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(I hope I'm not using a wrong board) I'm very nostalgic of old forum life and old socialnetworks. Today "Internet" offers imageboards (yeah pretty cute to be honest) or socialnetworks very focused on instant messaging, but I'm searching a socialnetwork (or forum, I don't have preferences) focused on threads, having an account and posting contents. Some advices?

I'm in search of that feeling too, I don't think we'll ever go back to that time, I really wish I could. There was something magical about the old internet, where every link would bring you to something new, where you would make friends, sharing the same interests. There was no thumbs, no up-votes, no retweet. You had to search, and there was a barrier to entry, in the form of simply having internet and being interested in it. Now, forums are dying, it's always about joining discord servers, joining the reddit, or being told you're off-topic. I want to know too

It's too sad yet bad here is dead as well.

>>28414 I'm searching for something like this as well. I'm tired of all "social media" bullshit. I just want to have a place where I can create an account and discuss stuff I'm interested in with other people interested in that same stuff. No upvotes, no instant gratification instant messaging. Just a plain, simple forum.

>>28417 damn same feeling bro, not so much about "votes" and sharing but more on types of community and life on Internet (chats are very boring and always destinated to death lol). In these years I became isolated from the Internet contacting only old e-friends but in these months I have this strong desire to "restart" everything Idk I was thinking to create on my own a forum but I'm scared about maintenance (not much on admin role but possible funny hackers, I'm a noob on online safety issues as I'm in english) and creating the community (I wish literally an utopia of chill anons, I'm absolutely not a snowflake but it's frustating face up to eternal cringe trolls everyday)

>>28417 >there was a barrier to entry this so much.

>>28420 My message wasn't really anti-thumbs and sharing, it's just that it's the only type of "community" that is really active these days. As for forums, I have my own personal server and security is not an issue, use public keys, fail2ban, and keep as few services as open as possible. Of course, that's for my personal usage. Running a forum is magnitudes more vulnerable than this. I could always do backups, sanitize every input, yadda yadda, but the moment there's a hacker smarter than me, the forum is fuarrrked. Also, I don't know anything about creating a community. If you go on server lists for discord for example, I'd say 90% of servers advertise themselves as "Come join us, we are a chill server, mods are also chill" but it's not interesting, it's just boring. A community needs a hook, a theme, something more than "Come chill with us", because then, you get like-minded people, a newbie can come and go "Hey guys, I like XYZ too, so glad I found you guys" This chan is about Lain, some semi-obscure anime. It's the "face" of the community, that's the hook. We aren't talking 24/7 about the anime, hell, except for the images, talking about Lain itself is rare, but that's the hook, that's the entry ticket, you know roughly the sort of people who come here. Would you have come here if lainchan was called chillboard? I wouldn't

>>28423 Thanks for the explanation, sorry for the misunderstanding Btw yeah the problem about a possible fanmade "retro"forum/socialnetwork is creating the fuarrrking community: we can't go around only to ours desires at all costs and we have to attract specific users

>>28414 I'm "part" of a small group of people with an interesting approach to some of this. Put simply, to be considered for participation requires having a website; a few systems don't work for those who don't, because they rely on being able to link to others' websites for resources. It's like a web ring with a smaller radius, as each member has a website and it's more like a group of property holders than people posting on someone else's forum, although that does happen with comments sections. People read one another's new posts, give their thoughts, and it's interesting enough for me to participate with all of the other things I do.

>>28427 just say neocities

>>28414 I share this feeling, although I'm not sure how much of it is nostalgia versus not having normal users around to ruin everything. NPCs really rot everything they touch. I'd post the pic of "the death of a community" but I don't feel like looking through my images, if you've seen it you'll know what I mean, it applies here. The old internet was great because it wasn't in so much in the mainstream at that point, it didn't catch the eyes of corporations and normal users until later. It was a fun place. Imageboards and whatever forums still remain that haven't been consoomed by plebbit and discord are what remain of that time, that's why I like them so much. It's a shame 8kun lost the /y2k/ board from infinitychan.

There are still a lot of forums out there, just lurk with some patience and don't give up if it seems too slow, usually they are not slower than a site like lainchan anyway

>>28431 >>28414 >There are still a lot of forums out there Yes. Generally you come to a forum because it's related to something you like or do. Lurk moar op.

>>28432 Sure

>>28427 It's down right now (not sure why, maintenance maybe?) but you might like tilde.club. It's a small community of users making websites on a single Unix server. It's less of a forum and more of a miniature world wide web, but it's kind of interesting. Check out the recently changed pages page if you do look into it

>>28437 Looks like it's up though

>>28438 Weird. I can't connect from any of my devices. Tried from laptop, desktop, and phone. You can view the actual page?

>>28439 I'm Tomohisa, not sure why my name changed

>>28430 >didn't catch the eyes of corporations and normal users something about this leads me to the conclusion that money shouldn't be a concern for communities like this beyond the need to keep the lights on. That doesn't necessarily preclude the use of something like patreon or paypal or whatever, but the administration shouldn't run the community with the intent of making a fortune. >>28437 I'll give it a look :) >>28440 it's just one of the quirks of this board, you don't have a globally unique name and the names rotate at random each time you post.

