daredevil

daredevil, hace 6 meses

Happy to hear you're getting some time in for yourself. The constant updates have been a joy, but downtime is important too.

daredevil, hace 6 meses

kbin has this -- the feature is called collections. https://kbin.social/magazines/collections

you can make public that others can follow, or private ones to make curated feeds for yourself.

daredevil, hace 6 meses

You mentioned a lot of things that I generally really enjoy about #kbin as well.

⭐ The admin @ernest is an incredibly hardworking, kind, supportive, and an all-around good person. This is my tip top most favorite thing because good leadership and communication is essential to a good and thriving community. Ernest is a star!

Same, he also gets bonus points for listening to, and implementing suggestions. Some of them have come quite quickly as well. These factors when combined have made me feel like I'm really a part of the community.

⭐ I enjoy making scripts/styles for kbin. kbin is the reason I began learning JS, HTML, and CSS. I am so happy I started learning, and it's all thanks to kbin.

Cheers to that, I actually use one of yours -- specifically the one that changes the layout of profile pages.

⭐ No malicious, tricky, over-calculated algorithm. It's very straight-forward and honest here. I love seeing a mix of upvoted/downvoted comments in comment sections too, rather than just top upvoted, because it makes me feel more apart of the conversation with everyone. Your contributions and thoughts won't get drowned out by upvoted witty remarks, that is truly unique to kbin (and maybe elsewhere on the fediverse?).

Agreed -- I think Mastodon also functions similarly. It makes #discoverability a bit challenging at times, but I'm open to experimenting with it.

⭐ kbin gives me the urge to contribute, interact, and create because our contributions have actual impact. Can't say the same for other sites. Everywhere else is lurk only.

Hard agree -- though it wears on me at times when I'm unable to get some engagement going after keeping at it for so long. I've changed my mindset about it a little while ago, so it's not too bad.

⭐ Tightknit but welcoming. kbin is small enough that I run into familiar people all the time, and I recognize usernames everywhere.

Agreed, and to add onto this -- profile pictures are pretty easily recognizable as well.

⭐ Authenticity. kbin is authentic and real. It's not pushing a product, not manipulating what you see, not building an ad profile. It is what a forum should be.

Yeah, adding on one of your points again -- it's very reminiscent of what #forums used to feel like. However, at the same time, it feels like something more due to the addition of #microblogging. #Microblogs may not be super popular on /kbin, but I think they're a stellar addition to the forum experience. I've had some nice back-and-forths with #Mastodon users from the comfort of /kbin's UI. I think there's more potential in what you can do with them, too.

daredevil, hace 6 meses

Do you have any favorites that have significantly improved your instance experience?

• @kbinDevlog -- transparency and continuous updates were probably the biggest thing for me. Thank you @Ernest.
• Transfer of abandoned magazines
• Request for magazine moderator
• #Collections
• Improved account and magazine deletion
• Anti-spam protections
• #Crosspost function

Regarding Collections: I'm wondering if it might be useful to allow transfer ownership of collections as well? Probably low priority, but this could be useful if:

• The owner becomes inactive

1. A #kbin magazine or #lemmy community becomes problematic + has inactive moderators
2. Other magazines/communities become more/less relevant over time, thus the collection needing adjustments

Re 1:

• Could be mitigated on kbin magazines due to magazine ownership transfers, however, may pose an issue on federated magazines from lemmy
• Also could be mitigated by the creation of a new collection, hence probably low priority

Re 2:

• Could be low priority in regard to certain magazines/communities becoming inactive over time, however, the chance to miss out on discussions and threads should possibly be considered
• However, this is also mitigated by also creating new collections -- I just think people generally like to avoid migrating when followings settle in.

Transferring collection ownership could also be excessive/unnecessary? Thoughts? Does the status of an official collection change automatically based on the user count?

Also regarding collections: After following a collection -- going to a collection's page and attempting to unfollow is described as "delete". This may give off the wrong impression to unfamiliar users. Perhaps "unfollow", or "unfavorite" may be better suited? I also wonder if it may be more appropriate to have favorited collections appear at the top of the collections view so users can quickly find the collections they follow in order to avoid being buried by the popular ones. This could also potentially be solved by giving subscribed collections its own tab in the navbar next to magazines? Is that perhaps too many tabs in the navbar?

Anyways, thank you so much Ernest. I know some people were unhappy about /kbin's development progress for awhile, but I'm really glad I stuck with it. Despite the challenges that came your way, watching you get back into the swing of things and /kbin's growth has been a joy to be a part of. The consistent communication and having our feedback be heard is also a big plus. As always, looking forward to what else is on the way.

