doc

@doc@kbin.social

I can't believe this name wasn't already taken.

doc,

Any idea how deep you'll have to dig? Copper or pex?

Tips from trenching: wear sunscreen, drink plenty of water, and prep work is 90% of the job so plan accordingly.

ndrsxyz, to internet

what's your favourite way to create a good password?
obviously one word or name is quite bad, but there is not a chance to remember 10 random symbols that many websites offer as a strong password... what is the good solution?

doc,

Same as @anthoniix, KeePass makes my passwords. I have one master password that's super long but easy for me to remember, and everything else gets 16+ random letters, numbers, and characters generated by the software.

If you're not already using a password manager I highly recommend checking some out. Bitwarden and KeePass are two popular and open-source options.

doc,

Reddit Subreddit = Magazine on kbin (ie /m/name), Community on lemmy (ie /c/name)

Reddit Post = Thread in a given Magazine/Community

Twitter Tweet = Post to a Microblog.

Note most twitter like activity are federated on mastodon instances. kbin seems unique to have both reddit-like threads and twitter-like microblog posts on the same site. Still figuring out how they're fundamentally different, though. If all content is federated do I have to use certain portals to view certain types of content? ie peertube videos cannot be seen via kbin, or can they? If so, what types of content are there and how can they be found? There seems to be tons of potential but nobody has any of it nailed down yet.

doc,

So here's a question back to you: how did you post this thread? I could only find a way to add a post, which ended up in the microblog.

Having two types of content separated like this is kinda klunky. Visiting /help lands you on the threads page by default, while to see posts you have to switch to the microblog view. IMHO the two should converge on a shared view somehow so all content is in one stream.

doc,

Thanks! Huh. I was looking for something akin to a self post. Looking at each option I can see an "Article" is a self post.

Having the distinction in the add menu itself seems a bit off. Users are presented with two content streams: Treads and Microblog. But the add button doesn't contain the same terminology. Would it not be more fluid for the + menu to have "Add new Thread" and "Add new Microblog" options, then place an option for type of content on the add page? Also, there is an "Add new Post" button on the microblogs page, but no such button on the threads page. Seems like all this could be simplified.

doc, (edited )

Would I be able to consume peertube content via kbin, then? The federated content between instances is understandable. It seems like an instance is just a particular view of that content, which will vary from one to the other. However, if a instance running kbin or lemmy software tries to present content of a type different than the what it's designed to show then it just doesn't appear? I mean, if it's possible to cross federate between any instance using activitypub why doesn't mastodon content from their 9m+ users overwhelm the main page here? Or is it just that kbin is not federated with mastodon, and if so isn't that contrary to the goals of the fediverse?

Sorry to be asking so many questions. There's a lot to figure out and while I am finding lots of people trying to explain all this I'm finding very little that makes sense or addresses these things in a way that clicks in my head.

doc, to Help

How does one post a link to another magazine/community?

You can @doc to ping/link a user, but doing the same for a community causes the software to parse it as a link to a user with the same name as the community. Ie, this is @Help according to the sidebar, but that gets parsed as a username. Prefixing it with a ! instead appears to work, but the ! is included in the community link and is therefore a broken. Ie, try !Help.

Basically, in reddit terms, /r/reddit vs /u/reddit. Am I missing something obvious?

Edit, wait, it appears to have worked. What the heck happens if a user and a community share the same name then? Why do users and communities share the same exact naming convention?

doc,

Spez won't budge, because the people pulling his strings won't let him. Remember there is 100's of millions invested in reddit so far, and when those investors come calling for a return they're coming after the CEO. I completely believe he's too far gone into the VC world to be able to empathize with the protest and fight for the community over the $. But at the same time I believe he wouldn't have chosen a 30 day window voluntarily. He has a tech/programming background so he knows this is unreasonable. Someone else is driving him to do this, and I don't think he's A) handled it well nor B) is happy to be doing this. I bet he won't be CEO for long after the IPO, at least till his shares vest.

doc, (edited )

Looks like new communities/magazines aren't federating out, either. :-\

Few related questions for anyone knowledgeable about the fediverse:

  1. If the original instance in which a community was created is no longer running will that community disappear as well? For example, will @kbinMeta@kbin.social live on if kbin.social proper dies one day?
  2. How are duplicate communities handled? Ie, @misc@kbin.social vs @misc@beehaw.org vs @misc.lemmy.*? Unless there's something to reconcile differences between these I can see this becoming very messy and hard for non-techies to understand.
  3. Messages via Reddit etc are nearly real-time because of the centralized platform, but I can't see how federated content can behave the same. How are time lags related to federated content propagation handled? Are they common? I can't imagine all these instances sharing information super rapidly on the back-end is simple or inexpensive (CPU/bandwidth/$). Say some post on one instance generates a lot of replies, how quickly will everyone see those replies across other instances? For example, if I were to post "I have 60 seconds to disarm this bomb, which wire do I cut? help!" on kbin and someone replies in 34 seconds after my post is visible on beehaw, what are my chances of being blown up?
doc,