>>28414 Definitely in decline, these places still exist here and there. But they are harder to find because >Search engines, Google in particular, have severely downranked forums in favor of corporate news, Plebbit or just spam >Many forums (lainchan included) don't let search engines crawl their site and probably just don't *want* to be found by a mob of new people with unknown intentions See this for a perspective on the latter: https://onezero.medium.com/the-dark-forest-theory-of-the-internet-7dc3e68a7cb1 (ironically, hosted on Medium)

>>28443 I know I know, I was searching only for some possible advices, my research hasn't stopped already Btw thanks for your comment lainon

>>28429 That didn't even occur to me when I wrote that post. It's actually independent websites and servers. >>28437 I'm familiar with the tilde style of things and don't like it. Someone else put it better when writing people on these tend to just join and then not do anything of note with the resources. It's either empty or people writing about something mundane that happened that day. I write about my work.

squattheplanet seems like a cool place if you're traveling

>>28445 Any luck you'd tell us what the small group of people is? It sounds interesting, but I'd understand if you'd rather not reveal it to a public space like here

>>28419 Lainchan seems to fit that bill (to a degree). I've spent a lot of time on reddit, and it's a great website. But over the last few years I've been visiting it less and less. It seems that (just like any other forum), there is point at which it becomes too popular and quality decreases. Haven't been on lainchan for very long. It's a bit slow, but better this than boards like /g/, where discussions are either: flamewars, bait, identity politics, and first year CS students looking for career advice. It's almost devoid of any technical discussion. >>28417 >there was a barrier to entry Kind of agree with this one. If you're the kind of person that puts in the effort, you'll find like-minded people.

>>28448 I'd rather not reveal it, I like to write posts that won't be connected back to me, just for its own sake. It generally concerns what would be considered esoteric computing topics. I'll elaborate on one aspect of it: >a few systems don't work for those who don't, because they rely on being able to link to others' websites for resources. An example is an avatar system when commenting on another's website. Comments have fields for a name and the comment author's website, and the avatar is just avatar.png stored on this website. I figure the thinking is that people without their own websites don't deserve an avatar. This is a much better system than other garbage, like an entire business used solely for providing avatars.

>>28448 nonagon infinity opens the door

That internet is gone, there is no bringing it back. The new internet is horrible. It should be dismantled if we can manage to.

>>28421 There are some forums on the dank web that are semi-active. I guess that can filter out quite a bit of people.

I think also the increase in users on the internet made websites more vulnerable to hacking. This probably disincentivises people making their own websites and keeping up with security. What partially made the old internet so great was the abundance of many small communities.

When I was a kid I had a group of friends that I met on a forum, but within our smaller group we'd hang out in a Xat chatroom (yeah I'm not that old). Personally it's what I miss the most, logging in at any hour and always finding 3-4 people online to chat to, and then occasionally playing games together. [spoiler]Forums were really cool for discussion, and for sharing ideas and creativity, but they were still somewhat impersonal, this was more similar to a group of IRL friends, except we'd be online[/spoiler] almost every day, but I really don't see my IRL friend that often... I guess just growing up makes it harder to have time to just hang out and play games, but I still really like to have something like that now.

>>28450 I do agree that reddit seemed to have went downhill in the recent years. I used to frequent some subreddits focused on discussion before. But now, anyone posting a semblance of discussion just feel forced (baiting for upvotes) or are just posting rhetorical questions and are not willing to discuss their viewpoints. I guess lainchan's here.

>>28443 I find it nauseating how awfully each American is self-absorbed and disconnected from actuality, he always has to insert his country's inane politics and talk about orange men and ebul russians with a straight face to keep the grasp with this fictitious spectacle he consumes for reality. Like who the heck cares? Shut up, burger! Epic quotes also >Dark forests like newsletters and podcasts are growing areas of activity. As are other dark forests, like Slack channels, private Instagrams, invite-only message boards, text groups, Snapchat, WeChat, and on and on. This is where Facebook is pivoting with Groups (and trying to redefine what the word “privacy” means in the process).

This discussion is becoming "ah yes the good old days......" than discussing about possible alternatives/solutions. It's always interesting discussing about personal experience but I'm searching more about concrete alternatives than the same complaints which I can find in mainstream social networks Forgive my rudeness but it's more helpful creating now a "special place on Internet" than remember the past as a glorious but lost thing (psychologically remembering the past is the most fuarrrked thing 'cause our memory doesn't preserve all bad memories/moods, so you can't make a logical comparison with the present) Just a protip, nothing else

I find this thread quite interesting. I was talking to a RL lainon just last weekend, where we discussed the decrease in lainchan and the "good ol imageboard culture". We mostly centered the problem around every lainon checking in once a while, sees nothing new happening and got back out. The obvious solution would be most likely more posts about less general topic. Unfortunately this may also result in a loss of post quality. >>28430 >>28423 These are, from my perspective, the main reason for the current distortion. What was once niche lain is now mainstream maker culture. It's just a question on if you adapt or not. I met many good people on different fairs now, it's obvious the times of hiding projects in basements is over as the general movement went on. >>28414 >>28509 Back on the topic, I doubt that you find what you're looking as it, stated above, doesn't exist anymore.

>>28503 >anyone posting a semblance of discussion just feel forced (baiting for upvotes) this is the main problem with social media today. it promotes so much proselytizing and "talking down" to people because it's a much easier way to get "points" (eg upvotes, likes, shares) than carrying an actual conversation. even places like 4chan have created a sort of "wrapper" (for lack of a better word) for upvotes with the "based" and "cringe" replies and saging pretty much being used as a downvote. I think old fashioned forum moderation is necessary to avoid posts that are completely devoid of effort like that and pretty much turn every forum into a makeshift reddit. >>28511 >good ol imageboard culture I don't know man, I think it's time to get over 4chan and realize it's only good for edgy teenagers to get a few laughs at. I think that libre style of forum moderation was something only possible in the internet's infancy. now that social media is being used by almost the entire world now, we can never go back to the way things were. that's not to say there weren't good things about how 4chan worked that I very much like, but there were underlying problems with the format that made it what it is today. and I think to say that we need "gatekeeping" alone is just not enough. we really need to rethink how the internet governs itself, imo we're at a point now where we need to start rethinking how the whole internet is organized and what style of web 2.0 fosters positive, productive internet cultures. I imagine it would be not that different from how the English Enlightenment philosophers revolutionized real-world governments in their time.

