Poll

Are you interested in an EEVblog Mastodon server?

What's a Mastodon?
47 (41.2%)
No, don't waste your time!
24 (21.1%)
No, but don't care if there is one
16 (14%)
Yes, and I'll use it.
11 (9.6%)
Don't care at all
16 (14%)

Total Members Voted: 114

Author Topic: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?  (Read 7784 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline JohanH

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 669
  • Country: fi
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #25 on: November 24, 2022, 09:54:59 pm »
Well, Germany has been criticized for certain things lately, but I wouldn't compare them with those countries.
 

Offline ebastler

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7375
  • Country: de
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #26 on: November 24, 2022, 10:09:11 pm »
The German conception of "hate speech".
Laws against insulting people.
Laws providing the German government with control over social media to censor content.

All of these are European Community laws/directives, so be careful where you put your server...

I read that Australia and New Zealand might not be the best choices either?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_Australia
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/nzs-hate-speech-laws-explained
« Last Edit: November 24, 2022, 10:11:15 pm by ebastler »
 

Offline AndyBeez

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 858
  • Country: nu
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #27 on: November 24, 2022, 10:09:44 pm »
on't share how much you need as it is so varied on how many active users you have, how many connections to other server instances you have and what is being done on your instance.

Thanks for the numbers. Rough back of envelope calculation > your spec hosted somewhere in Europe on an elastic platform, around €150/month? Plus any maintenance overheads. Ironic that for Masterdon to work 24-7 for it's users, it needs pushing to a third party platform; anything that's AWS is hardly decentralised. Concurrent user connections over a reliable CDN is the killer. How popular does an Instance need to get before it fails to scale? Explains why Twitter has it's own infrastructure.

Now maybe if instances came with a crypto mining opportunity...  ::) quit with the crypto
 

Online Jackster

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 508
  • Country: gb
    • PCBA.UK
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #28 on: November 24, 2022, 10:55:40 pm »
Thanks for the numbers. Rough back of envelope calculation > your spec hosted somewhere in Europe on an elastic platform, around €150/month? Plus any maintenance overheads. Ironic that for Masterdon to work 24-7 for it's users, it needs pushing to a third party platform; anything that's AWS is hardly decentralised. Concurrent user connections over a reliable CDN is the killer. How popular does an Instance need to get before it fails to scale? Explains why Twitter has it's own infrastructure.

Now maybe if instances came with a crypto mining opportunity...  ::) quit with the crypto

About 100 Euros a month via Hetzner on their Cloud servers.
Could do it for less on one of their dedi servers such as an AX41-NVME (not great to use a single server) but at the time, we scaled as we needed on their Cloud.

As for decentralization, it is not about being data center/infrastructure decentralized.
It is about not being on a single platform with a single owner such as Twitter or Facebook. Who in this day and age have a stronghold on this style of communication.
Mastodon, while having some level of control, allows one to move freely between servers or set up their own server. You can't do either of those two things and still communicate with others on Twitter/Face.

Note, "S3" is used for any service that supports the API. I don't touch AWS as it is way overpriced for the level of service you get. Which is basically zero unless you pay for it.
You can also deploy your own S3 compatible storage if you want to be "decentralized" but that data is still sitting somewhere. It is not P2P social networking.

The software scales quite well. You can scale each part of the stack with ease. Postgresql is probably the only one that requires a lot of work to do right at a large scale.
But SQL also scales well horizontally so you only have to do multiple servers if you have a loooot of users.

I don't think Mastodon will scale to Twitter's level of users and Tweets per hour but it is not designed for that sort of user load.

Online artag

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1284
  • Country: gb
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #29 on: November 24, 2022, 11:16:43 pm »
I don't think Mastodon will scale to Twitter's level of users and Tweets per hour but it is not designed for that sort of user load.

Seems like it would scale pretty well if every instance is a different server.
Or is there some central tie that has to scale with the whole network ?

