• 1 Post
  • 20 Comments
Joined 7 years ago
Cake day: July 1st, 2018
  • omega@community.nodebb.orgtoGeneral Discussion@community.nodebb.org•The big difference between forums and social media: sorting
    1·
    10 days ago

    We can’t forget the third wheel - WhatsApp & Co.

    The app based p2p messaging apps that have evolved to inhabit a space in-between forums and social media. Trying to solve some of the social media shorting-comings while borrowing a little from older sister/brother forums’ wardrobe.

    Forums are a pre-super-computer-in-your-hand evolution and a very natural analog, which I think exemplifies the original and early optimism of the net.

    Social media however, well the term should be a dead give away “social media”, that’s a very considered and engineered phrase, the meta of media is social engineering for the mind, and so that was that plan for the big “social media” platforms, how does social-media-ism sound?

    So while the net early adopters and pioneers were all about openness , but I would argue the openness for freedom, the potential benefits the promised land - yet once you start to impose for whatever reasoning, impositions of a type, then it breaks down, the symptoms being real net social dis-order, and that is what I have witnessed with the rise of “social media”, was that it broke the openness (offering even more hyper-connectivity instead), and has allowed the usual enter left of stage regulatory social control actors to tell us they must save us from ourselves - but I think the more closed or semi-closed direct messaging apps made that in fact worse, snapchat, whatsapp and similar, in a Lord of flies way.

    Bottom line - Has Life been enhanced or not?

    I think it is more than merely the technological arrangement of the parts, what is the sum and is this derivative of analog clock vs digital clock?

    What problem has been solved and which approach did it best?

    What did a digital watch do to real life versus the old clock (before then it was sundial etc. etc.), more effect?

    The measure must be the sum total benefit to the users - is this Clock?

    The measure must be the sum total efficacy of control of the users - is this Digital Clock?

    Forums = Clock / Social Media = Digital Watch?

    I digress… ;)

  • omega@community.nodebb.orgOPtoGeneral Discussion@community.nodebb.org•AI has borked web traffic - how are you handling it?
    1·
    10 days ago

    @Julian To note, it uses up one of the 5 free WAF/Security rules slots.

    Having looked into it a bit more there seems to be more bot control rules you can invoke with the paid tiers.

    On the free one you have - (cf.client.bot) true/false

    And then the Ai crawled control (managed via own menu option), which nicely groups the various types of AI crawlers which you can allow/block.

    This is 2 slots used, you need to use your remaining 3 wisely.

    It’s amazing how much traffic you’re going to block with a wildcard approach (if applicable) to blocking all .php request, and I have had to play around with the order a bit to allow the goodbots as such in. I’m not totally sure how the rules fire in order is 100% robust. It might be 99.x% robust. I would like to hear others thoughts/experiences on this.

    I would urgently encourage anyone who is using CF to look at the security analytics, and look at the top countries overall.

    China, Singapore are the top offenders in this user surge wave. Incredible volumes of multi second users can swarm out of nowhere and really eat up server resources. You may find the only solution is a total block but this would be my starting point.

    However, interactive challenge may be as good or nearly as good (but I am too paranoid to be totally convinced, I tested it and I am still not sure and reverted to some hard blocks).

    I think the managed challenge may be out of it’s depth here when dealing with origin offenders.

    It is very tricky. However, drilling down using the “filter” option in CF has been a really useful visual aid. I never had to do as much looking until this China/Singapore wave started ramping up.

    Log search is paid feature. You can however apply various filters combined to analytics.

  • omega@community.nodebb.orgtoGeneral Discussion@community.nodebb.org•Cloudflare Setup
    1·
    4 months ago

    yasas Yep seen the same last week, not nodeBB install, but the server behind cloudflare showed a huge uptick, not served by cache either. SO I am guessing scanning the whole site or large parts.

    IIRC the traffic was coming manly from swiss-german based servers but did not have the time to dig in. This is even with Block AI cralwers turned on.

    In the recent past it’s been Asia, like mostly Singapore.

    The only way to handle this in Cloudflare is to watch and then put in place with geo-based challenge security rules in place afaict

  • omega@community.nodebb.orgtoGeneral Discussion@community.nodebb.org•General interest mega-boards and forum sustainability
    1·
    4 months ago

    julian You’re going into a place I was going to suggest around 2022 (becasue forums have been on the decline for a long time), while this sub-reddit-eaque is a neat feature, what about thinking of “ways” of being instead.

    TLDR

    I’d really like to be able to, and within seconds, with a single email address and password sign up for a stripped down NodeLET Acc and be typing happily (content creating) within seconds, that I could then disturbute to wherever-whenever platforms I like with a few clicks, get analytics feedback on how content (posts) are doing, where it is being seen and how much and maybe even track and manage payment for any revenue generated, without being a site owner carrying any of that “publishing” at scale burden and cost or having to sign up to one or more platforms to get my content out to the world.

    That’ the bones of the original 2012 idea.

    If you think about supporting or looking for inspiration in terms of feature roadmap, where next for then NodeBB as a content creation platform, extra of being a forum, is when you start to unlock the true potential.

    You might rememeber I pointed out substack some years ago and it wasn’t that familiar to you or most back then, it was the lockdowns and covid that allowed it go prime time IMHO.

    So here is a concept you might like to ponder

    The NodeLET

    1. NodeLET (Solo) a stepped down versions of a full NodeBB that is content creator centric (it may not allow more than one user, it might limit users, it can have tiered plans, it hosted but NodeBB, it’s liek NOdeBB for one user that can bu spun up like droplet are spun up on DO in seconds)

    Think of NodeLET as content hub as opposed to a hub (forum) for users.

    1. NodeBB with NodeLET functionally (integrated)

    What is NodeLET?

