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👻👻 Flippin' spook, Tucker!'s posts Post Back to profile
👻👻 Flippin' spook, Tucker!

I do feel more than a little sympathy for @ernest.

In January he decided to try to build an ActivityPub based messageboard system.

A month ago he decided the code was stable enough that he could release the first alpha version, and stood up kbin.social to demonstrate it.

It attracted quite a few users per day and proved that it might just be an exciting new entry into the Fediverse.

And then Reddit's admins did their thing, and suddenly thousands, millions, tens of millions of users are looking for a new home. And although a few other brave souls have also created kbin instances in the last few days, there's simply not enough capacity to even begin to cope with all the demand.

#kbin #Fediverse #RedditMigration #Reddit

A note that is pinned to the kbin.social pages at the moment. It reads "I am working on solving the issues right now, but the traffic is enormous. There are no more powerful machines available immediately in the server room that could help with such a configuration. I am in the process of building the infrastructure, but I still need some time. All accounts have been verified and confirmed. I apologize for not being able to respond to everyone individually. Also, the kbin is still in the prototype stage, so please bear with me and be patient."
12 Jun 2023 at 11:53 | Open on social.chatty.monster
33 comments
Baloo Uriza

@losttourist Meanwhile the Reddit crowd probably rejects this reasonable request...

12 Jun 2023 at 12:03 | Open on social.tulsa.ok.us
Flta

@BalooUriza @losttourist I am from Reddit. Kbin can take it’s time. I’ll hangout on Mastodon for now.

12 Jun 2023 at 12:05 | Open on mastodon.social
Spaceman

@flta

Mastodon isn’t to bad, been on here a few days so I see the potential

12 Jun 2023 at 12:14 | Open on mastodon.social
J Miller

@losttourist @ernest

I feel like we are just shy of the point where a tech journalist breathlessly profiles founder Kay Bin.

12 Jun 2023 at 12:21 | Open on mastodon.online
👻👻 Flippin' spook, Tucker!

@JMMaok @ernest there's a huge opportunity for someone to get Kay Bin and John Mastodon together to see if they want to get their systems to interact with each other. And that Lemmy character. I bet he has some great ideas too.

12 Jun 2023 at 12:29 | Open on social.chatty.monster
Tim Chambers

@losttourist @JMMaok @ernest

I love that there is now head cannon linking Kay Bin and John Mastodon. Tabloid like rumors are sure to ensue.

#kbin #mastodon

12 Jun 2023 at 12:50 | Open on indieweb.social
Cyber Yuki

@tchambers @losttourist @JMMaok @ernest

imagining 80s TV show :thinkhappy:

Starring... Kurt Russell as John Mastodon

Matthew Broderick as Kay Bin

...and Lemmy as itself :blobrat:

12 Jun 2023 at 14:56 | Open on hackers.town
Baron Von J
Philippa Cowderoy

@losttourist @JMMaok @ernest I hear he's already got the only card he needs

12 Jun 2023 at 13:03 | Open on mendeddrum.org
Zak8022 :thisisfine:

@flippac @losttourist @JMMaok @ernest I can't stop thinking about how now we just need a "Carl” to go along with Lemmy (Lenny). 🤣

12 Jun 2023 at 13:31 | Open on mstdn.games
Woods By The Sea

@JMMaok @losttourist @ernest

Fox chyron: "Reddit Attack: Where Is International Terrorist Kay Bin Laden?"

12 Jun 2023 at 15:31 | Open on fosstodon.org
knova
@losttourist @fediversereport @ernest Agreed. The upside: I’ve seen a lot more dev attention to kbin and Lemmy so hopefully issues do get addressed sooner. Not to mention donations have gone up to those projects.
12 Jun 2023 at 13:13 | Open on dartboard.social
Antti Peltola

@losttourist @ernest
Hopefully #Reddit posters are less shitty than #Twitter posters who don't mind seeing the world burn if they can plug their newest book for the masses.