I swiped my dad's old Parker Vector I don't know how many years/decades ago. I randomly found it mid-pandemic in my pen box and figured I'd give it a try. After soaking it overnight and getting a fresh set of Quink cartridges (and a lot of googling) I ended up liking it quite a bit. And being in the middle of the pandemic, well, boredom took over and emptied my wallet.

doc,

All vs Subscriptions is to All vs Frontpage. That's pretty easy to switch once you know the terminology and location (list menu next to your name in the top right).

However, being able to quickly reach a single subscription, and only that magazine, takes way too many clicks. Enabling the top-bar in your settings works, but it's darn fugly and does not scale once you subscribe to more than a small number. I'd like to see a menu, a la Relay or RES, where a click (+ scroll) + click can get you to just that magazine.

/kbin - Just Reddit Things update

Hey, once again, I welcome the newcomers. It's great to see new faces here :) It seems that we've managed to resolve the server issue. Unfortunately, I had to temporarily disable certain features, such as content auto-refresh. It will be restored at the beginning of next week after the infrastructure change, so you'll get to...

doc,

I thought this explanation by /u/buried_treasure does a great job explaining this in an easy to understand way.

You will naturally be aware that there are many different systems on the internet, run by different companies. And these systems are generally incompatible with one another.

For example, you can't use GMail to compose and send a post to Twitter. You can't log on to Facebook and read content from Reddit (unless somebody has copied it there). You can't watch Youtube videos via Flickr. And so on.

All of this seems obvious - they're completely different systems. Why on earth SHOULD you be able to interact with them from elsewhere?

A few years ago some people decided that even though this was obvious, it wasn't the way the internet HAD to be. They developed a protocol (which is just a set of instructions for computer programs to talk to each other over the internet) which they called ActivityPub, and then basically said to software developers "here it is. We think this could be a cool way of getting different systems to interact with each other. See what you can do".

In the 5 or 6 years since then, lots of software developers HAVE tried to see what they can do with ActivityPub. One well-known example of a system that uses it is Mastodon. It's a system that is similar to Twitter.

Another couple of ActivityPub systems that are becoming popular right now are Lemmy and KBin. They are Messageboard systems, roughly similar in concept to Reddit.

There are many other ActivityPub systems, for example Pixelfed (which is a bit like Flickr, so for hosting photos), Peertube (yep you guessed it, videos), Friendica (like Facebook) and far too many others to list. Collectively, these systems and any others that use ActivityPub call themselves "the Fediverse".

OK - so what? These are just wannabe competitors to the big boys: Twitter, Youtube, Reddit, right?

Not right! The magic of ActivityPub and the Fediverse is that they can all interact with each other.

So you can log on to Mastodon and subscribe to Lemmy groups. That would be like logging on to Twitter and subbing to your favourite subreddit. And then being able to read the posts from that subreddit right there in Twitter.

You can log on to KBin and follow users on Peertube. Imagine being able to follow and view content from your favourite Youtube streams from right here in Reddit.

That's the real beauty of the Fediverse - every system knows how to talk to every other one. The other clever bit about it is that because ActivityPub is a publicly-defined protocol, no one company can own it and take it over. It's almost impossible for a billionaire like Elon Musk to take over Mastodon, or for Lemmy admins to decide to shut out third-party APIs. Because the system has been built from the very beginning to be open, and shared, and communal.

doc, (edited )

Collapsing a comment & chain is a huge missing feature for me. Also, one cannot get a permalink to a particular comment/reply nor a context link (ie the comment/reply a new comment/reply is responding to). Unless I'm missing that. I also wish the true/false difference in up/down votes were more distinct.

These are early days for a lot of these platforms, and really what's been built on kbin so far is impressive as it is. We're all used to feature sets that have existed for years so it's easy to think they are simple to implement, but that's not the case. I'm looking forward to seeing everything mature.

Edit: permalink is the timestamp/age next to your name at the top of the post.

iMike, to portland

: A new Filipino restaurant named Magna Kubo opened today. Near the corner of Broadway/Hall, next to where Pip's is going to be. Highly, highly recommend.

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doc,

@iMike Whaaaat? Pips in Beaverton? Oh lord there goes my waistline.

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