>>28523 So, what can we do? What do you propose?

>>28523 >even places like 4chan have created a sort of "wrapper" (for lack of a better word) for upvotes with the "based" and "cringe" replies and saging pretty much being used as a downvote. based (just kidding) There's a lot of talk on this thread about potential alternatives, to reddit / 4chan / social media. To be honest, just increasing userbase/participation on Lainchan (while striving to maintain a level of decent discussion), seems like the best course of action. Lainchan already has a few automatic filters for some words. I'm sure there's a way to automatically filter out post that don't add much to the discussion. I.e. single word reply posts with things like "based", "this", "redpilled", "cringe", etc. The hardest part of an internet forum is to gain a loyal userbase and some traction. I feel that Lainchan could use more people, but it should also make sure that new users get the message that this is not /g/, and that quality discussion is valued. Otherwise it will end up as just another imageboard full of edgy teenagers shouting glitterboy over one another and starting OS flamewars because they've just installed Arch Linux and are now l33t h4ck0rs.

i think lainchan could become a great forum if people consciously put just a little more effort into creativity and quality

>>28529 I wouldn't mind being a part of a collective of people who actually contribute toward something. I think in order for that to happen, there has to be incentives. That usually requires an on-going dialogue, an identity. Imageboards are irrational for those that find winning Internet arguments as a waste of time. These things, to me, are units to store your frustrations. And to test ideas against the swarm.

>>28509 >winning Internet arguments as a waste of time. So if these are a waste of time, you have to wonder what else can happen. The only thing I see happening is a project. Lainzines are a great example. People need a unified goal to work together, so ask yourself - what do you want to do with a bunch of randos? I don't even know if I want to do anything. The only viable projects in my eyes would be either a learning path toward something - like a book club - or an experimental piece of software that'd require a separate account to contribute to.

>>28531 lainchan is still small enough that single people can have a great impact, for better or worse

>>28414 You're just remembering the good things, but in reality forums are usually a lot worse than imageboards. I know because there are still a couple of active non-english technology forums (still basically same as in 2001) that are mostly populated by grumpy old farts that get pissed at newbies for asking "stupid questions". They're all basically competing for who knows more about certain topic and post in this condescending passive-aggressive style. It's not fun at all. There are also activity metrics that require you to post certain amount of times per month. If you don't meet the quota you then can't access certain resources. Only thing that will improve your internet experience is to begin working on something with other people. There needs to be a change from consumption to production, what technology you use to communicate is irrelevant.

The real Utopian vision of how internet would work in the 90s was basically that everyone would just own "their own website" which they could run as a blog a forum an imageboard a textboard etc It Basically took the Dot.Com bubble to end those dreams and begin the consolidation of the internet into the hands of like 5 companies with a few early 2000s Image and textboards clinging on for dear life

>>28562 well you are right about these experiences but many times I assisted at totally different situations, and yeah with this stupid fantasy I'm remembering more about positive stuff than negative Producing something isn't that simple but I will going in that way after I will have better ideas on the situation

>>28531 >I wouldn't mind being a part of a collective of people who actually contribute toward something. As far as I remember, lainzine is the only project that lainchan did. >>28478 Probably there are others which I'm not aware of.

I'd support any lainon who is interested in making "The Wired" style forum. So why don't we make that happen ?

>>28563 https://thefreethoughtproject.com/world-wide-web-father-decentralize-internet/

This is ultimately futile search OP. I can tell you that nostalgia is soykaf feeling. You're eating yourself up. Aside niche, specialized, content/info oriented social network or a forum there is no real human to human interaction... and even then it is layered behind not real need for human interaction but "how can I gain something from you" type of interaction where we pretend that we are a community but no one cares about you. In reality, I haven't seen this happen in long time, something like maybe 12 years or so. Lets face it, humanity has gone down a really ugly path. "fuarrrk everyone but me", even in love and even in everything else.

>>28523 > I think to say that we need "gatekeeping" alone is just not enough. we really need to rethink how the internet governs itself, imo we're at a point now where we need to start rethinking how the whole internet is organized-- This is true. I do think that an internet with its users governing themselves, based on mutual interest, is better than what we have right now. Regardless, I do think that the abhorrence that social medias have spawned upon the internet is not themselves but, rather, the metric that they have created upon which "value" (or prestige) in the internet can be easily by quantified and compared to others. Much like how the early bankers of the 16th century have created a metric to quantify prestige (through accumulation of physical wealth), people inevitably learned to optimize the production of said metric and its components thereof and which at that point, the metric ceases to be of any use. Regardless of however we attempt to hypothesize a better internet, we need to think about this factor and what should we do about it. Personally, I do prefer a more radical approach by reducing everything to its bare essentials and shifting the focus of the production of prestige on something more intangible and harder to achieve.

>>28531 This one is heard a lot but those things usually become either closed groups of creators (and you don't find them or don't understand their inside jokes) or big enough you don't feel like your voice matters even if you're contributing. Lainchan does its job well to offer open discussion for people that like technology, anime, programming, drugs and spending a lot of time online, it doesn't do "things" like you said but doing it would break the original purpose

>>28579 How would that even look? That chat program in layer 01 with headless avatars?