Edit: Also, really glad to hear you're prioritizing sustainability, balance, and a strong foundation for the future. I hope you're able to get the support you're looking for, so you can give this project the time and effort you think it deserves. It's clear you care a lot about this project.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

I did not expect to see the #collections/#categories feature be implemented so quickly after mentioning it in only two threads ago. It's really exciting watching #kbin develop. However, when I tried making a private and public test case, both returned with 50x error. Even though some actions are successful despite showing this error, I couldn't find my attempts at using this feature under Settings > Collections or Magazines > Collections. Regardless, your work is certainly appreciated.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

Incredible. I can confirm it works now.

edit: I was going to make a public #collection for #kbin #updates, but you beat me to it. :)

Interested folks should favorite this below for a streamlined view of @kbindevlog and @kbinmeta

https://kbin.social/u/ernest/c/kbin

daredevil, hace 7 meses

Fascinating update. Microblogging seems to less important to /kbin users in my experience, but I find this aggregate view very useful. What is the fav change you're referring to? Bookmarks will be pretty handy--I've seen people asking for this a decent amount. I realize this is a test version, but it would be pretty cool if the aggregate view will allow one to combine magazines in the future. Not urgent of course, but it would really help alleviate how fragmented some communities feel at times. That being said, really impressed with the consistent communication and development on /kbin, Ernest. Looking forward to that next post of yours.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

Exciting stuff, thanks for your hard work.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

Sounds like you're laying a solid foundation -- glad to hear it. Looking forward to the update. Cheers, and thanks for your hard work.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

One of my favorite things about /kbin is that it utilizes threads and microblogs. In my experience thus far, users here seem rather shy. I don't hold it against anyone though, because I totally understand.

Federating content from the likes of Mastodon is very helpful for having discussions trickle in from the fediverse. I think it's also really helpful for establishing an ongoing daily discussion space so the thread feed isn't as cluttered. IMO, there's more potential beyond that, too (Think: drawing everyday for a month, photography-based posting/challenges while using tags for content organization, language-learning exercises, the list goes on...).The combination of threads with microblogs has shown me the power that lies behind content federation. As a result, /kbin is by far my favorite of the fediverse platforms so far.

I still have some minor issues with how it currently works. Currently, I believe the name of a magazine causes hashtags with the exact same string to federate content to that magazine. The magazine that matches the desired hashtag also takes priority, even when the hashtag isn't assigned in the magazine's settings. An issue with this is that if any subsequent magazines try to federate content using that hashtag, it won't be able to do so.

It seems as though microblogs can only federate content to either the magazine that matches the hashtag in question, or the magazine that uses the hashtag first. There's also an issue where a microblog that uses multiple hashtags will only federate content to the magazine with the first available tag. E.g. if someone writes an unused tag for the first, followed by #kbinmeta, then #fediverse third, the post would only go to the kbinmeta microblog section. It would be lovely for microblogs to be federated, or even mirrored across magazines (as in child comments/replies) that implement the same tag. Hopefully, this could also be done without adding excessive overhead to Ernest/the server. Perhaps even offer the ability to have a magazine choose to refuse federating tags that match the magazine's name.

There are also some minor issues with moderation federation, but I don't exactly want to specify here, because I'm worried it could be used maliciously.

That being said, I can't wait to see how /kbin will mature.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

Microblogs on /kbin are essentially short-form posts. There are times where microblogs revolve around a specific topic, but this is not always necessary. On /kbin, they are generally associated with keywords (hashtags) that allow a microblog to be sent to a magazine that targets/accepts the tag, which then appears in the microblog feed. However, on Mastodon/Twitter, you can simply write posts that get grouped with the posts of other users or your own previous posts without replying to a specific original post.

Writing microblogs and utilizing tagged keywords allows people to search for the information the writer deems fundamental to the topic they're writing about. This enhances discoverability and reduces noise, as you are able to quickly browse any and all posts that are specifically tagged with those keywords.

For example, the @cats magazine will have an influx of posts on Saturdays from Mastodon instances which are tagged with #caturday. Writing microblogs in this way makes it so creating a thread every Saturday in @cats isn't necessary. This has a nice side effect of minimizing the need for megathreads that were found on Reddit.

Additionally, you can also search for (and click on) #japanesepractice to review exercises that I have completed in the past. There are additional posts in the @learnjapanese magazine that would not include this information. By using this tag, you can access the posts that specifically pertain to my studies.

This is in contrast to /kbin threads, where the content of the thread is the centralizing topic of discussion as opposed to the keywords.

