Building Federated Communities

communities@completehostingguide.com

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 15:32:15 -0400

communities@completehostingguide.com

Scott M. Stolz wrote the following post Sun, 16 Oct 2022 15:32:15 -0400

Communities Sponsored by Companies and Non-Profits

In another thread, we started to get off topic and started talking about the benefits of a company or non-profit hosting a public social media instance. Instead of hijacking that thread, I am starting a new thread here.

@Scott M. Stolz

One of the problems with decentralized social media is there is no reliable way to monetize it. It costs money to run the servers, and person-hours to administer them. Most users don't want to pay for a social media account or host their own instance. So where does the money come from? Donations and free labor mostly.

This is where companies and non-profits, who have budgets, can step in. The companies make their money selling their products or services, content websites make money on ads and affiliate programs, course creators make money by selling courses, non-profits make money through donations, etc. This pays for the servers, so the users don't have to.

Basically, it is what I plan on doing with my own websites. Complete Hosting Guide is about to re-launch as a content website, paid for by ads and affiliate links. Once I get that set up and start making money, another one of my ideas is to create a not-for-profit public benefit company (PBC) that helps non-profits set up online communities powered by Hubzilla and Neuhub. I hope to create addons and themes that support these types of endeavors.

show all 5 Comments

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 15:36:28 -0400

Tejan Ausland

tejan@hubzilla.monster

Good idea moving this to its own thread.

It sounds like this deviates from Hubzilla's mission though. I thought Hubzilla was designed purely for social media.

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:16:07 -0400

Scott M. Stolz

scott@authorship.studio

@Tejan Ausland

It sounds like this deviates from Hubzilla's mission though. I thought Hubzilla was designed purely for social media.

Yes, it is a different mission. Streams has its own mission. Hubzilla has its own mission. I have a different mission. That is why the addons and themes I create will be released under Neuhub. That way we can work together, but aren't stepping on each other's toes (too much).

Basically, my mission aligns with their mission, but I have a different vision than they do.

My mission includes:

Decentralizing social media.
Spreading the use of passwordless remote authentication.
Empowering individuals to break away from the corporate world and start their own online businesses.
Empowering non-profits and not-for-profits by helping them create online communities.

Among other things.

So a lot of the features I am working on are for content creators, coaches, consultants, and small businesses. Non-profits and schools would need similar features.

Unlike some people, I am not against making money. I just think that the power to be prosperous needs to be in the hands of individuals and not mega-corporations or government. The people at the top can control you if they control how much money you make. That's why being an employee is so frustrating. You control your own destiny when you control how much money you make. Hence empowering people to be prosperous without depending on a job or the government.

I know I am going into the philosophical angle a bit, but that is why I am doing what I am doing. Maybe if I explain the why, what I am doing will make more sense.

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:21:52 -0400

Tejan Ausland

tejan@hubzilla.monster

But if you commercialize it, doesn't that go against the concept of free and open source?

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:23:54 -0400

Scott M. Stolz

scott@authorship.studio

@Tejan Ausland

But if you commercialize it, doesn't that go against the concept of free and open source?

Not really. WordPress is free and open source, yet it is used to power commercial websites. It's not one or the other.

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 08:08:27 -0400

J-Kappes

j-kappes@im.allmendenetz.de

OpenCollective comes to mind.

Open Collective is a legal and financial toolbox for groups. It’s a fundraising + legal status + money management platform for your community. What do you want to do?

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 06:16:34 -0400

Building Federated Communities

communities@completehostingguide.com

Scott M. Stolz wrote the following post Sun, 12 Jun 2022 06:16:33 -0400

A Communications Suite - Reimagining Federated Social Media

The more and more I research the state of social media, identity, authentication, and communications, the more I realize that it might be time to re-imagine the concepts behind communication, authentication, and federated social media.

An idea that has been floating around my head involves creating a new communication suite based on a variety of technologies, including new ones. It would include the following features:

Identity Provider (OpenWebAuth, FedCM, LDAP, etc.)
Federated Social Media (Zot/Nomad, ActivityPub, etc.)
Decentralized Social Media (Twitter BlueSky, Matrix, etc.)
Proprietary Social Media (Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)
Chat Client (XMPP, Bonjour, ICQ, etc.)
Website & Forums Notifications Client (RSS, Zot/Nomad, ActivityPub, etc.)
Newsletter & Blog Subscriptions (RSS, Zot/Nomad, ActivityPub, etc.)
Email Client (IMAP, Gmail, etc.)
SMS Client
Contact Management
To Do List / Planner (including connecting messages with tasks)
Calendar and Appointments (including optional method of booking appointments)
Time Management (be able to filter conversations & bookmarks based on time block)
Bookmarks Manager / Read Later Lists (to store research and information)
Cloud Storage
Nomadic Identity (and Cloning)
Multiple Ways to Log In (FedCM, WebAuthn, Blockchain, etc,)
Integrations (Project Management Software, Financial Software, Blockchain, etc.)