About half my twitter follows have started either dual posting or moved completely to mastodon. There are a handful of holdouts but it's looking like I'll soon only want to read twitter for corporate postings, if at all. Musk seems to be trying hard to lose his money. It probably won't collapse, but for me, with interests mostly in tech and makering, I see it getting irrelevant pretty fast.

 
 

Offline RoGeorge

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7012
  • Country: ro
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #30 on: November 24, 2022, 11:21:32 pm »
But is it bound by german speech laws?

No, you would be allowed to speak English.  ::)
Seriously though -- what "German speech laws" were you thinking of?

Are you tendentious or honestly do not know?
The laws in which one is not allowed to criticize the Jews.

Online EEVblogTopic starter

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 39026
  • Country: au
    • EEVblog
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #31 on: November 24, 2022, 11:25:30 pm »
The German conception of "hate speech".
Laws against insulting people.
Laws providing the German government with control over social media to censor content.

All of these are European Community laws/directives, so be careful where you put your server...

I read that Australia and New Zealand might not be the best choices either?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_Australia
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/nzs-hate-speech-laws-explained

Australia does not have a Bill of Rights  >:(
 
The following users thanked this post: John B

Online EEVblogTopic starter

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 39026
  • Country: au
    • EEVblog
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #32 on: November 24, 2022, 11:28:22 pm »
About half my twitter follows have started either dual posting or moved completely to mastodon. There are a handful of holdouts but it's looking like I'll soon only want to read twitter for corporate postings, if at all. Musk seems to be trying hard to lose his money. It probably won't collapse, but for me, with interests mostly in tech and makering, I see it getting irrelevant pretty fast.

Chris Gammell said something similar and has announced he's only using Twitter for work now and is auto crossposting there from Mastodon and will not interact on Twitter any more.
I haven't really noticed any difference on my Twitter feed.
I know there are several electroncis people I follow now have Mastodon account, but it doesn't seem permanent.

Any creator ditiching Twitter for Mastodon is crazy IMO, it's shaping up to be an excellent place for creators, with potential monetisation opportunities.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2022, 11:30:51 pm by EEVblog »
 

Offline John B

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 865
  • Country: au
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #33 on: November 24, 2022, 11:48:18 pm »
The German conception of "hate speech".
Laws against insulting people.
Laws providing the German government with control over social media to censor content.

All of these are European Community laws/directives, so be careful where you put your server...

I read that Australia and New Zealand might not be the best choices either?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_Australia
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/nzs-hate-speech-laws-explained

I would agree. I don't trust the Australian government to intervene in social discourse very much at all. The state and federal governments showed their idea of free exchange of ideas during the covid pandemic.
 

Online Jackster

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 508
  • Country: gb
    • PCBA.UK
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #34 on: November 24, 2022, 11:56:47 pm »

Seems like it would scale pretty well if every instance is a different server.
Or is there some central tie that has to scale with the whole network ?

Correct. I was thinking more of a single instance but of course, that is not what the platform is designed for.

It has to push/pull data between instances so it would only load that instance if users of said instance connected to a lot of other users on one or more other instances.
This could be used as a sort of DDOS if one or more users on a smaller instance (with limited hardware) followed every other user on every other node.
The smaller node the user is on would then have to push/pull a lot of data which is CPU bound.
Maybe there are some hard limits in terms of following count per user to stop this now, IDK...

You could actually bog down other nodes as well by spamming out a lot of content but it is not hard to tell what is going on and ban said instances.
I recall something like this happening at one point when I was hosting. We all just banned that instance and the problem went away.

This does prove a point that this sort of federated social media system has flaws but also has the ability to work around them and moderate out bad actors.

Note, the Fediverse is P2P, with no central node that needs to scale. Just thought I would add that in.
Instances connect with each other. Users are the ones that start the connections between nodes.