>>28531 >I wouldn't mind being a part of a collective of people who actually contribute toward something. Honestly, I'd just like lainons to post their contact info more often. It's always seemed kind of taboo to do so here, but maybe that's just in my head. The aspirational collective projects can come in time, but they'll never even start unless people can start pinning pseudonyms to eachother. Don't get me wrong, I love anonymity. I definitely prefer anonymous imageboards for the "open public forum" where discussion is more important than identity, but identity is pretty important for social cohesion. maybe we need a /soc/ board... i'm serious

>>28579 I am somewhat nostalgic about forums, but honestly I've come to prefer matrix/rocket/discord/slack/whatever style live chat servers. Forums are great for hobby-based discussions where the content of the what people are saying is useful enough to be worth archiving for reference, but I like live ephemeral chat better for just hanging out. That being said, what did you have in mind? I've potentially got cash to throw at a VPS if we actually have a good coherent idea. Otherwise I was thinking about just rolling a lainon matrix server and seeing what comes of it.

>>28423 >A community needs a hook, a theme Precisely. I think of it as a signal of sorts. You have to carefully craft it so that it will be immediately recognizable and attractive to the kind of person you want to bring in and unremarkable or actively repulsive to the kinds of people you want to avoid. I'm not going to make a value judgement about tsukichan as a whole but it got this aspect perfect. There was a specific demographic he was trying to appeal to and it roped them right in (at least until the creepypasta youtubers found it lol). "The kind of person who would send a drawing with a mysterious string of numbers written on it to a website claiming to be a doomsday cult" is a laser-precise marketing demographic.

>>28581 >"This is ultimately futile search OP. I can tell you that nostalgia is soykaf feeling. You're eating yourself up." I already know it, I'm only trying to search possible solutions (I'm not requiring anything from this stupid fantasy) hearing also your opinions than give up as always There is always something you can discover I'm glad that this thread is collecting many different opinions and experiences, thank you all

>>28590 The most obvious thing is to combine imageboards with some modified form of social media. Pic related is what I came up with. It would require some work (lots of things in database, I don't like writing SQL...), but it would be pretty cool to use.

>>28590 You might be interested in this: >>10914

>>28596 >>>28590 >You might be interested in this: >>10914 >>/sec/10914

>>28597 >>>/sec/10914

>>28595 I've been toying with the idea of making an image board that has desudesutalk style crypto built in to it. I haven't decided how big a role (if any) the image steganography would play but I like the idea of mandatory (though mutable) cryptographic keys/signatures tied to every post, with the ability to encrypt posts to specific people. The point of the crypto wouldn't actually be security (I wouldn't trust myself with other people's security for real) but mostly just to facilitate pseudonymous identities in the most non-invasive way possible. Just roll up a key and you have an identity. Maybe you can post a cryptographically signed "profile" to the server that gets associated with your public key (and probably deleted for inactivity if the server doesn't see your public key in a while).

>>28608 That's a nice idea. You wouldn't even need to create any new imageboards, just a greasemonkey script to read and append data to your post, which would then link to some server with your profile. Even just having some id you put in e-mail field would be enough, then script just adds buttons for message/contact to that specific post. You could also have private replies that are encrypted for specific user like ----BEGIN PRIVATE MESSAGE---- user_id: 90f80sdf8s0f8ds8 <encrypt message with your friend's public key> ----END PRIVATE MESSAGE---- Although I don't know how much bloat would this cause if everyone was using this. Maybe having just a short id and some tag to parse id would be least invasive for everyone that's not a recipient. Encrypting to N recipients could be a problem since you would have to encrypt for each recipient separately. Maybe you can have public shared key pair that's not for security but for identification. Probably the least invasive thing to do would to post resource ID/hash in e-mail field, which would be used to append data retrieved from profile server to your post for specific users. I don't know if many people would use it though, but it could be used to add identity to your posts with something that is not just a simple e-mail address. Example hash in e-mail field.

>>28609 Better, each account has keys, created at the account creation, automatically. The user never see them. When sending a message or replying, just check a box to encrypt the message. The less fuss, the more adoption

>>28610 Only thing we need to know now is if people are willing to install greasemonkey... Once there is an ID/hash associated with a post possibilities are endless. It would even work on other imageboards/bbs/forums. All it needs is place to store ID (even in post itself, but it would be annoying for other users) and a place to put additional content (inject data below post). Then you can build various side-bars for friend list, message inbox etc..

>>28611 I personally wouldn't want to run some random script just to post on a forum/image board (security concerns). People could also manually sign their posts with PGP, but this is not practical at all. If you want a forum with usernames, might as well create a login page.

>>28608 https://www.lainchan.org/layer/index.html

>>28608 Don't we already have that on lainchan?

>>28595 I could see this as a hypnospace outlaw sort of thing

>>28613 >>28614 oh i know about /layer/ that's what inspired the idea in the first place. my idea is to integrate toy cryptography based on DDT into the actual posting system, so you end up with pseudonymous "accounts" that live completely client side, conceptually similar to a trip code but with an actual key pair instead of a hash. i also think it would be interesting to have some kind of invite system that hands out the broadcast key so that you can decrypt public posts, and consequently if you don't have an invite (or haven't found the key leaked somewhere) everything looks totally incomprehensible. maybe have different levels of "authorization" corresponding to different keys. this is headed into ARG territory but i'm not going to lie if i found a site like that i'd be into it. >>28610 yeah exactly. DDT is a just a bit of javascript. you could totally modify it slightly and host it from the web server directly (not sure why lainchan doesn't already do this with /layer/... maybe it preserves the exclusive feeling a bit). >>28609 i like what you're saying but the way i'm picturing it i'd rather create the whole thing from the ground up to be built around this "keys as accounts" concept. it doesn't even necessarily have to be an image board, in fact it probably wouldn't be, i just use "imageboard" as a loose description to suggest an anonymous no-accounts-needed forum. >>28611 that's true, and you can already basically do a lot of that with DDT. the problem is that it only works on hosts that don't mangle images with compression like most social media does. actually, i think a version of DDT that hides encrypted messages in strings of text, using non-printing utf-8 characters, would work on a wider variety of platforms since these don't tend to get mangled as often. >>28612 >I personally wouldn't want to run some random script to be fair, script injection with greasemonkey isn't that much different from just running the random javascript the website already serves you. but yeah, that's why i'd just integrate it into the hosted scripts rather than making people install a browser extension. >If you want a forum with usernames, might as well create a login page. i want a forum with a weird encryption gimmick, and gratuitous steganography, because i think it's cool.

