OC I ask everyone here to modmail large subreddits about kbin

I ask that people modmail subreddits that have privated in protest (you can see which ones here: https://reddark.untone.uk/) and ask they put a message about kbin migration into their about section so users trying to see those subs will come here and start communities. It will help grow kbin as well as contribute to the protest. Make sure to explain this to them so they don't think it's just spamming ads. Even just asking them to route users to r/kbinMigration would be enough

SFaulken,
SFaulken avatar

This is a horrible idea. Don't do this. Let more servers get spun up in the kbin fediverse, or you're just going to be sending people to bad experiences, as the existing kbin instances are all basically overloaded at the moment. kbin has almost literally only been available to the public for a Month at this point, and the "ez hosting" for instances isn't established yet, and the "instructions" for rolling your own still have some quirks.

It will get there. Have a little patience.

KittyBizkit,

I don't know a ton about how KBin is built, but from what I gather, it is not up to the task of being able to replace even a fraction of Reddit's traffic yet. To do that well, you really need some very serious infrastructure in place which is pretty expensive. I don't see how a totally free site without ads or VC funding could compete. The barrier to entry is too great.

SFaulken,
SFaulken avatar

kbin, the software and kbin.social, the site are two different things. I can't speak for ernest, as I've never actually talked to the man, but I don't believe he ever intended kbin.social (or any other individual instance) to "replace" reddit.

anybody can theoretically create an instance for kbin, and federate to other kbin instances, or federate with lemmy, or mastodon, or anybody else they want to, it's how the fediverse works. It's not the "One site to rule them all" model. It's "We have a network of much smaller sites, that cooperate with each other"

If somebody wanted to take the kbin software, and toss cubic dollars at setting up a monster instance (site) that can handle millions and millions of users, and then monetize it through ad revenue, just like reddit, they certainly could (I think, I actually haven't looked to see the license that kbin is being offered under), but that's not how the fediverse is intended to work.

I suspect that kbin/lemmy/mastodon/pixelfed/peertube probably won't ever kill their respective "name brand" corporate counterparts. They probably won't ever be as big. But I'm ok with that.

WorriedGnome,
WorriedGnome avatar

@SFaulken I'm not sure if one has been produced, but a well thought out info graphic / video might do wonders to help explain the fediverse and the goal of kbin, mastadon etc.

A lot of people think they are moving from monolith to monolith and when they hear that it's split up, with the potential to have the same reddit style subs across different servers, FOMO and analysis paralysis kicks in. Too much choice for some. Personally I prefer this over a monolith and I think it promotes better communities, but your average user, I believe, not so much.

@omnislayer88 @KittyBizkit

McBinary,
McBinary avatar

Also, astroturfing reddit about kbin is going to have a negative effect like it is for squabbles.

CtrlOpenAppleReset,

Suggest Fedia.io instead of kbin.social, it's not yet hugged to death. Newer instance exact same deal. Better interaction with Lemmy and the others. Not all interactions between kbin.social and the rest of the federated sites work yet because Ernest is protecting against ddos with cloudflare, this restricts interactions but will get removed no idea on timeline. Literally this site is run by one guy @ernest and last I saw there were over 122 thousand subscribers. There's another kbin instance running too but I can't remember that one.

lol3droflxp,
lol3droflxp avatar

Can't open Fedia.io at the moment, seems to be struggling as well

Kichae, (edited )

Suggest they spin up their own instances.

Big subreddits have more subscribers than any one instance is going to be able to handle. If even 1% of their subscribers come over, that will fill a reasonably sized VPS to capacity.

tuctrohs,

Most sub moderators are content experts/enthusiasts for the topic of the sub, and if that topic is not IT related, they don't have the right skills and interests to spin up an instance.

Ignacio,
Ignacio avatar

Either Kbin or Lemmy. Let's diversify and share all the waves, or we'll struggle even to load a single page.

EnglishMobster,
EnglishMobster avatar

Subreddits which have privated are part of a Discord server where alternatives are being mentioned.

Most of them are aware of Kbin, but are putting it off for a few reasons:

  1. Hard to spin up a new instance; many have tried and gotten stuck

  2. API doesn't seem to work at the moment, meaning all mod actions must be done manually

  3. Kbin.social isn't federating right now so competition can happen in Lemmy etc. since Lemmy users can't see Kbin magazines at the moment

Some are going to Lemmy, others are going to places like Squabbles. Still others are thinking about spinning up their own instance of Tildes. Some are even thinking about building something new from the ground up.

