Discoverability of other Postmarks Instances

[TomCasavant]

I don't know how feasible this is, but I know long-term the plan is to make postmarks instances more interoperable with each other (https://github.com/ckolderup/postmarks/issues/8c). I've followed a few postmarks instances that have been shared in various Github issues, but it might be easier if there were a webpage/file/issue/interface to find other postmarks instances similar to how Mastodon has suggested users to follow.

[ckolderup]

This would be cool, kind of a joinmastodon.org directory but for Postmarks?

Thinking out loud, not requiring you to have the answers, but:

• could that theoretically be set up today as a totally separate project with a Google Form + SPA that loads from its spreadsheet?
• could we do something kinda grass-rootsy and ask people to post on Mastodon with a hashtag like #AlsoOnPostmarks and the URL to their instance, then write a script to slurp up posts with that hashtag?
• would it be worthwhile to add an opt-in checkbox in the Admin interface that sends a ping to the directory?
• how would directory entries be displayed / sorted? (sorting is a kind of ranking)
• how would we prevent spam / abuse / "gaming the system" for any sorting?

[TomCasavant]

This would be cool, kind of a joinmastodon.org directory but for Postmarks?

Yeah that's what I was thinking

could that theoretically be set up today as a totally separate project with a Google Form + SPA that loads from its spreadsheet?

Probably the easiest/fastest way. People might shy away from the fact that it's hosted w/ google but personally I wouldn't mind especially if it's only a temporary solution

could we do something kinda grass-rootsy and ask people to post on Mastodon with a hashtag like #AlsoOnPostmarks and the URL to their instance, then write a script to slurp up posts with that hashtag?

This is a really cool idea, I'm not sure how well that would work w/ everyone being on separate servers though. The script would have to be able to see all of the servers in order for it to see the hashtag I would think(?) Along the same lines though, maybe a bot that you could tag in a post, that way it's guaranteed that it gets seen?

would it be worthwhile to add an opt-in checkbox in the Admin interface that sends a ping to the directory?

This might be the most useful solution, I'm not sure how you would go about setting it up but then people would have a built-in way to add their server to the list. Pretty sure mastodon does a similar opt-in thing for user discoverability, but that's on a per-server basis I believe, and this would be every server sending a notification to some sort of list

And I have no idea how to handle the last 2 suggestions

[jeffsikes]

I like the idea of an opt-in directory from the Admin page. Owncast does this, too.

For an interim solution, yeah, a form of some kind. You could do similar on Netlify Forms + Eleventy and maybe not scare away folks.

I also thought about a retro type webring of bookmark sites, which we could include somewhere on each participating postmark site.

You know, FediDb is already capturing sites. I don't think we should use that for a public directory, but it's been handy for testing purposes and seeing what cool CSS things people are doing.

https://fedidb.org/software/postmarks

[TomCasavant]

Does fedidb automatically populate somehow? Or is it taking submissions somewhere?

but it's been handy for testing purposes and seeing what cool CSS things people are doing.

Just clicking through a couple of the links, it's cool how unique everyone has made their sites look

[jeffsikes]

RE: Fedidb. It’s automatic, tho I don’t know the magic sauce. The site says it doesn’t scrape public timelines of instances so it must be doing something else. Yes, some imaginative takes on the bookmark list styling. CSS is amazing. Someone added YouTube embeds, tho that affects the template I’m sure.

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On Oct 23, 2023, at 3:21 PM, Tom Casavant ***@***.***> wrote: Does fedidb automatically populate somehow? Or is it taking submissions somewhere? but it's been handy for testing purposes and seeing what cool CSS things people are doing. Just clicking through a couple of the links, it's cool how unique everyone has made their sites look — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#140 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABSSB7Q6Z3C3VFKWPTCWD6TYA3GTRAVCNFSM6AAAAAA5WBNDFGVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMYTONZVHE2TQMZXHA>. You are receiving this because you commented.

[andypiper]

So... @ckolderup (et al) I was thinking. I got a free Google Domain for Devs I could use on this (and probably happy to personally fund as an ongoing thing). More of a landing page ( + optional directory) for Postmarks than the current test site + GH repo. Thoughts? postmarks.dev is one option.

[andypiper]

So I’m thinking something like postmarks.dev, usepostmarks, getpostmarks (variations) rather than e.g. joinpostmarks - a lot of other fedi software seems to use the join-* style but we are self-hosting / single user by design and default.

Then we’d have a site with a “what is Postmarks”, plus link to source, to demo site, to simple “up-and-running on Glitch/other” instructions, and a submit-your-own list of instances for others to explore and follow.

I might spin up a simple landing site along these lines as an example of what I have in mind. Opinions on a possible domain are welcome!

[andypiper]

Something like this, very much WIP, location / domain fungible.

[ckolderup]

Hey! This is very well done, and I appreciate your (continued) generosity with this. The site is clean and simple and would be a good resource for people instead of relying on the Github repo/Glitch demo site being the landing pages.