12 Jun 2023 at 15:25 | Open on mastodon.world
Nosaj :boost_ok: :loading:

@losttourist @ernest

The rapidest of rapid prototyping. 🤣

12 Jun 2023 at 15:34 | Open on aus.social
Jürgen Hubert

@losttourist @ernest I should check if he has a donation bin once the site is online again.

12 Jun 2023 at 16:01 | Open on thefolklore.cafe
Nicodemus

@losttourist @ernest Sounds like cloud infrastructure is gonna be needed to keep up with the demand. Quick provision some servers and get them out there hosting. Drop in adsense to leverage the traffic to pay for more hosting.

12 Jun 2023 at 16:11 | Open on mas.to
👻👻 Flippin' spook, Tucker!

@NicodemusB @ernest I believe kbin is already in the cloud (Hetzner) - I think the problem is that Ernest has provisioned the largest capability server they have and it's still not enough.

I'm guessing the current work being done is to enable it be horizontally scaled rather than just vertically.

12 Jun 2023 at 16:16 | Open on social.chatty.monster
Nicodemus

@losttourist @ernest That makes sense - I didn't consider that the software itself may not be scalable. It is pretty new on the scene after all.

12 Jun 2023 at 16:17 | Open on mas.to
DeadTOm :debian:
ティージェーグレェ

@losttourist @ernest

Requirements:
"PHP version: 8.1 or higher
GD or Imagemagick php extension
NGINX / Apache / Caddy
PostgreSQL
Redis (optional)
Mercure (optional)
RabbitMQ (optional)"

I know that @grunfink's snac isn't trying to solve the same thing, but I can't help but wonder if its svelte source in ANSIC might handle a larger influx of usage better given it is doubtlessly a lot more memory and CPU efficient than the above?

Kolmogorov complexity reduction is, generally speaking: a win.

@losttourist @ernest

Requirements:
"PHP version: 8.1 or higher
GD or Imagemagick php extension
NGINX / Apache / Caddy
PostgreSQL
Redis (optional)
Mercure (optional)
RabbitMQ (optional)"

I know that @grunfink's snac isn't trying to solve the same thing, but I can't help but wonder if its svelte source in ANSIC might handle a larger influx of usage better given it is doubtlessly a lot more memory and CPU efficient than the above?

12 Jun 2023 at 17:10 | Open on rap.social
👻👻 Flippin' spook, Tucker!

@teajaygrey @ernest@kbin.social @grunfink You're probably correct. However my original post was pointing out that until just a few days ago this was a hobbiest project that was running perfectly well on a small virtual server.

In the last couple of days it's been put through probably the most extreme end-user beta-testing process imaginable.

I don't want to put words into @ernest@karab.in's mouth but I expect that tuning for performance and scalability was way, way down on the TODO list compared to getting some of the basic features running. And rewriting the whole thing using a more performant stack - well generally that's something that happens a couple of years into a successful project's lifetime, not a few months after the very first commit!

@teajaygrey @ernest@kbin.social @grunfink You're probably correct. However my original post was pointing out that until just a few days ago this was a hobbiest project that was running perfectly well on a small virtual server.

In the last couple of days it's been put through probably the most extreme end-user beta-testing process imaginable.

12 Jun 2023 at 17:13 | Open on social.chatty.monster
ティージェーグレェ

@losttourist Yeah, I seem to recall after the dreaded birdsite migration of Eternal September 2022, event someone (was it @Gargron or @SDF I am forgetting now) spun up a Mastodon instance on some hardware with 72GB of RAM.

Which, is still about half what blade servers had that I was administering circa 2015, but capacity planning for sudden influxes isn't easy, even with budgets and paid ops teams.

It's a lot more challenging with nascent hobby projects.

Maybe we need a new term for the variation of slashdot effect concordent with some surveillance capitalism SaaS implosion? I get the impression, they're only going to continue with more frequency, both because: more people are waking up, and the libre/free open source alternatives are continuing to improve!