    NodeLET is hosted by NodeBB as an in-house service as a very mass market non-techie solution (think wordpress.blog but technically spun up like a DO droplet) the user does not need admin level technical overload, they are the content creation focused user, they just need composer, drafts and the tags fundamentally to organise content all the forums, sub categories, users admin backend etc. etc. is not needed, wwe;re stripping right back here, you get the idea.

    Now that activity pub is in the mix you can use this to hook up NodeLET to other NodeBB’s and beyond.

    Content creation space for the quiet content creator who wants a nice place to go and tap without distraction and mange their more long form thoughtful content over time.

    Does this make sense?

    The idea is a NodeLET would start as a free service for content creators, now that substack exists which came to my attention after I thought of this way of re-selling or re-spinning NodeBB that market is well established in terms of a simple offering to the content creator.

    It’s a new market segment because no one did it so well and elegantly until substack came along IMHO.

    Focusing on content creation, but still being a very different option than say a WordPress vs substack option.

    All my UI suggestions are generally based around content creation centric idea of the NodeLET but I never explained it properly, but if you’re gonna do sub-reddit you might as well embrace the whole spectrum of user-needs potential dev led paths or “ways” of being, as opposed to what others are doing.

    Build for the user you missed or forgot about, because NodeBB can do it all technically, as I’ve pointed out most of the ability is already under the hood, it exists, it’s actually a matter or reconfiguring layout, how you offer the capabilities to the potential user / marketing (Harmony theme actually works really well here)

    Offer 2 configurations, of NodeBB

    • Solo (limited, free) A Single user NodeBB offering.
    • Solo Plus (fee, more features) A single user NodeBB for closed content creation group
    • NodeBB (Full) What we all know and love.

    There is naturally as explain no self-hosting option for a NodeLET

    Bonus is all of these options can openly interconnect now, where back a few years they may have not so easily - Activity Pub is the thing that didn’t exist when I was thinking about this, because as I’ve alluded to or implied it goes back to an even older idea I had when trying to solve a problem in 2012 no one was thinking about afaics, when I saw substack it looked the closest to my original musings over a decade later.

    I know I’m sliding off topic but it’s out of my head now. :)

  • omega@community.nodebb.orgtoActivityPub@community.nodebb.org•Explaining the fediverse is a hard problem.
    1·
    8 months ago

    eeeee

    Hey, In reverse I do the replying

    1. There was no cognitive model for the word “federated” in my head. Nothing happens when I read it. Federation. Federal. No problem here.

    I genuinely never encountered the “past tense” of the word until Activity Pub hit the scene and nothing happens, no connection. If I am dull. So be it. You know. This is really the marketing / communication point.

    Guess what, federated still doesn’t click, it is a mental block, I haven’t gotten to the bit where I have the physical analogue for federated.

    Say for example after we get over the amazeballs of email analogue relation “mail” (or post/postal), then we come across the CC or BCC, wow a mass mail out, basically wow that’s cool, oh what there is junk mail too? All these existing real world analogs perfectly communicated in a few words or just word, the analogous precedence experience.

    Federated. None.

    The email domain example is used, I had to read it twice, I got it the second time, but the engine still don’t start. No fire lit. We’re talking the light bulb moment and this is very different to the multitude of technical lightbulbs the tec/dev will encounter, the end user in the main, will not care to know as they will never have time to know, that’s the mass market, one lightbulb for all and that should be enough.

    1. I’m just vibing off the idea, how to explain it not the technical choices. However, we do live with it on community in the raw state, so there is that. I suggested a filter or two types of modes iirc, I’ll have to dig out that topic. Sunglasses or no sunglasses mode when NodeBB browsing.

    What I need to do, personally, is hands on, set up activity pub technically on something somewhere to enjoy the whole, to take the next step whenever that happens.

    I dunno yet if Activitypub is “wouldn’t’ it be cool if…” or “how did we do x to get to y before we had z, I’ll never know!”, the later is pending the former not unusual to be consigned to the dung heap of things time forgot.

    Additionally, there are now people who have completely grown up in and live too much in cyberspace and cyberspace is actually retarding real space IMHO, the problems of cyberspace do not necessarily solve the problems of living space as much as they use to (mail > email). I think we’re at a point where the things we engage and do are consuming more than it is now returning, and Ai is a clear milestone on that front.

    Broad points, but here is the challenge, explain Acitivyt Pub in 20 maybe 30 words, within or not a NodeBB context, or both.

    How about that as a challenge?

  • omega@community.nodebb.orgtoActivityPub@community.nodebb.org•Explaining the fediverse is a hard problem.
    1·
    8 months ago

    Finally the topic I’ve been waiting for.

    Honestly.

    Tbh. I have zoned out because of this and other non node related things.

    I haven’t had time to distill APub and often refer back to my own past concepts that seemed to resemble activitypub to get my noodle around it.

    So while I kinda get it I haven’t actually gotten into it.

    Discourse has had it for sometime too but APub is disorientating, bottom line it’s like where do I start and why do I even start? What is or where is the problem it has solved? (As a user or site admin/owner)

    If you can’t explain it in 20/30 words it will never gain mass appeal or adoption, if you can’t value it, it will remain invisible to the potential end user.

    Even the responses (good contributions) but to my problem still can’t encapsulate it enough to simply answer the question, simply.

    I had in early reaction to nascent implantation suggested, some UI changes to help with my own gut reaction to the interplay on community, but as time goes on I found the activity of activity pub really staring and amplify harmonies (theme) weak points to make skimming posts less appealing and of course life, and the times we live in too, getting in the way - Ah yea life that world outside but also the inner life too, perhaps the greater undiscovered country.

    So let me see. How can it or what can Activity pub nested in NodeBB do to enable or enhance that journey?

    Or are you actually (is NodeBB) on the right journey?