There doesn't seem to be any coherent idea of a single place to go, so we're sort of fracturing on that internally. We were hoping to stay unified but people can't come to any agreement about anything so mod teams are all being scattered everywhere.

AK_Zephyr,
AK_Zephyr avatar

It appears that the kbin.social URL being mentioned will flag the post/thread as ‘spam’. I’m unsure if subreddit mods can override it since it is a sitewide blacklist.

Icalasari,

Figures that spez would play dirty

artillect,
artillect avatar

Make sure to let them know about fedia.io and the other instances listed here, we need to distribute the users a bit more

omnislayer88,

I definitely don't want people going to kbin.social as it is laggy rn. That would deter the would-be new users. I just think modmailing large subs about kbin is a great way to spread it as these mods can then put kbin in their subs desc.

skulblaka,
skulblaka avatar

Problem here is that because of the nature of federated software, we're going to need to disperse new members onto a lot of different servers. If everyone all comes to Kbin, Kbin is going to eat shit in very short order. It's already struggling under the current increased load, and Ernest does not have (and should not be expected to have) the resources to spin up an enterprise grade server stack to host us on. The recommended server to send new users to will change by the day if not by the hour, and there's no way to get around that once the signal has been sent. Mods might cooperate with one mass message, most of them aren't going to keep updating it over and over at our request.

I love kbin, I came here recently and hope for a long and fruitful future for us with many new users. But exploding our user count from 12k to 180k to 800k in a week is not going to do us any favors with that. Kbin does not have infinite resources and growing severely beyond its capacity could be a death sentence, at least in these early stages.

I think the current trend of just spreading info about the Fediverse and leading people to join-lemmy.org and letting them figure it out for themselves is probably best. There is a sharp learning curve there, but people can figure it out. All of us figured it out, to some extent. It could use some love and explanation, I think, and will require both of those things if Fediverse expects to capture the public at large - but it's easy enough to figure out enough to get started with for anyone who isn't a total moron.

Kichae,

kbin.social is struggling. Kbin is server software, though. We can have thousands of kbin-based websites federating with each other.

subignition,
subignition avatar

I feel like this would be much easier if instances had a reasonably accurate way of estimating and self-reporting their own capacity/usage. Like a color-graded bar in the header that you could glance at to understand "Oh, this place is pretty full, maybe I should look elsewhere"

I'm not sure if that's even feasible though. And of course it will take time, Kbin is still extremely new.

skulblaka,
skulblaka avatar

Fair enough, that's an important distinction. We're basically exactly the same as Lemmy but just running a different software, correct?

I am still learning all the finer details of this after all, I sometimes sound like I know what I'm talking about but I am a new user here.

Regardless though, your average reddit refugee that hasn't already made the move will be looking for a website that they can click on, create an account, and start interacting. They aren't looking to host their own server.

blackhole,

I'm stilll trying to figure that out too.

So the Fediverse is some open source technological way of connecting to a distributed network that literally anyone could connect to, if they wanted? And then Lemmy, Mastodon, KBin are pieces of software that are utilizing the fediverse to connect to anything else in the fediverse, but each of their websites has different software to display whatever is in the fediverse?

Is that an accurate understanding?

Almost like if all the third party apps from reddit were the equivalent of kbin/lemmy/mastodon, and then reddit was the fediverse? With the difference being that the fediverse is open source and not under anyone's control?

Or am I way off in my understanding?

skulblaka,
skulblaka avatar

As far as I've been able to gather, you're exactly correct. Fediverse is essentially a webring that propagates content across the entire ring to anyone who is listening. The different front ends are largely just forms of interaction with that same ring. Anyone who spins up an instance and federates into the ring will begin receiving and broadcasting the content within.

borkcorkedforks,

@Kichae sure but people new to the concept likely won't understand the idea they can sign up to some random website and have access to the posts on hundreds of other sites. I signed up on kbin.social because that sounded like the place to sign up on.

@artillect @omnislayer88 @skulblaka

EnglishMobster,
EnglishMobster avatar

I tried going to fedia.io and it just says "Your account is not active" whenever I try to log in. :(

artillect,
artillect avatar

Check your email for a confirmation link, it might be in your spam folder

olorin99,
olorin99 avatar

Maybe also put more emphasis on the other kbin instances cos kbin.social is getting the hug o death right now.

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