Oh, my goodness, this seems like a lot, but a lot of these are already in Hubzilla, and much of the rest could be added as addons. And code for a lot of this stuff already exists and would just need to be integrated. Although some of this stuff falls in the "wish list" category.

The To Do List / Planner and Contacts Management would be vital since a person could easily become overwhelmed by all of the communications they may receive. You could organize all of the messages by contact, by organization, by project, by task, by type, by tag, etc. You could set it up so that it does most of the sorting for you. For example, if you associated someone's email address, Hubzilla, and Twitter account with them in your Contacts, all of those messages from them would appear when looking at their profile in contacts.

The calendar and time management system would also be vital too because they would allow you to focus on specific tasks at specific times. For example, if from 2 pm to 5 pm, you are supposed to be working on building your website, it could suppress notifications for non-work-related stuff. You could still get to non-work-related stuff if you needed to, and you could allow messages from certain contacts to get through immediately, but all other notifications would be suppressed and the interface would be simplified to allow you to focus.

This is something that I would like to have for myself. I personally need a better way of managing messages and contacts, and it really gets annoying having to switch between platforms, or forgetting which platform a message is on. It would help keep me organized.

Some of the goals of the project:

People can choose to self-host their identity or they can use a custodian (a public hub).
Give smaller websites, communities, forums, and social media better footing, since they appear as equals in the user's communications software.
Help people, including myself, deal with communications overload.
It needs to be available for free to all, although I reserve the right to make money by offering a hosted version or operating a public hub.

show all 6 Comments

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 06:22:58 -0400

Tejan Ausland

tejan@hubzilla.monster

How would you implement this? Would it be part of Hubzilla, or a new piece of software?

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 06:32:20 -0400

Scott M. Stolz

scott@authorship.studio

@Tejan Ausland

How would you implement this? Would it be part of Hubzilla, or a new piece of software?

I don't know yet. But I was thinking of the following:

Hubzilla would be the base, since it already has a lot of the features mentioned.
Additional features would be implemented as addons, so they could work with Hubzilla, Streams, Zap, etc.
A special release could be prepared that is pre-configured as a communications suite.
Certain addons might have to be distributed separately, if they have a more restrictive license.

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 06:36:50 -0400

Tejan Ausland

tejan@hubzilla.monster

Why are you including mainstream social media? I though we were trying to get people off of those platforms.

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 06:47:04 -0400

Scott M. Stolz

scott@authorship.studio

@Tejan Ausland

Why are you including mainstream social media? I though we were trying to get people off of those platforms.

For a variety of reasons:

It has a different purpose. It is meant to be a communications suite, not just a fediverse server.
I believe in choice and freedom, and that includes letting people choose what platforms they use.
It introduces people to the fediverse and makes it easy for them to use.
People get a fediverse identity simply by creating an account or setting up a hub for themselves.
It places big players on the same footing as smaller players, leveling the playing field a bit.
Just because one person prefers to communicate a certain way, others may have other preferences. They still may want to communicate with each other anyway.

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 07:31:28 -0400

Tejan Ausland

tejan@hubzilla.monster

When are you going to work on all of this? Aren't you working on a social media website, a knowledge base, Hubzilla, and now a communications suite?

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 08:02:20 -0400

Scott M. Stolz

scott@authorship.studio

It is a lot, and I am not promising to create any of this. It is, in many ways, a wish list.

But, I think that I could eventually create this, with some help from others. There are also other reasons:

Most of my websites will use the same base code, just with different themes and addons enabled, keeping maintenance down.
Instead of duplicating features between websites, I would integrate my websites together. For example, your bookmarks might be managed and stored in Digital Authorship, but you can access them in Complete Hosting Guide and the Communications Suite too.
A lot of the features I mentioned have open source projects with already written code. It would just be a matter of integration.
I actually have some of this code already written, such as the To Do List and Planner. I have just been using it privately as I test out new ideas. I can reuse much of this code.
I use development software such as PHPRunner and Bootstrap Studio, which lets me rapidly design certain aspects of the website.
Once my company and websites start making significant money, I will hire a developer and a technical writer.
All of these are solutions that I personally need, and even if no one else is interested, I have still solved my problems. I just know that I am not the only one with these challenges, so I feel like sharing.

That being said, don't expect this any time soon. I do need to launch Complete Hosting Guide first.

Wed, 18 May 2022 10:12:29 -0400

Building Federated Communities

communities@completehostingguide.com

Scott M. Stolz wrote the following post Wed, 18 May 2022 10:12:28 -0400

Nomadic Identity & Magic Auth for All?

Perhaps nomadic identity and magic auth need to be for all types of websites, and not just for social media.

