 Look, does anyone remember Usenet? You could run your own group. You could join any groups. It was up to your local Usenet admin which groups were carried at your site (usually a university or government domain) and how widely your local groups got promoted. It was also up to you/your admin what you DIDN'T see in your usenet feed. Lots of sites didn't carry alt.sex.*, for example. If your're old enough, "the fediverse" is kinda familiar. 27 comments
 @Johannab Oh yes, deja vu decades ago was my very first impression today, too: it reminded me of Geocities around 1999. But you are right: Usenet in 1989 might come even closer. @Johannab I propose adding a Usenet-style warning to Mastodon: "This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire civilized world. Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars to send everywhere. Please be sure you know what you are doing." This program posts messages to hundreds of thousands of services throughout the known world. Your message will cost the whole net tens if not hundreds of dollars to send, though this has usually already been factored into the operating costs. Please be sure you know what you are doing.  @Johannab I was thinking the same thing: https://ecoevo.social/@dezene/109293956182835232 @Johannab Yes, that was my first reaction when I saw a recommendation for and grokked the federated aspect of Matadon: seems like a great feature! @Johannab I remember my parents being Usenet peeps when I was a kid, always seemed like a very obscure and somewhat magical thing!  @Johannab I think discovered the fediverse (in 2013) before usenet, but well the whole thing is still there.
Heck, my ISP still has a Usenet server and the only way to check gmane these days is via NNTP. @Johannab |
Gregory's Server
@Johannab I was just telling my sister how much this reminded me of the old BBS system we used to communicate with in college. From before the Internet was the Internet