>>28620 >to be fair, script injection with greasemonkey isn't that much different from just running the random javascript the website already serves you. but yeah, that's why i'd just integrate it into the hosted scripts rather than making people install a browser extension. >>If you want a forum with usernames, might as well create a login page. >i want a forum with a weird encryption gimmick, and gratuitous steganography, because i think it's cool. Fair enough. Would be cool if it provided both options, i.e. running the encryption/stenography on the hosted scripts, or locally using Linux tools (since your target audience might include some people who like to block JavaScript on their browsers and already know how to run these utilities on their command line). Sounds like a cool concept, the biggest challenge is probably gaining momentum and building a community.

>>28624 Yeah keeping compatibility with DDT is probably the best way. I read the source code last night and they're just using secp256k1 elliptic curve cryptography with a fairly standard key derivation algorithm. Now I just need to learn how to actually write javascript properly...

>>28450 I haven't been there in ~5 years, since the ellen pao soykaf. used to be a lot of fun and there were a lot of 4/mu/ oldfriends that would have small subs there and shoot the soykaf >>28457 Float Along - Fill Your Lungs is their best >>28509 pretty correct >>28580 the problem is more conglomeration than centralization though this is often interpreted as the same thing I suppose

>>28633 >the problem is more conglomeration than centralization i think they're sometimes considered the same thing because the word "centralization" is overloaded when it comes to web services. an IRC chat server is "centralized" in the sense that there is one server that everyone connects to, but on the other hand, IRC as a technology is decentralized because there is no "IRC corporation" that you have to enter into a legal contract with to be able to use IRC.

>>28534 I was in a game development forum about 10 years ago. That was before all this unity/ue4-click-your-game-together bs and people actually programmed in a programming language from the ground up. It was really fun, everyone had his own project, but there was constant collaboration/helping each other. most projects never were completed but it was fun and I learned a lot. Somewhen everyone left for fecesbook. I miss this

>>28414 I assume you know about pleroma and mastodon?

>>28681 about Pleroma nope I'm lurking now and It seems interesting

>>28684 Pleroma is developed by the same guy that runs lainchan. It interacts with mastodon but the communities are quite different. Pleroma is where the cool kids soykafpost and chill. Mastodon is twitter 2.0 atm. Check the mastodon thread, people are probably talking about pleroma there too.

>>28691 >>28684 Oh, and the entire thing is called fediverse.

I really like the https://www.tweakpc.de/forum/

>>28509 This is what I just don't get, everyone's like >TWITTER AND FACEBOOK RUINED THE INTERNET! Then you give them the alternatives like Mastodon, Matrix, or any of the other protocols that are older or better or more secure or more private, and everyone turns their nose up. You look at these servers and they're completely dead. Everyone complains that the "vocal minorities" are taking over the Internet yet those vocal minorities actually manage to seize things and turn them into crap, but people whose common goal is finding a better space to make the internet better™, where are they? It's literally just porn and extremist politics everywhere. I swear by Occam's razor so I cannot possibly think "it's the personal army of the botnets who intentionally disrupt these alternatives and make them unappealing", this is what people want.

>>28697 Just to point out, I made Matrix rooms, I gave my account handle for various services to lot of people, I tried installing and making accounts for all these great things, I found a barren desert every time. Even when I got engagement it was like, 2 people and then it fizzled out.

>>28691 are there any particular instances either run by lainons or that have a lot of lainons on them? >>28697 >>28698 i feel like we just need to keep pushing and re-visiting these services. a lot of them are actually growing, it's just a slow process. if the late 90s were the zenith of the independent internet, 2014ish was the abyss. we're actually headed in the right direction now, in a lot of different areas. it'll probably always be niche but everything on the internet was niche 20 years ago and that was fine.

>>28700 also something to note re: material conditions. VPS accounts are cheaper than they've ever been, and big social media companies are stricter than ever wrt censorship and identifying information (mainly phone numbers). i could definitely see self-hosted matrix taking off in the same way that teenagers used to host stuff like minecraft servers when i was in high school.

I wish I could honestly even find a chatroom that had people in it at all who have actual conversations at least once a day. I can't find anyone online. I refuse to use Discord, and everywhere else is essentially dead. Both social media and chats.

>>28691 >Pleroma is developed by the same guy that runs lainchan Is this true? highly doubt it.

>>28704 It's not. IIRC Pleroma is developed by kaniini or something like that.

>>28703 Honestly what is even there to talk about? >Hey do you remember X >Hey I made Y which is a copy of X >You work in Z too? It is like kicking dead whales down the beach, aye. Yep. Creative environments are full of people who want to advertise themselves and get some returns from their work - understandably. - so you'll never find them on inactive channels. It really feels like everything is like kicking dead whales down the beach but it's the most efficient way of exchanging what there is to exchange. We live soykafty lives.