I think that implementing both nomadic identity and magic auth on non-social or semi-social websites would change the internet, and tip the balance of control back to the users.

Benefits to users:

They only need to log into their home base, which may or may not have 2FA.
They remotely authenticate on other websites. No more multiple passwords. No more multiple 2FA.
Their hub remembers which sites they logged into, giving them easy links back to them.
The user can block websites from using their ID.
The user can remotely log out of a website (i.e. require re-authentication). (Like if they logged in at a friend's house but forgot to log off.)
They can clone their ID so they are not dependent on one hub for their identity.
They have easy access to the content they created on other websites.
The user can control whether they get notifications from a website or not, and possibly organize them into importance.

Benefits for site owners:

It attracts more users, since they can remotely authenticate instead of creating yet another password on yet another website.
If they have multiple websites, subdomains, or multiple scripts on one domain, a user can be transferred between scripts and remain logged in.
The user can opt to receive notifications from a website they remotely authenticated with, which allows the website to stay connected with the user.
It would be possible to suspend or ban a user without removing their access to their own content.

I think it would change the internet. What do you think?

hubzilla zap zot magic auth nomadic identity

Wed, 18 May 2022 11:00:05 -0400

Scott M. Stolz

scott@authorship.studio

This is the direction I am going in, both for my own websites, and also because I hope the rest of the internet adopts remote authentication.

My issue is that I am not a full-stack developer (and worse, I am an old-school developer not familiar with the new ways of programming), and I need to get my startup off the ground so I don't have to go back to the corporate world. So I am not the best person to code this. But I am in touch with what features need to be there, and what the UI should look like. I am good at that part.

It's one of those things that I will eventually figure out how to do it since I'm determined to have this feature implemented, but if I do it myself, it will be "hackish" and other developers would probably laugh or scoff at me... but it would work.

For example, I would probably just include boot.php and grab the variables from there, and use database queries to get any information I am missing. Then I just use if then statements to determine access, and store my own script's data in its own database.

That is not the modern way of doing it, but it would work. I came from the days when you accessed the database and used if then statements to display HTML. Before APIs existed, if you will. Since I am not a developer by trade, I never kept up with the modern way of doing things. My goal is to build a business, after all.

But, I could figure out how to make it work, given enough time.

Mon, 16 May 2022 17:16:21 -0400

Building Federated Communities

communities@completehostingguide.com

Scott M. Stolz wrote the following post Mon, 16 May 2022 17:16:21 -0400

The right time for Zot, Zap, and Hubzilla

Sometimes great ideas come before their time, and they fade into obscurity because they were launched too soon, only for the same ideas to be resurrected years and sometimes even decades later when the time was right.

I think we have a similar situation with Zot, Zap, and Hubzilla, except we are lucky enough that the maintainers of these projects did not abandon their work, and it still lives on today.

The internet was very different decades ago. Before social media took over the internet, conversations and communities were much more decentralized. You had Usenet groups where anyone with an email address could join the discussions. You had forums, also known as discussion boards, that people joined and communicated on. You had many independently run communities that filled every niche.

But then the social media platforms arrived and made it easy for the masses to participate. And then once they got big enough, the "network effect" kicked in, where you felt compelled to join because a lot of people you knew joined as well. They grew into these massive centralized closed networks.

Now, we have realized that there is a cost to excessive centralization, both at the government level and the corporate level. Those who want to control speech take advantage of the centralization of these social media platforms, and try to censor or suppress speech they don't like. This is especially the case in countries run by dictators and oppressive regimes. And then you have the excessive ads, the tracking, and the selling of your personal data. Centralized social media gave us many benefits, but it also comes with a cost.

Many people have been warning about this for years, but people are starting to wake up. And that is why the time is right for decentralized social media and nomadic identity. People are starting to wake up to the fact that they don't have control of their own identity online. And Zot, Zap, and Hubzilla change that.

The time is now.

hubzilla zap zot

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 08:29:34 -0400

Building Federated Communities

communities@completehostingguide.com

Scott M. Stolz wrote the following post Mon, 25 Apr 2022 08:29:34 -0400

Using Forums to Build the Hubzilla Grid

Perhaps it is my past experience running and moderating various forums over the years, but one thing that I think could really encourage federation and decentralized identity is by creating forum communities.

Before Facebook, if you wanted to join a community and discuss neat things, you would join an independent discussion board. There would be one or more people who ran the community, and you would have a number of users who would sign up for accounts and participate.

With Hubzilla, we can actually bring that back.

Since most users are not technical enough to set up their own Hubzilla installation and maintain it, you need someone to set up the infrastructure, and that is where forum operators come in.

The benefit of forum operators is that they tap into a network/grid of users, and users get notifications, even if they do not visit the website.

Plus, it would make the Hubzilla grid stickier since there are communities people can join and feel they belong to.