For example: our replies are centered around what the OP has asked instead of any keywords in the original post or subsequent replies. However, /kbin is more unique than typical forums, as we can #tag the comments to achieve a similar functionality to microblogs. Honestly, I would like to see this feature be utilized more, but ç'est la vie.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

I empathize, as I've spent quite some time trying to learn about content federation trying to manage my own magazines. However, /kbin is younger than its Mastodon/Lemmy counterparts, while trying to provide a unique space that allows for both types of content to exist on the same platform. While there are things that need to be resolved, I'm quite satisfied with the recent update, personally.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

Cheers, happy to help. The energy in this post is heartwarming as well. Thank you for the update, as well as your hard work.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

I've taken care of it. 🙂

daredevil, hace 7 meses

Congrats on pushing out the update! Liking what I see so far. Can't wait to see what else is in store.

edit: I mentioned this in a separate thread, but I was wondering if we'll also be getting a changelog from yourself or another user? The posts have been very nice to have, but I wouldn't want to impose an unnecessarily large workload onto a single person.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

I'd love to see a changelog, and I'm sure others would love to as well.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

Life can throw difficult challenges our way, but it's great to hear you're in a better place now. Excited for the upcoming update. Sending good vibes, too. The minor devlog posts will also be reassuring moving forward. It's nice to see the thought process behind problems that arise, as well as approaches and solutions.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

Very excited to see that updates are being communicated on a regular basis. Looking forward to what else is in store down the line.

daredevil, hace 7 meses

I hope things get better; looking forward to the infrastructure and devlog updates as well!

daredevil, hace 9 meses

If hiccups are a once in awhile thing, that doesn't sound too bad, I suppose. I've been enjoying learning about Linux, and I could see troubleshooting Arch being fun. Though that's probably because I haven't experienced what a bad break could be like. However, I'll look into Debian+KDE, thanks for the recommendation.

daredevil, hace 9 meses

Wayland is indeed a priority, I appreciate the insight. Your reply has given me some useful food for thought. I was also interested in Endeavour as well, but I may try toughing it out with Gnome a bit longer and keep looking into this.

daredevil, hace 9 meses

Actually, the UI is alright in it's default state. Those extensions do look interesting though. I generally like using the super key to search for some programs, while opening others with the CLI. I also liked switching between active applications through this interface + arrow keys as well. Though I did have an issue with trying to navigate between programs if the program I wanted was on the other monitor. I also struggled with alt+tabbing between multiple windows of Firefox, for example. Though now that I think about it, that could potentially be resolved with utilizing workspaces better. I had issues with notifications, particularly Thunderbird and Rhythmbox. The notifications would take priority as the active window, and temporarily disable the input for whatever I was working on prior to its appearance. I tried enabling Do Not Disturb mode, disabling notifications for specific programs, and killing xfce4-notifyd through the CLI. Killing xfce-notifyd sort of helped, but would cause a weird notification that still messed with my active window. Currently, If I want to continue working or playing whatever I was using before, I have to alt+f4 the notification, which is rather cumbersome when I get an email or the song changes. Perhaps the solution is to set another shortcut to close the active window. That said, it's rather unfortunate, because LM Cinnamon seemed to handle these notifications in the same way, while being less obtrusive.

daredevil, hace 9 meses

Yeah, that's understandable, which is why I'm not currently opposed to staying with Gnome for the time being. However, Cinnamon also had the option to tile windows horizontally, as well as sectioning the screen into 1/4ths. It's not the most necessary feature, but I do miss it when I'm not on the Cinnamon session. The Extension Manager app sounds useful, though I've been steering clear of them due to the complaints I've read regarding their tendency to break. I'll look into it, thanks.

I had a feeling that xfce-notifyd was something not native to Gnome. To be honest, I don't remember installing the Gnome Wayland session, but noticed it at the login screen awhile back. I logged into it using the same login that I use for my LM Cinnamon session; I've heard this is not ideal, and this issue is probably one of the reasons why. For the record, I've also previously tried installing a LM xfce session, so that is perhaps the cause for its appearance. This conversation has me wondering if there's a proper way to reduce any goofy stuff I may have done because of experimenting with DEs. I don't mind looking into it myself, but would also appreciate any insight as you seem familiar with Gnome.

daredevil, hace 9 meses

But if you intend to use KDE with wayland, good luck. It’s quite stable but still not there. It might have made me lose some hair over things that weren’t working as expected - whereas on GNOME it was all smooth.