For context, beyond my own general lack of activity, I have a number of concerns that have held me back from pursuing something like this so far. I'll just lay it all out here and you can maybe help me unpack if I'm being wholly irrational:

1. I think a rename on this project is probably inevitable, because I feel like every time I get a bump of interest someone inevitably comes along with discouraging words about the fact that the project name overlaps with something else, even if the space we're in is pretty different. To that end it'd feel bad to invest your hard-won domain name into something that would become outdated! The additional problem there is that in all my background-cycle thinking about this for the past... 3? 4 months? I haven't come up with anything better for the project, leaving me kinda stymied on actually making the move. Maybe I need to pursue some kind of more active brainstorming strategy instead of just thinking I'll stumble on the right name via serendipity.

2. I still have concerns (outlined in my earlier reply in this thread) about the abuse/gaming aspect of an opt-in directory of basically anything on the internet. This is probably carrying some of my own community management baggage from the past and I just need to get over it and wait until there's an actual problem that needs enforcing, but it is there in my brain.

3. I received a surprising amount of interest from people (great!) who also made it clear to me that even my Glitch installation instructions were too complicated for them (frustrating for both them and me!) and I was hoping to have gotten farther along in a couple different ways by this time (versioning the software and displaying that prominently in the footer/metadata of an instance for debugging purposes, rewriting the setup process to use an easier web-based flow as @johnholdun and I ultimately landed on with Add new unified database, migrate actor data #135). This might be the most irrational thing I'll say, but: making the software more welcoming before we get there feels like it might draw in more people only to push them away before we're "ready" for them, which bums me out.

But-- that all said-- I haven't done the rename, or the setup rewrite, or much else, in small part for pretty good life reasons, but probably mostly because I've been lazy! I'm really trying to reboot my brain in the new year based on the real motivation I felt last fall, but a few family/personal things I've had to deal with at the tail end of last year have made it difficult to get back to it, and I'm sad about that.

[andypiper]

Appreciate the transparency! OK - so in light of those responses, here's a little of my own current context 🙂

My current flurry of activity is totally because I needed an outlet to distract myself from something else much less interesting and more annoying... there is no specific pressure, although a sudden burst of PRs and comments makes it look that way. I'm enjoying learning the insides of ActivityPub and so forth. Also, the interop and IndieWeb compatibility parts have been fun to dig in on!

Let's go through your points in an effort to help unpack.

1. Name: I don't have a lot to say on a rename, other than that I like the current one, and/or that I'll go along with what happens. I haven't seen the same comments you have on naming, tbh. It's an adage that naming anything is hard, and that you can't please everyone! (relatedly, there's a very active discussion happening on another project I work on in this precise area right now)

2. On this specific GH Issue & the directory idea: the notion I have for the home site is that folks could choose to submit to a (small, curated) directory on there, likely via a PR flow - so that could help to tamp down the abuse side of things, both friction for people adding theirs to a list needing to use GH, and the review-add-push-to-live side. Also a community manager here, I feel you! ✋🏻

[hey, I was at Twitter, the gaming/abuse aspect of anything is HIGH on my list of proactive concerns]

3. Welcoming users before its ready: I hear you, and I'm probably not well-equipped to do that rewrite and migration work. So, I'm just tinkering away at the edges on other, often completely trivial things. The friendly landing page was prompted by getting the honorable mention/Glitch-donated domain, and wanting to tinker on something adjacent to the core project. I think the site I threw together is half-baked right now, but it was a chance to update my Bootstrap knowledge, and think about what that could look like.

I'm very understanding of life's tendency to throw curveballs, and of the personal impacts that can have. Happy to solve problems in my own fork for a bit, and see what happens here overall. If you want to chat via different channels, lmk.

I may have accidentally gotten involved in fedidb as well, due to asking questions lately... 🤦🏻‍♂️

[TomCasavant]

Another thought on this, I know the indieweb uses blogrolls (https://blogroll.org/what-are-blogrolls/) as a form of discoverability between blogs, basically just a recommendation system of 'here is who I follow who I think you should follow'. Probably much simpler than a centralized solution and much easier to implement

[TomCasavant]

Or maybe, extending on that, have the option for users to provide recommended profiles and then federate those alongside the user profile? Then postmarks could just have a page on the admin console with a list of all the recommended profiles from people you follow sorted by how many recommendations they received from people you follow?

That would probably take a lot more thinking through of how that works and a lot more difficult than just providing a blogroll

[andypiper]

I really like this idea, though. Ability to have this as something the admin sets up would be really nice.

[TomCasavant]

I looked a bit more into it, Mastodon has 'featured-profiles' and they have an open issue for federating those profiles (mastodon/mastodon#19655) though I don't think the featured profiles show up anywhere in the UI so I doubt that's a pressing issue for them. My assumption it would work very similar to that.

[jeffsikes]

Hi postmarklets! The mastodon featured profiles are not federated, they are local only. I looked into this way too much awhile back and even built a tool to manage them because why not. You are correct it's not a pressing issue.