As a reminder, ClubsAll is still showing all of Lemmy's content without federating back
A post from 2 months ago which explained the context: lemmy.world/post/20694710
I just had a look, nothing has changed, the website is still using Lemmy's content to pretend to be active
Home - ClubsAll
ClubsAll is an interactive online platform that empowers users to connect with people, engage in a wide range of discussions, and share content on a variety of topics.ClubsAll
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recursive_recursion they/them
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •Just saw this and while I can't check at the moment the instances admins I've pinged might want to consider defederating from Clubsall
@snowe@programming.dev @Ategon@programming.dev @mp3@lemmy.ca @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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Ada
in reply to recursive_recursion they/them • • •like this
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Blaze (he/him)
in reply to Ada • • •like this
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vinay_clubsall
in reply to recursive_recursion they/them • • •Hi there, I am creator of clubsall.
There are a lot of adhoc discussions and rules. Some discussions such as this one does skip my notice too. So it has been very difficult to be fair and run a new instance.
It seems anyone trying to build a lemmy competitor is being killed. If that is the rule, lets state that and I will kill clubsall myself.
If not, can I request a discussion or at least a set of rules that we should comply to so I can save clubsall?
@snowe@programming.dev @Ategon@programming.dev @mp3@lemmy.ca @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
Blaze (he/him)
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •Oh yes, that's probably why piefed.social/ and kbin.melroy.org/ are never praised as alternatives, nor are they fully compatible with Lemmy both ways.
(For people unaware, they are)
vinay_clubsall
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •Ada
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •like this
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vinay_clubsall
in reply to Ada • • •In other words, I am promising to implement federation out before our instance matters.
m-p{3}
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •From what I understand, Clubsall doesn't allow federation to go both ways and accept that users outside of its domain can participate freely in their communities.
Can't have it both ways of leeching the posts from other large instances while simultaneously making it an exclusive club where only local users can participate, it goes contrary to the social contract and spirit of the Fediverse.
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Blaze (he/him)
in reply to m-p{3} • • •vinay_clubsall
in reply to m-p{3} • • •We are not trying to have it both ways, just need time to get there. We started with moving to sublinks library. This seems to be the best path forward, but timelines got extended after we found out that federation out is also under development there as well.
empireOfLove2
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •like this
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Chozo
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •like this
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haverholm
in reply to Chozo • • •like this
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vinay_clubsall
in reply to haverholm • • •I am the creator of Clubsall.
Please see my update above. Based on previous discussion, I was under the impression that until there is meaningful traffic, it is ok to give us time to implement federation. There were a set of rules proposed in another thread. However, seems like the rules were not finalized or not accepted or not distributed. If those rules are not acceptable, can we have a discussion first so we can agree what is fair and I have a chance to save clubsall?
haverholm
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •Look, at a glance it looks to me like you're populating a monetised platform with content off the fediverse without attribution. That's strike one.
Then you seem to stall for time to implement federation while admitting your developer quit... and continuing the above content scraping. Strike two.
And from what I read in this thread it appears you're actively dodging defederation by using subdomains to keep scraping content. Strike three.
My concern in this is the integrity of the fediverse and its users. Yours, apparently, is "saving" a platform that leeches content off federated platforms to make a buck off those users. I don't see much chance of agreement on "what is fair".
@jwr1@kbin.earth, I stand by that request to defederate.
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jwr1
in reply to haverholm • • •When the OP was initially made, I actually did end up adding clubsall to the defed. list, but I feel like I might have done that prematurely. I took a brief look at the Clubsall website, and I couldn't really tell that there was anything inherently evil about it. Sure, the usernames and community names don't display the server they come from, but I feel like that's more of a frontend/design decision (any Lemmy frontend or app could do the same), and if you hover over the names on desktop (or click on them), you can see the URL still has the instance of the users and communities. Maybe that's a good idea for a setting that could be added, where the user can toggle whether the username or community domain is displayed or not.
Yes, there are still many improvements to be made, such as a link back to the original user on their instance would be nice, federation support needs to be worked on, and probably much more. And I will admit, the fact that they don't currently have a developer doesn't bode well in fixing some of these issues, but I feel like if we are going to block them,
... show moreWhen the OP was initially made, I actually did end up adding clubsall to the defed. list, but I feel like I might have done that prematurely. I took a brief look at the Clubsall website, and I couldn't really tell that there was anything inherently evil about it. Sure, the usernames and community names don't display the server they come from, but I feel like that's more of a frontend/design decision (any Lemmy frontend or app could do the same), and if you hover over the names on desktop (or click on them), you can see the URL still has the instance of the users and communities. Maybe that's a good idea for a setting that could be added, where the user can toggle whether the username or community domain is displayed or not.
Yes, there are still many improvements to be made, such as a link back to the original user on their instance would be nice, federation support needs to be worked on, and probably much more. And I will admit, the fact that they don't currently have a developer doesn't bode well in fixing some of these issues, but I feel like if we are going to block them, we should come up with some definitive reason, and have it defined in our kbin.earth rules list. If we block clubsall for being closed source and having incomplete federation, then we would need to block threads.net as well (for the same reasons). At the moment, neither of those two technically break our rules; if we were to block them, we would need to make a decision as an instance to add another rule.