Online artag

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1284
  • Country: gb
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #35 on: November 25, 2022, 04:24:38 pm »
Chris Gammell said something similar and has announced he's only using Twitter for work now and is auto crossposting there from Mastodon and will not interact on Twitter any more.
I haven't really noticed any difference on my Twitter feed.
I know there are several electroncis people I follow now have Mastodon account, but it doesn't seem permanent.

Any creator ditiching Twitter for Mastodon is crazy IMO, it's shaping up to be an excellent place for creators, with potential monetisation opportunities.

It's not that my twitter feed has changed. It's that the contributors are mostly dual-posting. If twitter survives as a useful place they will still have followers. If the interesting people leave they've already have rebuilt it somewhere without a lock-in.

To be fair, I don't follow celebrities. I think the two biggest accounts I follow there are yours and Naomi's - and she's crossposting. For people that do, it will probably remain fine, but my feeling is that makers aren't strongly represented there. The interesting posts to me are often not the start of a thread but the little people who respond to it. Mastodon is pretty much up to speed in that respect already. 

In Dave's position, I'd crosspost and watch both streams to see which worked the best. It covers the options with no loss.
I see no advantage in an eevblog instance, though. Yes, it would be good to have an ee instance but the eevblog forum is a strong brand. Why dilute it ?

Of course, in a sensible world, twitter would federate. Can't see that happening.  But the internet has been here before - Usenet was vastly superior to the hotchpotch of gated communities that bulletin board operators used to like, and the big guns that corporate interests prefer. It will swing back to a decentralised system because one size doesn't fit all. I see the next step as small forums federating (remember, it's a protocol, not a monoculture) and the big boys going the way of yahoo, geocities and the rest of the internet detritus.  Might take 10 or 20 years, but owners like Musk pulling their weight instead of being a service is the beginning of the end for them.

As for twitter being good for creators .. it might, if it stops being twitter. Long posts are still painful. Video is just a url to something worthwhile posted elsewhere. I could see Musk making it a direct competitor to facebook in order to turn a profit .. and I won't be on either of them, and nor will anyone I follow. I presume you're talking about content creators, not physical creators. The latter aren't usually in it for monetisation, but they are the source of it, just as artists tend to pave the way for urban renewal but move on when commercial gentrification catches up.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2022, 04:30:54 pm by artag »
 

Offline eti

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • !
  • Posts: 1801
  • Country: gb
  • MOD: a.k.a Unlokia, glossywhite, iamwhoiam etc
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #36 on: November 26, 2022, 02:57:59 am »
In my hopefully humble view, I would think that if any significant software investments would be worthy of putting time into, they'd be put into making this forum a little less clunky (footer background & terrible contrast of the URLs are poor from a usability standpoint) and maybe fixing the attachment mechanism. It's overall in good shape, as a non forum software person, but it's a bit clunky and hanging onto 1996 for dear life in many areas. Also a way to prevent "Captain multi-multi-multi-multi-multi-quote" folks from propagating the GHASTLY MESS of  embedded, nested quotes, would bring the forum much needed functionality improvement.

Humans are humans. As much as you tell them "don't quote-quote-quote" you are talking to HUMANS, and they can be VERY dense at times - the mechanism needs to FORCE them to not be able to do this.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2022, 03:05:59 am by eti »
 
The following users thanked this post: EEVblog

Online SiliconWizard

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 15799
  • Country: fr
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #37 on: November 26, 2022, 03:27:08 am »
Apart from whay I already said, I would second the point of not wasting resources and energy on something that would only split information across different media which IMO would not benefit anyone in the end. One strong point of this forum is that it brings together a lot of people, and the nature of it being a forum makes it much more interesting content-wise than a Twitter-like system. People tend to take more time to post on a forum like this one than on those quick-post networks, and since Dave has complete control over it, it's also a lot more time-proof. So I'd second putting some effort, if anything, to improve this forum rather than scatter efforts on alternative networks.

That said, I understand Dave's presence on Twitter, so I'm not questioning that - I think it's important for the business side of things. We need to keep in mind that EEVBlog is a business.
 
