#distributed fandom

[fandom-after]

post_tumblr_fandom | Fandom gets closer to the metal - issue 9: Summer update

Update! Summer edition of Fandom gets Closer to the Metal!

Click through to check it out!

[meeedeee]

The Do-Everything System: An in-depth review of Hubzilla 3.0.

One of the most feature-filled platforms in the federated communications and publishing ecosystem.

Want to understand the future platforms where fandom may migrate?

[fandom-after]

Fandom gets closer to the metal, issue 5: Pesky Plume and milestones!

by hit_the_books posting in post_tumblr_fandom, Jan 27, 2019. This week: Getting a handle on Plume and milestones... Plume What's Plume? Plume is a decentralized blogging platform. This week impertinence has been having a big go at getting an instance of Plume set up. It hasn't gone smoothly, but like with a lot of things that the volunteers involved with this endeavor know: it's all a learning experience. impertinence isn't giving up (side eye may have been thrown at rust). If you have any experience with Plume and want to chat about it, head to the distributed_fandom Discord and the #Plume and #coding-salt channels. Milestones demitas has reorganized the Milestones section on Fanzilla. This shows the baseline for what needs to be completed before we can start spreading the word about moving your fandom experience to Hubzilla. We're talking Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Currently listed are 14 issues that need to be worked on, 13 are unstarted or unassigned. Bonus: Getting the look There's still an ongoing discussion happening about what the branding/logo for all of this could be. Head to the #ui-art channel on the Discord to see designs and add your thoughts. Got something you want mentioned in these updates? Head to #announcements-roundup channel on the distributed_fandom Discord and post about it before the end of Saturday each week. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this issue.

[fandom-after]

Fandom Gets Closer to the Metal - issue 3: Logos, legal, themes, and more

By hit_the_books, originally posted in post_tumblr_fandom.

Jan 6th, 2019  

Happy New Year! This week: members of the distributed_fandom Discord have been busy with logo designs; examining the legal angles of this form of fandom; figuring out theme creation and more... Legal verity talked to someone at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law. The aim was to find out about where federated fandom activities stand from a legal footing, with an emphasis on US law. verity is working on documentation that will be able to help those interested in getting more involved. Logos BeautifulLights has been working on sketches for logos/branding. At the moment, general consensus seems to be leaning towards a purple rocketship-esque design, but BeautifulLights would love to hear any other ideas people have. To check out the current designs and say something, head to the #ui-art channel on the distributed_fandom Discord . Hubzilla Registration demitas has had a play with the registration process on Hubzilla, fixing the flow so that users are prompted to create a name/nickname when they register. It's also been tweaked so that Hubzilla would then auto-create the first channel for the user.

Nested comments impertinence has also been working on nested comments for hubzilla, which is a common feature for a lot of sites.

Themes demitas has had a dive into theme creation on Hubzilla again, documenting the process. Want to know more about extending a theme? Head here to the Fandom Federation wiki.

Peertube

impertinence has managed to wrangle together a working instance of Peertube, which you may check out here http://fanvid.stopthatimp.net/.

Don't forget...

To check out post_tumblr_fandom and check out what people have been posting. 

Got something you want mentioned in these updates?

Head to #announcements-roundup channel on the distributed_fandom Discord and post about it before the end of Saturday each week. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this issue.

[missionlameturtle]

The roughest of rough drafts, but this was sort of what I was thinking would be a cool SNOOO logo before I found that quilt pattern

[fandom-after]

Federation: social media potlucks!

by @beautifullights1

Corporate social media hubs (e.g., FB, twitter, tumblr r.i.p.) are like restaurants. They handle all of the groceries, cooking, serving, building lease + maintenance, advertising, financing, legal, etc. All you have to do is come in and eat! 

But if they suddenly decide to change their ramp into stairs, or put weird art on the walls, or suddenly serve meat in every dish when they used to be vegan, they can do that. All you can do is leave the restaurant and cook for yourself instead....

.....which means that you have to handle all of the groceries, cooking, serving, and washing - in other words, host your own site, pay for it, write the code for it, and manage technical issues on it. 

But not everyone can cook/write their own code, so..........you get a group of friends together to host the site/split the chores! but then fred doesn't have enough time to cook, and ginny moves away, and the group falls apart, as small groups do.....

........so you create an entire community! The same way that places of worship host community dinners, where some people buy food, some people cook food, some people advertise, and some people just come and eat. Some community dinners cost money, others run on donations. 

This is - to my not-very-technical understanding - the way federation works. As long as you can handle the office politics, maintain a steady stream of volunteers/staff, serve food that people like, and put up flyers so they know the dinner is available, you can keep a community dinner/federated fandom hub going strong.

(and the good thing with nomadic identity on hubzilla is, in case your local potluck does ever have to stop, you can stop by the other church and set up there, and if you need to later, your friends and contacts will be waiting for you there instead!)

[fandom-after]

Fandom gets closer to the metal - issue 1: Hubzilla and pixelfed

by Hit_the_Books, originally posted at Post_Tumblr_Fandom on Dreamwidth

This week: the more technically minded members of the distributed_fandom Discord have been working on ways to bring multimedia functionality to Hubzilla, plus several other functions. pixelfed is about to get a lot more interesting, and more.

Hubzilla update

Seeing as how this our first issue and some of you may not know this, here’s a short explainer…

What is Hubzilla? Hubzilla has a very detailed description available on its About. Essentially:

“Hubzilla is a free and open source set of web applications and services running on a special kind of web server, called a 'hub', that can connect to other hubs in a decentralised network we like to call ‘the grid’, providing sophisticated communications, identity, and access control services which work together seamlessly across domains and independent websites.”

The applications that can be run through these hubs include:

social networking discussion threads

cloud file storage

calendar and contacts (with CalDAV and CardDAV support)

webpage hosting with a content management system

wiki

Demitas has been working on various aspects of getting Hubzilla to work in a fandom friendly way, via fanzilla, a fandom friendly fork of Hubzilla. This week’s tasks have included:

Wrestling with a web torrent player addon and enabling it to work with more magnet links.

Updating the NSFW addon so that its settings are easier to find.

Plus working on documentation for fanzilla addons.

Meanwhile, impertinence has been trying to make Hubzilla a tad more user friendly, by bringing together an addon that auto-pins apps to the navigation bar. Plus installing PeerTube and Nextcloud to have a public demo available soon.

pixelfed

While not a full member of the Fediverse (though on the way to being so), @alyndra​ has spotted that pixelfed will soon have the ability to import Tumblr blogs. Not in the time for the Tumblr purge deadline (now passed), but if your Tumblr isn’t affected by Tumblr’s nonsense and you want out, you’ve got more and more options being made available.

Got something you want mentioned in these updates?

Head to announcements-roundup in channel on the distributed_fandom Discord and post about it before the end of Saturday each week. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this issue.

You can comment on this newsletter here on tumblr, or visit it at post_tumblr_fandom on Dreamwidth.