The clubsall creator already made a comment in the OP stating that the open sourcing and federation issues were being worked on. I know @vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world isn't the developer, but maybe he would have some sort of explanation for the additional subdomains that are being used for federation, which appear to be used to dodge defederation (I haven't personally experienced this though). I try not to assume the worse in a situation, so I'd like to give Clubsall the benefit of the doubt. However, if it is found that they have evil intentions (such as dodging defederation), then I will definitely reblock the domain.
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haverholm
in reply to jwr1 • • •I appreciate the consideration you put into the matter.
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vinay_clubsall
in reply to jwr1 • • •I can explain subdomains. As far as I know, my developer used some subdomains while developing (and trying to understand and make federation working), but eventually settled on api.clubsall.com (he wasnt able to get clubsall.com working).
So as of last few months, only domain being used should be api.clubsall.com. If that is not true, do bring that to my attention please.
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vinay_clubsall
in reply to haverholm • • •1. This is not monetized platform, there is no way to pay me, no advertisements, no premium plans etc. I am guessing you are saying since it is not open source yet, it is monetized. That will change, we started working on changing architecture to use sublinks, but got stuck as sublinks itself is under development.
2. As soon as sublinks federation works, we will be able to adjust quickly. Without this I have only two choices - spend a lot of money or shut it down. I would like to avoid both if possible. Since there is no traffic, I am requesting the community to give us benefit of doubt.
3. The developer used various subdomains while trying to implement federation. As far as I know, the final subdomain was api.clubsall.com. My guess is that admins are blocking clubsall.com and not api.clubsall.com. If another subdomain is still active, please let me know.
jerry
in reply to Chozo • • •like this
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vinay_clubsall
in reply to Chozo • • •I am the creator of Clubsall. Can we have a discussion first so we can agree what is fair and I have a chance to save clubsall?
originalucifer
Unknown parent • • •its nonreciprocal for monetary gain.
they seem to be in quite a hurry into ingest remote content while not really creating any method whatsoever to attribute that content to its source, or allow their users to interact.
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originalucifer
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •i generally only block for spam or technical/legal reasons.
blocked for technical reason: scraper.
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db0
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •like this
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Blaze (he/him)
in reply to db0 • • •db0
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •like this
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Gregor
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •like this
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vinay_clubsall
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •Hello Blaze,
One request, whenever you post about clubsall, can you please tag me so I can also participate? Thank you.
As for this discussion, when we had a discussion last time on reddit, I thought we agreed that as long as there is not meaningful traffic, it should be ok. I guess you were not fully onboard with this.
My request with all admins is - can we agree on some rules. If we block all new sites on hunch or rules as we make up, it will kill anyone trying to do something new.
There was another thread (that I cannot find now) where some rules were proposed. (If someone can find, please reply to this).
There are 2 things being discussed
1. federating out
2. open sourcing clubsall
I can give an update on both of these. As I mentioned previously, someone was helping me in doing some audit, implementing federation and then we could also open source.
... show moreWe were going to use "sublinks", which would do a number of upgrades. So that seems the right choice moving forward. It will allow self hosting, federation, move to postgres, move to dock
Hello Blaze,
One request, whenever you post about clubsall, can you please tag me so I can also participate? Thank you.
As for this discussion, when we had a discussion last time on reddit, I thought we agreed that as long as there is not meaningful traffic, it should be ok. I guess you were not fully onboard with this.
My request with all admins is - can we agree on some rules. If we block all new sites on hunch or rules as we make up, it will kill anyone trying to do something new.
There was another thread (that I cannot find now) where some rules were proposed. (If someone can find, please reply to this).
There are 2 things being discussed
1. federating out
2. open sourcing clubsall
I can give an update on both of these. As I mentioned previously, someone was helping me in doing some audit, implementing federation and then we could also open source.
We were going to use "sublinks", which would do a number of upgrades. So that seems the right choice moving forward. It will allow self hosting, federation, move to postgres, move to docker etc.
However during implementation we found that sublinks itself does not implement federation out. So we were blocked by that. I checked with developer just few days ago and I was told that since all developers are volunteers and they got busy, federation was delayed. The work will pickup again in new year.
I am not sure when they will be able to finish federation. I can quickly move there once done. However that seems months away.
In the meantime, can we have a discussion about a set of rules for clarification and fairness?
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Blaze (he/him)
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •Sure, I'll make sure to keep you tagged. I was not sure you were using your Lemmy account, so that's why I did not tag you in this post.
You are channeling the traffic from 44k monthly active users to your website without giving credit to the instances where the content is created.
I just checked, the homepage of Clubsall shows content from !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone, while lemmy.blahaj.zone have you defederated: lemmy.blahaj.zone/instances, as "clubsall.com" is in the blocked instances.