The following users thanked this post: EEVblog, eti

Online EEVblogTopic starter

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 39026
  • Country: au
    • EEVblog
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #38 on: November 26, 2022, 10:56:31 am »
As for twitter being good for creators .. it might, if it stops being twitter. Long posts are still painful. Video is just a url to something worthwhile posted elsewhere. I could see Musk making it a direct competitor to facebook in order to turn a profit .. and I won't be on either of them, and nor will anyone I follow. I presume you're talking about content creators, not physical creators. The latter aren't usually in it for monetisation, but they are the source of it, just as artists tend to pave the way for urban renewal but move on when commercial gentrification catches up.

Yes, content creators.
Well known Makers are also by definition content creators, otherwise how do they become well known? They use Youtube, a blog, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc to show off their work.
Musk has said twitter will be a competitor to Youtube, and apparently even Mr Beast is on board with it. It's a no brainer to have blog style content too, and images to rival Instagram.
One platform, just different tabs for different stuff.
 

Offline voltsandjolts

  • Supporter
  • ****
  • Posts: 2549
  • Country: gb
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #39 on: November 26, 2022, 11:32:53 am »
As SiliWiz said, one common meeting place is the best option, this forum.

A few folks have commented that this SMF forum software and appearance could do with some tweaks or updating....I would say if changing anything please only make very minor changes. I find the usablility and presentation of this forum to be by far the least worst I have encountered out there on the web. Yes, it may look a bit 1996, but that is far better than the modern-style forums which have so much waisted space and glitzy graphic BS. The density of text / information is just right here, IMHO.

Perhaps its for the same reason that I would say DigiKey has the best component vendor site (despite recent negative changes). It's just well presented, mostly correct, searchable text info. Farnell and RS are just so clunky in comparison.

I blame millennial web designers.
 
The following users thanked this post: amyk

Online artag

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1284
  • Country: gb
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #40 on: November 26, 2022, 12:09:11 pm »
I blame millennial web designers.

Indeed. Unfortunately a great deal of web design is still in the era of 1980s DTP with all those colours and fonts - using features because they're there, not because they're wanted or needed.
 

Online SiliconWizard

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 15799
  • Country: fr
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #41 on: November 26, 2022, 07:49:59 pm »
As SiliWiz said, one common meeting place is the best option, this forum.

A few folks have commented that this SMF forum software and appearance could do with some tweaks or updating....I would say if changing anything please only make very minor changes. I find the usablility and presentation of this forum to be by far the least worst I have encountered out there on the web. Yes, it may look a bit 1996, but that is far better than the modern-style forums which have so much waisted space and glitzy graphic BS. The density of text / information is just right here, IMHO.

Perhaps its for the same reason that I would say DigiKey has the best component vendor site (despite recent negative changes). It's just well presented, mostly correct, searchable text info. Farnell and RS are just so clunky in comparison.

I blame millennial web designers.

Ahah, yeah. I do find Mouser's site better than Digikey's though. Easier to find stuff with (usually) more criterions. But Digikey tends to hold more parts.
 

Online artag

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1284
  • Country: gb
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #42 on: November 26, 2022, 08:12:06 pm »
Note, the Fediverse is P2P, with no central node that needs to scale. Just thought I would add that in.
Instances connect with each other. Users are the ones that start the connections between nodes.

An interesting article on scalability here :

https://mastodon.social/@shantyworld/109411546548031693
 

Online Jackster

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 508
  • Country: gb
    • PCBA.UK
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #43 on: November 26, 2022, 08:53:30 pm »
Note, the Fediverse is P2P, with no central node that needs to scale. Just thought I would add that in.
Instances connect with each other. Users are the ones that start the connections between nodes.

An interesting article on scalability here :

https://mastodon.social/@shantyworld/109411546548031693

Interesting read.
The defacto standards idea is somewhat problematic though in my view of a decentralised network (outside of technology level standards).
The idea of having said standards is gatekeeping and centralises what is and is not allowed on the network.
Which is fine if you agree with what standards are being set but if you don't, well you are no longer in the network.