This is very useful information, thank you. I'll keep looking into GNOME.

daredevil, hace 9 meses

Your issues with xfce-notifyd don’t make a lot of sense. Therefore, I wouldn’t dismiss the thought that you might have tarnished your GNOME Wayland session.

Yeah, based on another reply in this thread, I seem to have botched things. I've already started ensuring I have the proper backups in place for reformatting my boot drive.

Perhaps consider Fedora this time

I certainly will. Thanks for the recommendation. This distro seemed to be the one most often recommended while I was looking around just now. I will also be looking into extensions as well.

Sway and Hyprland

Window managers have piqued my interest in the past. Currently, I think I'll focus on GNOME, but I agree with looking into these one at a time if GNOME ends up not suiting my needs.

the skills required are linearly correlated with the complexity of the system

That's good to know, I really agree with Arch's philosophy of focusing on simplicity. I don't have much experience with containers, tbh. However, I'm not opposed to learning about them. That said, I have done a little bit of reading regarding them in the past, and why they might be useful.

Question: Is there any reason why you seem to gravitate towards rolling release distros?

WRT Arch: it grabbed my interest because having the option for the most current updates sounded appealing. It may not be necessary, but if the situation arises and it would help, I'd like to have it. The Arch wiki has also been a big incentive, as well as the AUR. If I'm not mistaken, Arch is also a distro that allows me to pick and choose aspects of my operating system with intention as opposed to having a system that comes with stuff that I don't use or need.

WRT TW: As Arch grabbed my interest initially, I was worried about whether it may cause too many issues down the line. So, I read that BTRFS was useful for snapshotting and preventing accidents, while still enjoying the benefits of a rolling release distro. I suppose it comes down to having the option to choose from more current software updates, while having the security of native BTRFS support and snapshots. I was also looking at TW because it was a distro that supported KDE, but I'm learning from this thread that KDE is not ideal if I'm looking for a Wayland session.

‘Skill-ceiling’ is (surprisingly enough) grossly the same on Linux Mint and Arch, it’s the ‘skill-floor’ in which there’s a (significant) discrepancy between the two.

Whoops, lol. I'll chalk this up to being tired.

daredevil, hace 9 meses

Which you’re free to benefit from regardless of which distro you end up installing as long as an Arch container offered[...]

Other distros like Debian, Fedora and openSUSE (to name a few) do offer similar functionality on specific ISOs (or just as an option in the YaST installer for openSUSE).

This information is definitely useful for me to keep in mind, thank you.

That’s perhaps a bit too harsh on KDE Plasma without giving it an honest shot first. Don’t let others’ opinion on the matter deter your willingness to genuinely explore, experience and judge for yourself 😉. Furthermore, it’s important to note that the development of Wayland has accelerated (relatively) recently. Therefore, the issues of others might have already been resolved since.

Valid reminder. I'll keep an open mind, and try things out for myself. Cheers.

daredevil, hace 9 meses

Installing different DEs as the same user is pretty much guaranteed to create conflicts and generally should be avoided. It’s always best to create a new user account for each different DE you want to try out so that it doesn’t screw anything up.

This has been a good first-hand experience. I'll keep this in mind moving forward.

daredevil, hace 9 meses

if you keep your setup simple

I would prefer this. 😊

I had much worse time trying to debug Debian-based distros, as they’re much more complex and hard to understand

That's interesting. This thread has piqued my interest wrt Debian, so this will be a useful bit of information to consider moving forward.

If you need additional security for your install if it’s critical, consider setting up snapshots.

I am a bit familiar with snapshots--I have them set up on my current setup and have used them to recover from mistakes in the past. I'll be looking into them more as there's probably some good stuff out there that I don't know about yet. Thanks.

daredevil, hace 10 meses

Mods seem to be fairly inactive as well. Pretty unfortunate.

daredevil, hace 9 meses

I'm aware. I don't think that reply is really necessary of a tag as I'm sure you and I both know he's busy. This problem is fairly common among kbin native magazines as well and not limited to the federated ones where Ernest is assigned as the owner and moderator. And yes, I'm also aware that it's something Ernest has talked about and plans to address. I'm not hating, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still an unfortunate situation.

daredevil, hace 11 meses

Linux Mint Cinnamon has been nice to pick up for me.

daredevil, hace 11 meses

This is really interesting, thanks for the tip. I'm gonna look into this and see how I can help.

daredevil, hace 11 meses

Using Linux Mint Cinnamon for most things currently, gaming included. I've been dabbling with the gnome DE so I can use Wayland, and it's been nice. However, I'm not as big of the DE and don't have time to tweak things to my preferences so I use it sparingly.