/kbin - a few quick announcements

Good morning! :) Today I want to focus mainly on reviewing the pull requests you've submitted. There are many great things there that will help improve the kbin experience. That's amazing, thank you! I'm also in the final stages of sorting out the infrastructure-related formalities. Soon, the situation with the website's functionality should stabilize, and the traffic from the fediverse will gradually be restored. I've decided to delegate some tasks as I can no longer oversee everything at this stage. There are many offers of help for which I'm very grateful, and I haven't had a chance to respond to some of them yet because I only just saw them - a lot is happening, really.

As I mentioned before, new possibilities have emerged that I couldn't have imagined before. All of this is thanks to your support; you are incredible, and I thank you. That's why it's crucial for me to ensure transparency in everything we do and provide regular reports. I want to share as much information behind the scenes as possible. That's why it may seem like it's taking a long time, but I truly want to make the most of every cent.

Now, onto the bad news. I messed up.

The workload overwhelmed me, and I couldn't read all your messages. I will diligently work my way through them, but I need time.

The registration system is far from perfect, so from time to time, I manually verify and activate accounts whose activation links didn't arrive. Please check again later if you find yourself in such a situation.

The queue for account deletions is stuck. Manual fix is needed, which will be difficult until the infrastructure is moved. I have recorded all 230 account deleiton requests, and each one will definitely be deleted, but I also need time for that. I apologize for this. If someone wants their account to be immediately deleted, please send an email through the contact form starting with "DELETE MY ACCOUNT" - it will be easier for me to filter it out, and I will delete the account manually.

That's all from me. I'm going back to stirring the cauldron. Thank you for all the messages and kind words. Thank you for being here. Have a nice day!

LeafyPasserine,
LeafyPasserine avatar

Thanks for keeping us updated, I really appreciate your clear communication on the matter. Please take as much time as you need, I know it must not be easy to deal with such a sudden influx of users. Rooting for you!

aeternum,

seems like this reddit outage is both a blessing and a curse.

HeartyBeast,
HeartyBeast avatar

I’m just in awe that you’ve managed to keep this instance up. Congratulations on that and your clear communication. It really must be overwhelming.

Good news you’ve found people to delegate to.

ernest,
ernest avatar

First and foremost, I try to make it a good fun :) Yah, the people here are wonderful.

reflex, (edited )
reflex avatar

First and foremost, I try to make it a good fun :)!

AlteredStateBlob,
AlteredStateBlob avatar

Thanks for the updates and your work! Don't think anyone could've forseen the amount of work needed in such a short amount of time. Happy to read you're willing to delegate and not break yourself over all this.

SpacemanSpiff, (edited )
SpacemanSpiff avatar

@ernest I can’t image what a wild ride this has been. I want you to know we all appreciate the difficulty of the situation and understand the enormity of your efforts. I’ve seen many take on the responsibility of sharing the info you share out there with new users when questions get posted.

As someone who’s job is in this kind of environment, I sympathise, and I hope you can catch some rest!

HealGirl,
HealGirl avatar

Thanks for all of your hard work Ernest!

VerifiablyMrWonka,
VerifiablyMrWonka avatar

Being overwhelmed is not messing up. Taking care of number 1 should always be a priority.

Am glad to see some delegation happening. Developing, running and modding a service as large as KBin has become is no easy task for 1 person and you've done spectacular so far.

reflex,
reflex avatar

Taking care of number 1 should always be a priority.

Number 2, too. Hemorrhoids are no joke.

667,
667 avatar

@ernest May I recommend to prioritize certain major UX/UI improvements and consider adding a persistent logged in state. Everytime we step back to our computers, we have to log in again.

Amazing efforts so far!

ernest,
ernest avatar

Ok, I've heard that from a few people, but it has never happened to me. I will look into it further.

re,
re avatar

Hasn't happened to me either. Seems only some have it.

aeternum,

Just echoing the others, it also hasn't happened to me. I wonder if they have a cookie autodelete addon for their browser?

AnonymousLlama,
AnonymousLlama avatar

I've seen this happen where I've got a thread open and when I go to upvote or comment it'll refresh and redirect me to Cloudflare to authorize the request, then it'll load the original thread and I've lost my comment or position

This just means that before I do anything I refresh the page to ensure when I post a comment it'll go through (which might be counterproductive to actually reducing server load)

parrot-party,
parrot-party avatar

I would prefer earnest worked on infrastructure. No one else can do that but him. Meanwhile, others should make PRs for UX/UI stuff. It's generally easier for new people to do UI work anyway as it should have minimal dependencies.

