Thank you so much for your support! 😍

I just saw an email from Buy Me a Coffee. Not just one. I went in, and I'm truly shocked. Thank you all for the support; I would like to thank each and every one of you individually someday. Honestly, I don't know what to say. The account balance is $350, which will definitely allow me to develop kbin faster or at least not worry so much about equipment costs. Today, I don't have the headspace to think about how exactly I'll use it, but I will definitely consult with you and report back in the future. Thank you also for all the kind words, suggestions, and questions. They are equally important to me.

I'm sorry that the current circumstances are such that kbin isn't functioninng as it should, but it has given me additional motivation to keep fighting. That's for sure.

Sota4077,

Honestly dude start a Patreon or something even if you only do it for temporary. I would chip in $5/month for a while to pay for server costs if it means getting a stable site and a viable alternative to Reddit.

Christian,

It's going to be a heck of an effort. I'd be down to contribute to Patreon if this is an option.

keystonerose,
keystonerose avatar

Absolutely; seems only fair! Exploring this place has me excited about the future of the social internet for the first time in ages

Lor,

It's also useful because it allows monthly flow, which is way more useful for planning than just a lump sum and ??? on what you'll get in a few months.

kunic,
kunic avatar

Also it helps to further gauge growth. New users is one thing, but new users actively donating for the betterment of the project is something entirely different. (Also first kbin.social comment, hope this place explodes in a good way!)

Apostles_,

I’d like to second this

byomm,

Third this

Stephan,

Motion passed.

Redhotkurt,
Redhotkurt avatar

Agreed, brah. I just donated, and would gladly donate via recurring methods if implemented. Also, what Kaldo said earlier...don't develop this by yourself, you're gonna burn out faster than you think.

sab,
sab avatar

In case anyone is wondering, this is the link.

This is super nice, but I think (and hope) you're going to need a lot more than $350 very soon!

Idiel,

I cannot get the PayPal link to work...

melroy,
@melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Please support debit cards..

Kaldo,
Kaldo avatar

I'm glad the project is getting traction, it really seems like a promising piece of tech and I'd love for more people to start using it! Fediverse-based communities really seem like the future that we should work towards.

If there's one piece of advice I could give as a fellow software dev... try not to take it all on yourself and burn out. Get the project as ready for contributors as possible, update readmes and docs and mark easy issues that other people can potentially solve. Otherwise it's gonna start to feel like exponential amount of work and pressure over time.

Anyway, gj and gl!

ZenArtist,
ZenArtist avatar

Solid advice! I'd also like to chime in and recommend that apart from keeping the official server alive so that new users can come in, please prioritize on making it easier for other developers to start contributing to the codebase and setting up new instances.

I love the way people are supporting you and the way this project has been shaping up. Best wishes!

FeenisBoobicus,

Second this. I’d suspect the influx of Reddit expatriates contains a disproportionate rate of software engineers compared to the general population, many of whom would be happy to help support this project in their free time. Source: it’s me, I am one.

Warped,
Warped avatar

I am stunned how well the place is holding up, well done. The odd little issue is to be expected. The next few weeks could be crazy, so look after yourself.

Jarmer,
Jarmer avatar

yeah, the 12th will be bananas. Then it should slow down a bit, then July 1 will be just a MASSIVE spike. Hopefully we can get through it all well!

Negative_Pair_5694,

I have seen https://opencollective.com/ used a lot to collect donations in a transparent way (also supporting crypto payments). Maybe that is something you want to look into as well.

experbia,
experbia avatar

I definitely prefer this to patreon. I would absolutely set a monthly recurring donation for this project!

StaticBoredom,
StaticBoredom avatar

Great shout out to Open Collective. Better to support open source community efforts than yet another corpo-profit-machine

Christian,

More likable than Spez already lol

kunic,
kunic avatar

That's a very low bar lol

MoodyCat,
MoodyCat avatar

Thank you @ernest! Really appreciate you being transparent and keeping us updated.

It will probably be hectic the next couple weeks, but please let us know how we as a community can help you along the process.

Rinser,

I heard there's a lot of money to be made in charging for API usage.

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

I just checked some reviews on buymeacoffee.com and a lot of people complained that the site was unreliable when it came to paying out, have you been able to withdraw actual money into your actual bank account from it yet? As soon as that's confirmed I'd be pleased to chip in.

ernest,
ernest avatar

I created account today. However, I see that I have integrated my account with Stripe, and I can already see that funds are being transferred directly there.

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

Good to hear, have some coffee. :)

Breros,

I want to donate but I don't have a CC. I can use Paypal to donate.

mstrbtr,
mstrbtr avatar

@ernest You should do a big announcement for your donation thing. Do you have like a official Kbin fediverse profile for people to follow?

ernest,
ernest avatar

@mstrbtr Yeah, I'm pretty bad at self-promo ;p Soon, I plan to create an official account on fedi.software.

@liaizon

Kory,
Kory avatar

Maybe that's something the community can help with. It's also often better received when someone else says something positive about a project or service.

So let's spread the word about Kbin and do some promo for ernest!

missingno,
missingno avatar

Make that $10 more.

I came into kbin with kinda low expectations. I fear that Reddit is too big to fail, and that if a competitor isn't already where Reddit was when Digg died it won't achieve the critical mass needed to get anywhere. My impression of Lemmy was that it's just not ready yet.

But the more I explore kbin, the more impressed I am with the software. It's still a long way to go to attract the userbase, and I still don't know if that critical mass will come, but I want to try and push for this. Let's see what happens, nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Sota4077,

I am of the same mindset. I highly doubt Reddit is going to be Digg. It is just so massive. But if kbin peels off even a small amount of people this place starts to look pretty vibrant. As long as servers can hold up this place could be an exciting hangout in the not too distant future.

ernest,
ernest avatar

Thanks a lot! That was actually my first attempt:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180203151128/https://makigi.pl/

So I had plenty of time to think about it. After finishing the basics, I need to start translating my ideas into code ;p

Nadya,
Nadya avatar

Lemmy also has an issue of being developed and flagship instances ran by unironic Tankies. People are a lot slower to clue in on Tankies than Neo-Nazis because for some reason denying genocides as a hoax and Western propaganda works for Tankies in a way that denial of the Holocaust as a hoax and Jewish propaganda doesn't work for Nazis. It's funny because if the devs were Nazis nobody would touch Lemmy with a 20 foot pole. People are a lot more ignorant of Tankies and there is a big excuse of "So what? Just make your own Lemmy instance if it bothers you isn't that the point of Federation?" that wouldn't exist if the devs were Neo-Nazis rather than Tankies.

As long as they can closely control the narrative and keep the .ml (Marxist-Leninist) instances as the larger/flagship communities they'll hold sway over their part of their part of the Fediverse and can surround themselves with people who are as radical as they are or open to being radicalized. Those who control the trunk control the branches.

I don't know anything about ernest and I consider that a good thing because that means they don't already have a bad reputation as a political extremist. Which made Kbin the easy choice to make between the two federation alternatives to Reddit.

BlackCoffee,
BlackCoffee avatar

I can understand your reasoning, but would your stance be different if you didn't know the political spectrum/ideology of the devs when joining lemmy or something else?

Just because you don't see something doesn't mean that it isn't there.

Have you vetted every single mod, admin, developer of every online community you joined to see if they are up to your political standards?

We are now on Kbin and can communicate with lemmy instances. Does that make one supportive of the ideology of the developers of lemmy?

Nadya,
Nadya avatar

If you go into a Nazi bar and order a drink without knowing it is a Nazi bar - at what point in the night after you've noticed you're surrounded by Nazis do you excuse yourself from whatever conversation you may be having and leave? I don't think you can really fault someone if they don't notice immediately - the clues may be too subtle or unfamiliar dogwhistles. But once you know everyone around you is a Nazi - if you aren't deciding to leave then and there you're probably a Nazi. Same goes for Maoists and any other kind of genocide apologists you may find yourself surrounded by.