@ernest@kbin.social @grunfink @ernest@karab.in

@losttourist Yeah, I seem to recall after the dreaded birdsite migration of Eternal September 2022, event someone (was it @Gargron or @SDF I am forgetting now) spun up a Mastodon instance on some hardware with 72GB of RAM.

Which, is still about half what blade servers had that I was administering circa 2015, but capacity planning for sudden influxes isn't easy, even with budgets and paid ops teams.

12 Jun 2023 at 17:18 | Open on rap.social
newsorpigal

@losttourist @ernest

What's the deal with kbin? lemmy is pretty good and they seem to be scaling ok.

12 Jun 2023 at 17:22 | Open on mastodon.social
👻👻 Flippin' spook, Tucker!

@newsorpigal @ernest Lemmy has been around for quite a while and there are many instances of it.

kbin is still in an alpha phase, you can see from the (single) developer's roadmap here kbin.social/m/fediverse/t/511/

>

"Currently, I am at stage 1/2/3."

Where stage 3 is basically "get an alpha release working".

Stage 7 was going to be "Prepare for stable release" and I think he expected to get there maybe around the end of this year.

And then all of a sudden, the whole of Reddit decides to register for an account on his small, very-early prototype server!

@newsorpigal @ernest Lemmy has been around for quite a while and there are many instances of it.

kbin is still in an alpha phase, you can see from the (single) developer's roadmap here kbin.social/m/fediverse/t/511/

>

"Currently, I am at stage 1/2/3."

Where stage 3 is basically "get an alpha release working".

12 Jun 2023 at 17:26 | Open on social.chatty.monster
newsorpigal

@losttourist @ernest

I just don't see the point of kbin when lemmy works so well. I guess friendly competition is good for both.

12 Jun 2023 at 17:27 | Open on mastodon.social
👻👻 Flippin' spook, Tucker!

@newsorpigal @ernest Quite apart from the ethical issues many people have with Lemmy, I found its user interface really unintuitive, whereas the moment I tried to use kbin it just clicked with me.

12 Jun 2023 at 17:28 | Open on social.chatty.monster
newsorpigal

@losttourist @ernest

I'm not an American or live in the Western world, so I guess I don't get the controversy or the drama around Lemmy. The people in Lemmy seems like an ordinary bunch of people.

12 Jun 2023 at 17:29 | Open on mastodon.social
adam king
👻👻 Flippin' spook, Tucker!

@sabbatical @newsorpigal @ernest I believe the developers, and so the original Lemmy instance, were Stalinist-style Communists and were very quick on the banhammer for anyone criticising their political worldview. In particular banning anyone who took Ukraine's side when the war started last year.

Obviously many good software projects have been developed by people with all sorts of questionable political views, but the Fediverse has a long memory and a lot of other servers distrust all Lemmy instances because of that.

@sabbatical @newsorpigal @ernest I believe the developers, and so the original Lemmy instance, were Stalinist-style Communists and were very quick on the banhammer for anyone criticising their political worldview. In particular banning anyone who took Ukraine's side when the war started last year.

Obviously many good software projects have been developed by people with all sorts of questionable political views, but the Fediverse has a long memory and a lot of other servers distrust all Lemmy instances...

12 Jun 2023 at 17:55 | Open on social.chatty.monster
newsorpigal

@losttourist @sabbatical @ernest

That's the beauty of federation, right? If you don't like the moderation, you can just go to another instance.

12 Jun 2023 at 17:58 | Open on mastodon.social
newsorpigal

@sabbatical @losttourist @ernest

I don't know. People keep saying there is one, but I don't see it.

12 Jun 2023 at 17:55 | Open on mastodon.social
The Real Grunfink
Does this thing really support ActivityPub? It doesn't even seem to respond to webfinger queries correctly (it returns a bunch of HTML and JS and gives a 403 status. Does it want webfinger queries to be HTTP signed?).

13 Jun 2023 at 18:06 | Open on comam.es
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