PtitSerpent,
PtitSerpent avatar

This.

mattrussell2319,
mattrussell2319 avatar

It may also be easier for an outsider to see the UX/UI changes that would be needed

AnonymousLlama,
AnonymousLlama avatar

Definitely this. Having a set of new eyes on a project should help highlight some UX / UI issues. There's a few quick wins here like clicking to collapse comments that people could submit as PRs to help out

667,
667 avatar

It's certainly a tsunami of priorities. The UX/UI generally has more visibility to common users than backend stuff–not that backend stuff has any less priority, just that kbin and Fediverse in general have a great deal of visibility at the moment, and there's already a learning curve to kbin/Fediverse. Having a familiar and intuitive UX/UI will go a long way to keeping users engaged long enough to convert to full-time kbin/Fediverse users.

Honestly, all of this needs a really great infographic. It took me about a day of tinkering to grasp how all this works–and there's still more to learn. Too many users will come to Fediverse and not recognize that info can be seen across instances, and that's the beauty in its design.

The best analogy I've seen so far is that each instance is like a webmail provider. Each provider can send messages to other providers, only now instead of email, it's entire magazines (a subreddit equivalent).

Ronno,
Ronno avatar

@667 On my pc and phone (both using Firefox browsers) I remain logged in. The only thing that I see is the cloudflare prompt when I have been inactive for a while. Maybe you are clearing cookies?

The_Eraserhead_Baby,
The_Eraserhead_Baby avatar

This is my experience also (staying logged in, just get cloudflare check).

Nepenthe,
Nepenthe avatar

It seems like a weirdly spotty issue. It's only ever happened to me twice and reloading seems to fix it, but it has happened, where the cloudflare prompt will go through and I'll come back to the same thread I was in, but logged out.

stopthatgirl7,
stopthatgirl7 avatar

I think you have to click on the “keep me logged in” option BEFORE you enter in all your login info. When I did it that way, it kept me logged in.

tal,
tal avatar

Suggestion: If you have work that can reasonably be farmed out, you might try writing up a list of what you need people for and asking for any volunteers and setting up something to let them handle some of the load.

I don't know whether that will work, but just doing reviews of pull requests on GitHub for a new project expanding rapidly may be a full-time effort for someone, much less all this other stuff.

clb92,
clb92 avatar

I very much agree with this suggestion!

Right now the future of Kbin rests solely on /u/ernest's shoulders. That's a bus factor of 1.

I_Miss_Daniel,
I_Miss_Daniel avatar

ISA, VESA or PCI? :)

clb92,
clb92 avatar

Maybe a Universal Serial one?

delawen,
delawen avatar

From experience escalating other projects, he's probably at the stage where the urgent (the site collapsing) is done before the important (delegating tasks). If he stops to delegate tasks, the normal functioning of the site will collapse.

Anyone who wants to volunteer and don't know where to start can start by going to the currently opened PR and reviewing them, testing them, improving them. Of course @ernest will have to review them afterwards. But if three independent developers say they already tested and reviewed and reported the potential mistakes, that makes his life much much easier.

nightauthor,
nightauthor avatar

The author of "The Phoenix Project" would argue that you gotta just take the L for a minute while you reorganize. Because a lynchpin like ernest is never going to have a good moment to stop and reorganize, you just gotta do it now.

VerifiablyMrWonka,
VerifiablyMrWonka avatar

He's apparently found some people to help with the infra side of things - which is the hardest thing to do. This means more focus on improving the product. :D

--,
-- avatar

Thank you for the updates! It's quite refreshing to see some transparency from the owners (especially in recent years).

parrot-party,
parrot-party avatar

Hey @ernest what time zone are you working out of? Just so people know when you might be active.

ernest,
ernest avatar

Lately, it has been very inconsistent with that, but there wiull come a time to stabilize it ;p CEST

KnittingTrekker,
KnittingTrekker avatar

Thank you for all your work, it's amazing that you managed to keep it all running!

klin,
klin avatar

you are a champ man! keep up the good work!! love the transparency and awesomeness :)

InLikeClint,
InLikeClint avatar

I've been a member for an hour, so far so good.

stickerface,

Just found this site - definitely going to be putting an effort in to getting the formula1 kbin populated.