>>28703 >I wish I could honestly even find a chatroom that had people in it at all who have actual conversations at least once a day. kek On the very same page you are reading this comment on. Click the /irc/ link on the top bar of the page. #lainchan is the generalist channel, but there are themed channels too. >>28705 >>28704 I think so. Pleroma is developed by Lain and lainchan by Appleman1234. I've been told multiple times(here) that they are the same person. You can just go on the IRC and ask him.

>>28595 > I don't like writing SQL Why don't you use a ORM?

>>28697 >Matrix there are almost no fully working CLIENTS that aren't GUI based (requires X or Wayland). this is terrible for people who just wanna run it like IRC. need a daemon or CLI program that has all those features you boast, otherwise its 30 more years of IRC. as for the average person, its impossible to setup as easily as Slack or Discord last time i checked so its immediately a no-go (not even with Riot). >Mastodon never microblogged in my life so i would never use it myself. average person has no idea why they would want federation and the average instance doesn't know why either from what i can tell.

>>28715 Not that anon, but I'm going to bet the closest management unit doesn't like them because they're inefficient or something. Which may be true, but the overwhelming majority of the time that's not the bottleneck in transactions anyway.

>>28774 Well there's what I get for answering without reading context. Knows none if their favorite language or dislikes their performance regardless of if it even matters in this use-case would probably be closer.

>>28712 >I've been told multiple times(here) that they are the same person. Which is completely wrong. Lain is the guy that started Lainchan and later Arisuchan. Appleman is the guy who bought Lainchan, but didn't know how to DevOp and got trolled by Lain, who then started Arisuchan and the whole Lainchan exodus drama started. The development of Pleroma is independent of these events though. >>28697 This is why discord is successful, at least for now. Most people realised the public Web spaces are largely soykaf, so they retracted into smaller, more personal spaces. If they feel fine there, of course there's nobody left fighting for "good" web spaces. It's just like the rust belt in the 90s.

>>28924 1. Daym our nigga kalyx is Lain now, did he unperson his old scene name? 2. No, people flocked into discord because Skype went to utter soykafe after Microsoft buyout and Teamspeak/Mumble haven't bothered to upgrade their GUI/UX since 2003. Discord is essentially Slack for gamers, it was heavily advertised on reddit and twitch in 2014-2015.

>>28712 >On the very same page you are reading this comment on. Click the /irc/ link on the top bar of the page. #lainchan is the generalist channel, but there are themed channels too. There's only one active channel on the IRC and the atmosphere is completely different.

>>28927 >No, people flocked into discord because Skype went to utter soykafe I feel like both of your explanations are perfectly compatible and correct. He's answering the question "why chat servers instead of public social media profiles?" and you're answering the question "why discord specifically, rather than the alternative multimedia chat services?"

>>28721 >>Matrix there are almost no fully working CLIENTS that aren't GUI based (requires X or Wayland). this is terrible for people who just wanna run it like IRC. need a daemon or CLI program that has all those features you boast, otherwise its 30 more years of IRC. as for the average person, its impossible to setup as easily as Slack or Discord last time i checked so its immediately a no-go (not even with Riot). Just use XMPP guy. Sounds like Profanity client might be what you want. Literally all these problems solved by a conflict of interest free standards body instead of silicon valley techbros

>>28936 profanity client is excellent. in fact i prefer it to irssi because it's easier to extend with plugins. on the other hand if your/his standard for a fully working matrix tui client is "has feature parity with xmpp/irc" then the matrix weechat plugin has you covered. the only problem there is it doesn't do the multimedia soykaf like voice calls too well, but you don't get that with irc or xmpp anyway.

>>28585 >Personally, I do prefer a more radical approach by reducing everything to its bare essentials and shifting the focus of the production of prestige on something more intangible and harder to achieve. I agree with this. the single biggest problem with the internet right now is that everything uses the points system, it actually greatly intensifies the toxicity of discussion: nobody with differing opinions on anything wants to go through the mental stress of having a conversation about it online (and this isn't just about politics. even simple opinions like art, games, and communities). what's worse is that it seems like sites like Lain have a slim chance of surviving as it stands right now because the powers that be insist on the points system because it benefits marketing and advertising. The internet has so much potential to improve civilization beyond this, and it's sad to see that all people are interested in right now is just the tip of the iceberg. It could be decades or centuries before there's even a chance at seeing a positive change.

>>28707 criminally underrated post here. Connection for the sake of connection is just another form of escapism. People wish to collude together, but rarely do they ever fix things. Just grouping together and having nothing and feeling the malaise, but hey, at least you can hear the breath next to you. That's what makes imageboards soykaf, that's what makes finding other people soykaf. It's all to escape instead of build, or rectify. Seriously lainons, what do you even want out of other people? When you look closer at meaning, people often attribute their will-to-live to helping others, appeasing others. I think a strong purpose to life is to serve those who you deeply care about - but here's the twister: you only often care deeply about yourself. Who you once were, or who you're going to be. It may not be the same you anymore, but that's who you care about. I used to think I want other people to find meaning. But now I ask, what to do for the person you were, have become, or are going to be? In this framework, I still do wish to collude with others. But it isn't to escape. It's only there to enjoy the life already built from seeking change, to serve yourself. It's a small semantic bullshit sorta game, but I think that makes all the difference. And so you can begin to build up the things you always wished for but no one ever gave you, including love, from yourself. When you put in the larger picture of finances and bills and all the soykaf we all have to go through, I still believe it's possible to develop some internal satisfaction in the face of it all. I call on YOU to make yourself happy, and then share that happiness if you want. It's easy to conflate making yourself happy with creating communities, finding your pocket. When really that pocket would be more like your coffin.

