Ooh, not sure i should’ve asked this question! I really don’t get what i’m looking at here. Thats why i’ve taken so long to reply.
The server-user diagram seems a bit like the structure of Activitypub. I think the use of the word ‘news’ is throwing me as well, they’re not using the word news in the common ‘news organisation delivers articles in some form’ sense but using the word in a more broad sense? So how is this different from Activitypub, maybe less open/connected? But its the connected servers that communicate with the Activitypub protocol as well.
TBH, I haven’t paid much attention to the workings of ActivityPub etc to comment. I’m just an oblivious end user nowadays 😀
If I really wanted to set up something like that nowadays, I’d probably use something like Lemmy anyways. news servers were basically abandoned for discussion forums hosted separately on websites, and they evolved into various social media etc. And here we are, recreating the wheel again!
Now I’m getting nostalgic. Maybe I should go hunting around usenet archives for my first post. Hahahaaa! Me so old…
Ypu should go and find ypur firat post, tbh i’m surprised you think theres a server still running that would have it, if we’re predating the rise of social media here.
I really like the idea of the circles thing, i think it would be extemely useful for community organisation and maintenance purposes. But it seems like they’re having trouble getting traction, so maybe theres a problem with the idea i don’t see.
Is it effectively a competitor to Lemmy or Mastodon at it’s heart?
Re Circles, to me it just comes across as groups or even simpler mailing lists. Overlaying security on top with Boundaries seems useful.
Just from a high level, i nearly always end up looking at 2 issues:
is the social media/ app topic centric or people centric? Eg, I look at Lemmy being topic centric as it’s mainly split by Communities. Whereas, say, Facebook at least initially, was people centric as you effectively sub to your Friends. I’m a fan of topic based.
how does the social media/app scale with size, eg with thousands and millions of users/posts/comments. Eg, Lemmy does it via upvotes/downvotes, and you can sort comments in a post by Top. There’s also what I view as security aspects to this, but security is really a huge topic to itself anyways.
Is it effectively a competitor to Lemmy or Mastodon at it’s heart?
I think it is, to an extent, but seems more flexible in its range of potential uses. So Bonfire social definitely is, but the Bonfire Science, and Bonfire Communities add a bit more flexibility in ways to structure the communities and groups within those communities. I like the ideas driving it, one of the problems i find with Lemmy, is the inability to organise on platform beyond a reasonably casual exchange. It makes things slow, and hard to communicate through.
The boundaries thing is cool, i’d forgotten that was part of it, the circles i think makes more sense when you look at the different use cases like the science, or community projects. But yeah its just a grouping mechanism.
~topic based
This is the best use for social media. I can’t see the use case for non-public figures on a platform like say twitter.
~scale
Yeah, its a good question. The more complicated a structure, how well can something like a bonfire communities scale before groups become meaningless. Maybe its a better as literal town size, but hard to see tens of thousands in circles being an effective use case. I’ve watched this project for a few years now, and i’ve not seen much in the way of growth, so i’m not sure they would’ve come across the challenge yet.
I suppose for security in scaling the boundaries function could really come into its own, it seems more fine tuned than the heirarchy of admin/mod/user.
Ooh, not sure i should’ve asked this question! I really don’t get what i’m looking at here. Thats why i’ve taken so long to reply.
The server-user diagram seems a bit like the structure of Activitypub. I think the use of the word ‘news’ is throwing me as well, they’re not using the word news in the common ‘news organisation delivers articles in some form’ sense but using the word in a more broad sense? So how is this different from Activitypub, maybe less open/connected? But its the connected servers that communicate with the Activitypub protocol as well.
TBH, I haven’t paid much attention to the workings of ActivityPub etc to comment. I’m just an oblivious end user nowadays 😀
If I really wanted to set up something like that nowadays, I’d probably use something like Lemmy anyways. news servers were basically abandoned for discussion forums hosted separately on websites, and they evolved into various social media etc. And here we are, recreating the wheel again!
Now I’m getting nostalgic. Maybe I should go hunting around usenet archives for my first post. Hahahaaa! Me so old…
Ypu should go and find ypur firat post, tbh i’m surprised you think theres a server still running that would have it, if we’re predating the rise of social media here.
Whats your assessment of bonfire networks?
I really like the idea of the circles thing, i think it would be extemely useful for community organisation and maintenance purposes. But it seems like they’re having trouble getting traction, so maybe theres a problem with the idea i don’t see.
Is it effectively a competitor to Lemmy or Mastodon at it’s heart?
Re Circles, to me it just comes across as groups or even simpler mailing lists. Overlaying security on top with Boundaries seems useful.
Just from a high level, i nearly always end up looking at 2 issues:
I think it is, to an extent, but seems more flexible in its range of potential uses. So Bonfire social definitely is, but the Bonfire Science, and Bonfire Communities add a bit more flexibility in ways to structure the communities and groups within those communities. I like the ideas driving it, one of the problems i find with Lemmy, is the inability to organise on platform beyond a reasonably casual exchange. It makes things slow, and hard to communicate through.
The boundaries thing is cool, i’d forgotten that was part of it, the circles i think makes more sense when you look at the different use cases like the science, or community projects. But yeah its just a grouping mechanism.
This is the best use for social media. I can’t see the use case for non-public figures on a platform like say twitter.
Yeah, its a good question. The more complicated a structure, how well can something like a bonfire communities scale before groups become meaningless. Maybe its a better as literal town size, but hard to see tens of thousands in circles being an effective use case. I’ve watched this project for a few years now, and i’ve not seen much in the way of growth, so i’m not sure they would’ve come across the challenge yet.
I suppose for security in scaling the boundaries function could really come into its own, it seems more fine tuned than the heirarchy of admin/mod/user.