15 minutes on Lemmy is enough to realize most of the power users are Tankies even without knowing anything about the community or devs prior. Just like 15 minutes on Raddle is enough to know Ziq is an anarchist - straight from the horse's mouth.

Have you vetted every single mod, admin, developer of every online community you joined to see if they are up to your political standards?

It is one's civic responsibility to know who you are choosing to associate yourself with and especially those who you are trusting with a position of power especially when that power is the power of censorship. Censorship which will control the media you take in and can skew how you perceive the world. It doesn't need to be a complete dossier but even a surface level review is very little effort and will generally find something if that something is egregious enough to be of concern.

I'm not particularly concerned by most milquetoast political ideologies or whether someone leans left or leans right to some degree and even less concerned if the individual makes an effort to be politically neutral despite their own beliefs. It's the extremists that I care about. I choose not to associate with people who willfully and ignorantly defend well-documented genocides. The bar is set pretty low.

The degree of influence they hold is what is most important. The ideology of the devs for my media viewing software matters very little to me because their ideology is going to have no influence over me whatsoever. On the other hand the ideology of any admins or moderators in control of a social media platform I am taking part of matters very much because it will control the type of media I see or, more importantly, don't see. It will also influence the kind of people I interact with. So it is more important that an admin remains politically neutral or that I'm at least aware of any biases that may exist.

Do you not vet your news sources at all? Should someone not care if they get their news from Stormfront or from the New York Times?

We are now on Kbin and can communicate with lemmy instances. Does that make one supportive of the ideology of the developers of lemmy?

The primary difference is I can call Lemmy a bunch of genocide supporting Tankies without being banned. Or maybe ernest is a Tankie too and I'll be banned for this post.

This question is similar to asking if paying taxes makes one supportive of extremist ideologies because extremists also live in your country and may benefit from your taxes. There's enough degrees of separation to safely say paying taxes doesn't mean you support extremist ideologies by extension. Choosing to support the fediverse and some federation projects doesn't mean I support all federation projects by extension.

I do not think every single user on Lemmy is a Tankie or Tankie supporter. Many of the users are likely ignorant and are only looking for an alternative to Reddit. Keeping the bridge open with Lemmy may allow those users to realize they've joined a Tankie space and to get out. In that case - cutting off Lemmy entirely may do more harm than good. Darkness hides better in shadows.

Kaldo,
Kaldo avatar

You make a good point but at the end of the day, the best you can do is choose the lesser evil, not let perfect be the enemy of good. We don't know if Ernest has skeletons in his closet but we do know that lemmy does and they aren't ashamed of them.

ernest,
ernest avatar

@Kaldo The point is, I don't want to create a lesser evil here. I want to create something truly good, which is why from the very beginning I've been striving to be transparent on all fronts. I'll just say that before starting from scratch, I tried to create kbin as a fork of Lemmy. I like Rust, I respect them as architects and I've learned a lot about managing such a project. However, ultimately, I believe that I cannot remain indifferent to certain things. That's why kbin is what it is now. Nevertheless, that collaboration with Lemmy's developers can be beneficial for all of us at this stage. After all, Lemmy is not just one instance, and many amazing people are building the fediverse using this software.

@BlackCoffee @Nadya @missingno

Flako,

I'm ready let's delete reddit 👌

Ulu-Mulu-no-die,
Ulu-Mulu-no-die avatar

You can add another $25 :)

I'm sorry that the current circumstances are such that kbin isn't functioninng as it should

Don't be sorry, everyone understands the circumstances are truly exceptional, when did you ever see a reddit exodus of such proportion? :D

0xtero,
0xtero avatar

You're going to need a bigger boat server

namesare4squares, (edited )
namesare4squares avatar

@ernest -- keep this up. You're kicking ass. This service has great bones, and I hope to stick around.

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