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How to run a small social network site for your friends

runyourown.social

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Re: How to run a small social network site for your friends

#71

Post by jeffparsons »

endisneigh wrote: post #67
hemloc_io wrote: post #13

I have what I think is a unique perspective on this. Private small self run social media already exists. It's personal Minecraft servers. When I was younger I ran a Minecraft server out of my toaster of a PC. Friends hopped on, made their own little houses, built stuff and talked. Friends would pass in and out and in order to get in you had to be invited! I'd say max there were 10-20 people on there somewhat consiste…

You can’t even send photos with Minecraft though. It’s certainly a social experience but in no way comparable to say, Facebook or instagram like Friendcamp in the article

That sounds like a feature to me.

If I was hanging out with a friend in person and they kept showing me pictures of other stuff in their life I'd get bored pretty quickly. If I'm hanging out with someone, I want to be talking with them and doing stuff with them, not getting a slideshow of their most glamorous recent moments.

Each to their own, I guess, but I find the normal mode of interaction on "social media" (including all that photo sharing and commentary) to be super weird and undesirable.

Re: How to run a small social network site for your friends

#73

Post by bertil »

andreyk wrote: post #44

I actually tried to do this with Diaspora and a couple dozen of my closest friends. We tweaked it to not have like buttons, and like other fun stuff. The idea being that it'd be our own little space and we could be weird on there and design it as we felt like. Sadly, it just did not catch on, people were not invested enough in it. These days, I'm not too sure there is a point to this kind of thing instead of a group…

A lot of people criticise the Growth efforts are social media company —and they tend to do some shady things— but their work leads to large groups of people being active and findable on the same platform. That’s hard, requires a lot of effort and in genuinely valuable. If people included that in discussions about whether the bad habits was worth it, we could have more meaningful conversation about the role of social media.

Re: How to run a small social network site for your friends

#74

Post by kortilla »

endisneigh wrote: post #67
hemloc_io wrote: post #13

I have what I think is a unique perspective on this. Private small self run social media already exists. It's personal Minecraft servers. When I was younger I ran a Minecraft server out of my toaster of a PC. Friends hopped on, made their own little houses, built stuff and talked. Friends would pass in and out and in order to get in you had to be invited! I'd say max there were 10-20 people on there somewhat consiste…

You can’t even send photos with Minecraft though. It’s certainly a social experience but in no way comparable to say, Facebook or instagram like Friendcamp in the article

Next you’ll tell me you can’t look at ads!

Re: How to run a small social network site for your friends

#75

Post by upofadown »

worldofmatthew wrote: post #63
Nerada wrote: post #14

I miss how every hobby had a forum running on phpBB, SimpleMachines, Invision, etc. HN is great, but it's very point in time. If I find an interesting topic posted over a day ago, it's never getting new replies. It's a snapshot of the thoughts on that topic for that single day, nothing more.

GDPR and the upcoming online safety bill and the EU's digital economy regulations makes it nearly impossible for almost anyone to run a forum. That is now only possible by big tech.

Couldn't the person running the forum simply not abuse their users by not exploiting their personal data for commercial gain? How hard is that?

Re: How to run a small social network site for your friends

#76

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

endisneigh wrote: post #67
hemloc_io wrote: post #13

I have what I think is a unique perspective on this. Private small self run social media already exists. It's personal Minecraft servers. When I was younger I ran a Minecraft server out of my toaster of a PC. Friends hopped on, made their own little houses, built stuff and talked. Friends would pass in and out and in order to get in you had to be invited! I'd say max there were 10-20 people on there somewhat consiste…

You can’t even send photos with Minecraft though. It’s certainly a social experience but in no way comparable to say, Facebook or instagram like Friendcamp in the article

It depends what you're looking for. If it's a relationship, you probably will do better looking for another medium, but for pure fun, it's a perfect setup.

Re: How to run a small social network site for your friends

#77

Post by worldofmatthew »

upofadown wrote: post #75
worldofmatthew wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR and the upcoming online safety bill and the EU's digital economy regulations makes it nearly impossible for almost anyone to run a forum. That is now only possible by big tech.

Couldn't the person running the forum simply not abuse their users by not exploiting their personal data for commercial gain? How hard is that?

GDPR is harder than that, there is a bunch of legal stuff and having to have someone legally responsible to follow the more vague parts of the GDPR.

GDPR is not just "not exploiting their personal data for commercial gain" but a lot of busy work with massive fines if you make any mistakes. How is most community forums going to work with that?

Re: How to run a small social network site for your friends

#78

Post by worldofmatthew »

Zababa wrote: post #65
worldofmatthew wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR and the upcoming online safety bill and the EU's digital economy regulations makes it nearly impossible for almost anyone to run a forum. That is now only possible by big tech.

I don't understand why that would be the case. GDPR is mostly about personal data (that you don't really need for a forum). The online safety bill would at worst get your forum get blocked in the UK, but I haven't been able to find clear expectations for a forum outside of what I would call "regular moderation". I also didn't find much about the EU's digital economy regulations. Would you mind expanding on why it's n…

People can post a lot of personal information to an internet forum without asking the owner and even email addresses count as personal information.

Labour and the Tories are trying to extend The online safety bill to put forum owner in prison if found to be causing harm (whatever that means) and you would have to pay for staff to monitor the forums 24/7 (no one is going to help out if they risk going to prison). All with a fuck ton of vagueness that can millions of pounds of fines.

That will make it impossible for anyone but big tech to run online forums.

Re: How to run a small social network site for your friends

#79

Post by nextlevelwizard »

jeffparsons wrote: post #71
endisneigh wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t even send photos with Minecraft though. It’s certainly a social experience but in no way comparable to say, Facebook or instagram like Friendcamp in the article

That sounds like a feature to me. If I was hanging out with a friend in person and they kept showing me pictures of other stuff in their life I'd get bored pretty quickly. If I'm hanging out with someone, I want to be talking with them and doing stuff with them, not getting a slideshow of their most glamorous recent moments. Each to their own, I guess, but I find the normal mode of interaction on "social media" (incl…

People don't really "hang out with their friends" on social media.

If you don't realize interactions with people are different when you are: face to face, in same VoIP call playing same game, playing same game with text only, in same VoIP but not actively doing same thing, and on a website like Facebook or Twitter there really is nothing to even start conversation on.

Yes, of course, if I play Minecraft with someone there usually no photos shared, but we probably are on Discord for VoIP and use the screen sharing function if we want to show something.

Re: How to run a small social network site for your friends

#80

Post by sokoloff »

hemloc_io wrote: post #24
kome wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i feel old... wasn't minecraft released like yesterday? like in 2012? how can you be an adult person now?

Haha you should probably feel ancient! I feel old knowing people in college now were born in the 2000s.

“I can see the 1 from here…”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aE12n2yFU-s

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