VulcanSphere,
VulcanSphere avatar

From your friend at /m/indycar and /m/wec, Vulcan supports!

Puppypoi,

push push

eatmoregreenfood,
eatmoregreenfood avatar

Let's goooooooo

calixte,

FYI, there is already a lemmy community for f1 gaining some traction. Do with that what you will, just putting it out there :)

!formula1

dirtypirate,

I get a 404 from that link

autr,
autr avatar

A shame it is at lemmy.ml. I'd really like to avoid that instance, but a lot of communities are really active there.

Evolone,
Evolone avatar

What’s your reasoning behind avoiding lemmy.ml? Just curious as I’ve been trying to find my landing place. I’ve enjoyed kbin but have found it a bit difficult to navigate, whereas lemmy.ml and beehaw.org both seem pretty straightforward.

sisyphean,

I've read somewhere that it's being run by "tankies". I didn't know what that meant so I looked it up and it seems that "tankies" are very militant communists.

Aesthesiaphilia,

The bigger concern is that they're very pro Russia and pro CCP, despite neither of those really being communist anymore. Two countries that are actively spreading disinfo on the internet.

Bipta,

Their page is a link away from a huge manifesto on GitHub with "Mao did nothing wrong," among other absurdities.

Alexmitter,
Alexmitter avatar

Tankies defy logic.

tal,
tal avatar

it seems that "tankies" are very militant communists.

In the original sense of the word, it was specific to people who favored Soviet military intervention in Eastern Bloc countries. Today, I see it used on the UK political subreddits more-commonly used more broadly for people who are really anti-West and authoritarian far-left. Like, if someone takes the position that Stalin had the right idea and his vision of the Soviet Union was the right way for the world to go, they'd probably be called a tankie regardless of their specific views on the Soviet interventions in Eastern Europe.

It isn't used much here in the US, that I'm aware of.

autr,
autr avatar

Concerns about the admin team and about the main dev.
Sources:

https://mstdn.social/@feditips/106835057054633379
https://redd.it/143o5xd

Alexmitter,
Alexmitter avatar

Yea they are mostly tankies. Like proper "CCP is actually good, there is no issues in xinjiang" stuff.

VerifiablyMrWonka,
VerifiablyMrWonka avatar

Sadly, until federation is working, it may as well not exist.

That said, when it does start working I look forward to the battle of the f1 communities.

rokejulianlockhart,
rokejulianlockhart avatar

It appears to be federating now.

duringoverflow,

there is an inconsistency I have noticed between kbin and lemmy in the format that such links are presented. The problem is in the exclamation mark. In lemmy it is required to show it is a community, however here it is not

For example if you write it as https://kbin.social/m/formula1@lemmy.ml you'll see it works. (Ok, the content is outdated because of the known problems but the you get the point)

Otome-chan,
Otome-chan avatar

relatedly, trying to do an @ communityname sometimes mixes up a link to the user with that name vs the community with that name.

MassiveCelebration78,

Eventually I think migrating communities will be a simple task. I’d love all my favorite sports communties to have an active place on kbin.

Tangent: my feeling rn is anything completely non-political should be on kbin. I’m not bashing Lemmy oe anyone else for their political stance - I probably agree with most of it - but it’s also what a casual user is going to be turned off by and it’s not what I want to be a deciding factor in wether or not a community of [x] fans is united by. Maybe it’s just cuz I’m a casual fan of a lot of sports, and/or I am someone who uses sports as a means to escape the bullshit.

Anyways, a welcome sight to see F1 on Kbin. Now someone get the NFL and Soccer and I’m good.

DaGuys470,
DaGuys470 avatar

I shall join you

stillnotahero,

Lights out and away we go!

AzureImp,
AzureImp avatar

Ohhh, let’s lick that stamp and send it! 🏎️

johnkbin,

Bwoah

Ronno,
Ronno avatar

Thank you so much for your transparency and efforts! The only thing I can envision you're going through is that scene from Silicon Valley in which they try to bump server capacity and scale. I can imagine that it is not an easy task, it is amazing what you have achieved so far and I am confident that the platform will grow over the months to come.

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