Hate speech is a great example as everyone has their own definition of it and level as to where they draw the line between saying mean things and actual hate towards an individual or group off prime.
Very easy to become the arbiters of free speech when it is your loud voice telling everyone what the rules are.

This is the problem with the current social media websites and now they want to become like them...

Online EEVblogTopic starter

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 39026
  • Country: au
    • EEVblog
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #44 on: November 27, 2022, 12:38:44 am »
As SiliWiz said, one common meeting place is the best option, this forum.

A few folks have commented that this SMF forum software and appearance could do with some tweaks or updating....I would say if changing anything please only make very minor changes. I find the usablility and presentation of this forum to be by far the least worst I have encountered out there on the web. Yes, it may look a bit 1996, but that is far better than the modern-style forums which have so much waisted space and glitzy graphic BS. The density of text / information is just right here, IMHO.

The idea of updating the forum software to something slightly more modern and commercial like XenForo has been floated before, but generally people don't like any change. As you said, very minor if anything.
The problem with SMF is that basically hasn't been updated for forever, and mod packages have issues with versions etc. The current SMF software running now is already a huge hodgepodge of mod plugins and even some custom stuff.
 

Online Jackster

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 508
  • Country: gb
    • PCBA.UK
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #45 on: November 27, 2022, 10:29:43 am »


The idea of updating the forum software to something slightly more modern and commercial like XenForo has been floated before, but generally people don't like any change. As you said, very minor if anything.
The problem with SMF is that basically hasn't been updated for forever, and mod packages have issues with versions etc. The current SMF software running now is already a huge hodgepodge of mod plugins and even some custom stuff.

Do a test run and see how it goes.
People who moan might switch on that the new stuff is better once they experience the better software.

Offline RoGeorge

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7012
  • Country: ro
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #46 on: November 27, 2022, 11:14:33 am »
SMF is the best platform for this kind of forum, IMO.  Talking about desktop/laptop browsing and posting, because one can not do much engineering from a phone/tablet anyway.

No other platform that I'm using through other forums, or that I've ever tried can beat this SMF.
Not even the SMF 3.0, which I've tried and didn't like it as much.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2022, 11:18:09 am by RoGeorge »
 
The following users thanked this post: voltsandjolts

Offline madires

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 8276
  • Country: de
  • A qualified hobbyist ;)
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #47 on: November 27, 2022, 11:52:12 am »
In case this is the first time hearing of Mastodon, it has a completely different concept than Twitter. Twitter is one large platform, while Mastodon is a network of a lot of tiny platforms or servers. You could compare it with classic mailboxes/BBSs which are linked by a network like Fidonet.
 

Online EEVblogTopic starter

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 39026
  • Country: au
    • EEVblog
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #48 on: November 27, 2022, 12:54:18 pm »
SMF is the best platform for this kind of forum, IMO.  Talking about desktop/laptop browsing and posting, because one can not do much engineering from a phone/tablet anyway.
No other platform that I'm using through other forums, or that I've ever tried can beat this SMF.
Not even the SMF 3.0, which I've tried and didn't like it as much.

I really like XenForo. Extremely similar to SMF.
Never seen a site use SMF 3 because it's not released, right?
 

Online EEVblogTopic starter

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 39026
  • Country: au
    • EEVblog
Re: POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server?
« Reply #49 on: November 27, 2022, 12:57:25 pm »
The idea of updating the forum software to something slightly more modern and commercial like XenForo has been floated before, but generally people don't like any change. As you said, very minor if anything.
The problem with SMF is that basically hasn't been updated for forever, and mod packages have issues with versions etc. The current SMF software running now is already a huge hodgepodge of mod plugins and even some custom stuff.
Do a test run and see how it goes.

There is a whole bunch of stuff to consider, even down to how Google would handle the indexing of the old posts if the system changed.
Massive decision even to try it out I think. It would need a lot of user backing.
 


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf