but I just take a look once per week or so), but if you get yourself in there, you probably will get a message from me (well, from @jv) with an invite sooner or later.

Also, an important clarification: that's ok if you don't want to share your tumblr address, but in that case I would like to be able to check any fediverse site or anything: Keep in mind, this is my own server, and I'm not (at least at this point) willing to let anyone sign up without a very basic check that I'm not letting anyone terrible in our litte goblin tower. So while I understand the desire to remain 100% anon, I just ask you to see another place where you have been already 100% anon so I can check you are not TERF, Fash, or similar.

[jv]

Oh my god, I have wanted tumblr to add this filter to the notifications tab FOR YEARS. I mean the “only from people you follow” in the top right. I don’t know how I didn’t think about adding it to goblin since the very beginning, but it’s done now, yay!

[goblin-social]

Update, 2/5/2024

We have polls!!! They even work in reblogs now!

Now the good old "Say nasty shit in your post and I block you, so you can't answer or even see it" tactic doesn't work anymore: OP can always see all the replies and reblogs in their own posts,

Mobile non-logged pages have been fixed so the login form doesn't mess with everything else.

Notification of reblogs now show the tags of reblog too

Goblin can now be run using docker!

[jv]

I added polls back to Goblin (still a bit broken when reblogged, working on it), and what's the first one that got posted??

I'm so proud of our tiny community 🥲

#goblin#bug race

[jv]

hi! love your work, little bit of feedback on it rq if that's ok

1

on mobile, the website doesn't resize or display properly, one of those two.

2 when i go to sign up, it says that all the slots are full (understandable) but mentions that there's other servers that run goblin, are there currently other servers actually running goblin, and if so, do you have a list or smth? and would it make sense to include them in the invite code thing? (this is the real thing I'm hoping gets answered tbh)

anyways, i hope you're having a nice day/week/time

oh yeah, about #1, that's my mess to fix: I built a new version of the logged out page and I didn't test properly on mobile, I'll fix it in the next few days.

and about #2, at this point there are three servers running goblin:

https://goblin.band (my own),

https://kobold.page (@sirilyan's, with its own tumblr: @kobold-page)

https://goblin.stopdelaying.com (@analytik2's)

The invite code thing is for my own server, Sirilyan run his own invite list for Kobold and Analitik2 works on a "ask me for an invite" policy, for what I know!

Also, if anyone wants to start their own server, they can get the code and install goblin at https://github.com/johnHackworth/goblin