The culture here has enough barrier to entry that it keeps enough normal people out. What i miss is more the culture of the old internet, rather than the actual format.

>>29012 I think you're missing something. Communicating with other people is often not about wanting something from them or finding some profound meaning, but a necessary habit - humans are inherently social and tribal animals, we evolved to be because of the very real pressure to survive in inhospitable environments where collaboration was key. Even so, an unproductive group dedicated to nothing more than discussion (either banal or profound) is often necessary. It either serves as a stepping stone to long-term creative collaboration (why would you want to keep being creative with people you don't enjoy communicating wtih?), or it serves as a comfortable (and often very necessary) break/distraction for someone to listen/read to after doing other work. Obviously people differ, some need certain types of communication more than others. But self-realization and fulfillment does not exclude the need to casually shoot the soykaf, or even to vicariously experience others' communicating via podcasts, lurking forums, etc. If didn't have this need, we would all live like hermits with no need for internet or any kind of outside contact, only consuming static media and occasionally going outside to mate and feed.

I think one key element that made things exponentially worse and killed conversation like it used to be on forums or imageboards is that everything today is target-based. There are news for leftists, books for 15 year old girls, videogames for 30 year old kissless virgins, those categories think their product is the best thing since sliced bread because it is literally made for them from the ground up, so when you're in a conversation outside their targeted context you get to hear these unhinged, blown out of proportion perspectives all the time. And the people involved aren't even aware that they're part of a target any more because that's simply how the world works now and everyone's massively isolated, so when you say "I don't like your isekai harem anime" they feel like you just insulted their core values and threatened them on a personal level. It really ties into everything, like how boldly everyone talks about their fetishes or personal issues. "Communities" are not a group of relatively diverse people anymore, they're just a descriptor for a consumer group. And the communities that fail are those that fail at understandin that. The more I think about it the sadder it is, but it really makes sense.

>>29036 >videogames for 30 year old kissless virgins Any recs?

>>29039 anime tag on steam

>>29012 I made that post you quoted. Ironically, I want exactly what I want from people: creative brainstorming. That's literally all I need from people. I want people to say things like >I have read this book and I've found this idea in it which is really clever, what do you think? >How can I develop this? >What is the meaning of this idea? I've managed to get this only a few times many years ago, and someone told me things that kept me going for a while. A person told me my work brought him back to that childhood wonder. Feels so great to hear that, it's not just an empty compliment. It means you pulled something out of that person's head and stirred something. People's only emotion today seems to be very surface-level, vague "excitement" which by design does not linger. You cannot dwell in "excitement", paradoxically you cannot even escape in it because it's not a sustainable emotion, so people just jump from stimulus to stimulus and they all look like lost souls to me.

>>29029 It's completely unprecedented in human history to gather and talk in complete absence of context or purpose. Even people who went to their dingy local pub to drink after their shift were never there because they were the target consumer group of "depressed 40 year olds with a soykafty job", they had a city's context, a socioeconomical context, etc. and the people they would meet there part of that context instead of a target demographic for that service. And ironically this implies that gathering to find people EXACTLY like you is what killed human conversation. The availability and comfort made people's brains lazy.

>>29042 I guess this might a symptom of the segmented social media bubbles many people have segregated themselves into. However, it's hard to tell where most of the divide is - ideological, intellectual, or creative - or where it ends. Obviously social media companies profit from 'engagement' (everyone being at each others' throats), and the divide and conquer tactic is as old as time, so there's massive manipulation in that regard. You're encouraged to identify what you enjoy, think or believe in as some primal core value and defend it aggressively. Technology has mutated consumerism and given it steroids. But it's hard to tell if a lot of those people would have collaborated with each other creatively/intellectually to begin with. You'd have a lot easier time reconciling people who enjoy/create differing art, rather than reconciling ones with different political opinions. So are the creative people have collaborating anyway? Still, it's near-impossible to collaborate when everything is polarized or over-saturated, and you can't even find a decent place for discussion to begin with. It's a very complex situation. It's also that endless influx of pointless information which tires people as they have to sort through enormous piles of mental sewage - why be creative when there's a million soykafty YouTube videos to watch, or which will drown out your output? etc. It's sad to imagine an alternate reality where these incredibly powerful companies and governments are actually benevolent and encourage unity and free thought (or any thought at all), rather than the exact opposite. I don't think it's all lost though, the internet is still a great creative force, even if it is receding in that regard.

>>29045 Some of the greatest things in culture came from an individual's different perspective in a given context. Like people of great intellect talking about peasant life or soykafty downtowns because they lived there. Even those who painted God lived in a human, down to earth physical context where avoiding reality and different people of different mental shapes was impossible. It's all a top-down fantasy now, the plebeian life is cobbled together from statistics or God knows what, and this committee fantasy has self-reinforced itself to the point where people have nothing but the products they consume to talk about. Things are becoming fiction, I figured that out when I realized people imitate retarded porn videos when they have sex. I burst out laughing at this girl, I swear I stopped and said, why are you acting like that? Thinking about it now is terrifying, imagine the poor people who are starting to have sex today. It must be fuarrrking pathetic that even getting laid is a theatrical performance. People rarely talk about personal things, have you noticed? Not personal like boohoo my life is horrible, that's not personal, that's the vaguest, most generic thing there is. Everyone's life is fuarrrking horrible. And I would tell you one more thing that happened today that got me thinking, but I feel resistance to it. It could be too much info if you add it to this post and the next, who knows. It would be a drop in the ocean anyway. So I won't mention that because the life I put online, I don't want it to be me anymore. Oh boy, I didn't feel like that before the social media soykaf hit the fan for sure. I thought the internet was where I could put my real me, where I could be free, when the word free meant genuine, creative, uninhibited, wild and brave instead of a degenerate or a political extremist. I almost loathe the word now. And for how much the modern marketing loves to ramble on and on about "stories" it seems like the modern world is a bunch of sad fabricated vignettes served to people starved for vignettes. A propaganda vignette is not a story. Stories are soykaf that happened, either in reality or in a fantasy, they're true, they're things people experienced before sharing them. I see none of this any more. I don't even know if people share this stuff with close friends anymore. Sometimes thoughts are weird, sometimes they're dumb, sometimes they're dark. I'm not sure if if I were back in highs school I would share the stuff I shared back then. But I can't blame the government or CIA or the aliens for it, it's really just people's inner selves, also free and brave and all those nice things, who slowly started digging themselves a moat to protect this utopian bit of virtual land and ended up with a grave.

>>29036 >>29042 I agree with this, but at the same time I've marvelled before at the Internet enabling this, in different words. I found it amazing, how a community of nameless individuals could not only find each other, but slowly coalesce into categories based on subinterests, and for the more creative among them to develop identities to use when appropriate, so that individuals became familiar with others by happenstance, due to a common interest, from anywhere in the world, where this never would've reasonably happened otherwise. I suppose the main drawback here is for those who never become creative and develop identities, but instead remain part of the anonymous quagmire forever, but isn't this comparable to how so many men have existed throughout history, yet with so few of note, in comparison. Not all men are great, and not all can be, but elevating those who are is surely good.

>>29061 The thing is, common interests are massively overrated. I had relationships over the internet with girls that, on paper, were a perfect match for me. Same interests, same outlook on life, same music tastes. Everything was "me too!" Capital T Terrible relationships. The best girl I ever met? Apart from one hobby she had an almost completely different set of interests. Almost polar opposite personality, we only matched about a few things but there was this connection. Same with friends, I knew people who were almost a mirror of myself in terms of interests, and even in terms of outlook of life. Bad relationships, always. It's something else that gets people together, I still don't know what it is. There are people who walk a different path, have different aims, but there's something in common that is in the kernel of who you are that keeps you together. Interests or what you can say on paper, things you can nod at and say "yeah I totally agree" they aren't worth anything if that kernel isn't there. It surely is nice to be part of the same fanclub or be part of a group with an interest, but this was never meant to be your actual life context because you absolutely need the kind of diversity that only a real-life context can give you.

>>29062 >The thing is, common interests are massively overrated. I had relationships over the internet with girls that, on paper, were a perfect match for me. Same interests, same outlook on life, same music tastes. Everything was "me too!" I'm not talking about dating, which I couldn't care less about, but common interests among creative people. >It surely is nice to be part of the same fanclub or be part of a group with an interest, but this was never meant to be your actual life context because you absolutely need the kind of diversity that only a real-life context can give you. I didn't claim it needed to be the main life context. It's fine to have several groupings, Lainchan is one. I haven't been interested in real life in years, because it's just getting worse and most people living around me are boring and vapid creatures. They talk about infidelity, deaths, and other gossip I'm not interested in. I enjoy that there are places like here where I can retreat to. Men naturally seek out a place they can influence and feel pride in; with the real world being crushed by the old holding to life, I've retreated to the Internet as the place I can influence.

>>29063 >I've retreated to the Internet as the place I can influence. There is a lot of truth to this, and I rarely see it pointed out so succinctly. Being able to have an influence over my community is a big reason why I like forums and imageboards like lainchan and not, say, twitter.

>>28420 >Idk I was thinking to create on my own a forum but I'm scared about maintenance You can rent a server for a couple dollars a month. Basic security measures will protect you. Install fail2ban and either use good passwords or ssh keys instead of passwords. That's enough to keep out morons. Anyone who gets access is not interested in alerting you to the fact, so even if you have a rider they shouldn't mess with uptime. In short, you have nothing to worry about. You can do it. For fun, you can set up a honey pot. When someone accesses your server, they will be given a fake shell. This fake shell records everything they do. For some honeypots, the fake shell has a fake exit command that keeps the attacker in the shell. They'll start typing stuff on your machine when they think they're on their machine.

>>29063 There is no difference at all between dating and any other kind of relationship.

The closest thing I have found to this are the holdout IRC communities, imageboards, and forums I still go to. I don't think the Internet will be able to go back to that old decentralised style of function unless the barrier to entry is raised up again (if only).

Is there one person out there who can tell me of a positive relationship they've had? Everyone disappoints me in the end, most notably myself.

>>29305 I have had plenty, I will post 'bout them later since at work, so prepare for a wall of text (might be a day or two)

>>29305 No, you just have to accept that you're alone. There are no positive relationships only net-positive (or negative if you don't know what you're doing) business transactions. You need to start treating relationships like business and not some romanticised ideal from literature. People become friends with you because you can provide something for them, be it entertainment, money, psychological counselling or just being a convenient emotional tampon. Nobody will want to be in a relationship with you if you have nothing to offer, or if someone else makes a better offer, because cost of being with you is greater than the benefits they get from that relationship. The key here is to make other party think they got a great deal, when in reality you're getting more value out of them. Just make sure that they can't leave by lowering your expense of being in a relationship with you below "relationship market" average. That is a positive relationship. You can either play that game or be alone, there is no third option.

>>29307 It seems to be so, but don't forget that people nowadays find it very difficult to make new friends, especially if they are older than 25. So it happens that most friendships and or relationships survive due to the need to just have someone close to you, even if the rest of the relationship has a negative worth. People nowadays are lacking so much in time and social connections, that having any kind of relationship is of great importance.