But if we look at the linked instances, there is now "api.clubsall.com" and "clubsall-api4.renchesterjramos.workers.dev"
... show moreSure, I'll make sure to keep you tagged. I was not sure you were using your Lemmy account, so that's why I did not tag you in this post.
You are channeling the traffic from 44k monthly active users to your website without giving credit to the instances where the content is created.
I just checked, the homepage of Clubsall shows content from !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone, while lemmy.blahaj.zone have you defederated: lemmy.blahaj.zone/instances, as "clubsall.com" is in the blocked instances.
But if we look at the linked instances, there is now "api.clubsall.com" and "clubsall-api4.renchesterjramos.workers.dev"
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone FYI
Everyone here is trying to make a new platform. Every Lemmy server, as well as Mbin or Piefed, federate content both ways, and allow to go to the original posts from the federated copies.
Every admin make their own rules. Feel free to convince them, a few of them are in this thread.
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vinay_clubsall
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •
... show moreThis is because federation is fairly complex and we are new to this and do not fully understand. I really do not know why we are getting content from lemmy.blahaj.zone when they have blocked us. The content is coming from federation, so how is it being pushed to clubsall after blocking?
This is because federation is fairly complex and we are new to this and do not fully understand. I really do not know why we are getting content from lemmy.blahaj.zone when they have blocked us. The content is coming from federation, so how is it being pushed to clubsall after blocking?
My request stays the same, give us some breathing room until some traffic threshold. Is that fair?
Ada
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •I blocked your instance based on your domain. But because you are using other domains to pull the content, you're still receiving content from the domains you use that I haven't blocked.
What is your plan for what clubsall will look like? I have no interest in killing a new and interesting platform for building community in the lemmy space. But if you're just going to pull content from lemmy instances without giving anything back, that's not building community...
Tell me you've got plans for something other than a content scraper, and I'll happily work with you.
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vinay_clubsall
in reply to Ada • • •Thank you for responding. Here are my plans
There is almost no traffic today, users are not missing out on any content. Since the timelines are not in my hands, my ask
... show moreThank you for responding. Here are my plans
There is almost no traffic today, users are not missing out on any content. Since the timelines are not in my hands, my ask is for admins to give me benefit of doubt and be patient until I wait for sublinks federation implementation (or if clubsall have traffic in which case, users will be missing out on content. In that case, I will have to think of something else)
Feel free to ask me anything else.
Blaze (he/him)
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •Do you mean this? github.com/sublinks
If there is almost no traffic today, why do you complain about being defederated?
vinay_clubsall
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •I mean this library github.com/sublinks/sublinks-a…
We have a handful of users. Their comments are being federated. They are not making any posts (because without federation there are no replies). Defederation will mean users cannot even comment and will have to abandon ClubsAll. A site being abandoned at this early stage usually means death of site, which I would like to avoid if possible.
Blaze (he/him)
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •Are you aware that most of the activity on Sublinks has stopped, with 1 change in November, and the other most recent ones from October? github.com/sublinks/sublinks-a…
As I mentioned in another comment, why did you not fork a project like codeberg.org/rimu/pyfedi which is still being actively developed?
How many do you have at this moment? 10, 25, 50?
vinay_clubsall
in reply to Blaze (he/him) • • •Yes I am aware, that is why our progress has stopped. I was told they will pickup again in new year.
I just did not know about pyfedi, I will look into it.
We have about 10 users in last month.
Blaze (he/him)
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •I don't know where you got that information, but the whole project just seems stopped at the moment. Development resuming in January would be surprising.
Good to know, thanks. Honestly, for 10 users, you should probably just host a standard Piefed instance, and that would probably be more than enough for your users.
Ada
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •vinay_clubsall
in reply to Ada • • •vinay_clubsall
in reply to originalucifer • • •Hello there, I am the creator of clubsall.
We are not in a hurry. In fact as stated, my developer has left, that has halted our development.
Also, we are a very small site with < 10 comments a month and I believe 0 posts.
So federation will hardly help everyone.
Still we want to implement federation, please read my update above.
My request is to agree on common and fair rules so we can be seen as upstanding community participants.
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originalucifer
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •sure. its pretty simple... dont put out a product that cannot participate fully. there are many unfinished platforms, but they dont scrape the fediverse content because, ya know, theyre unfinished.
as soon as you get full federation implemented (or even basic linkbacks to the original content), youre welcome to let everyone know so they stop blocking your scraping mechanism.
until then your unfinished product will likely be blocked.
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vinay_clubsall
in reply to originalucifer • • •Thanks for this.
My worry is that other admins have different set of rules. Someone said clubsall should be open sourced, someone said clubsall should be self hostable, another person said, it should attribute posts and have canonical links. Unfortunately the admins do not seem to have common agreed set of rules that are fair. So no matter what we do, it seems we will be blocked. Can we have a viable alternative?
There was a discussion about having a common set of rules which had proposal which is different than yours.
So I am requesting some breathing room exception based on traffic, so we can survive until we can develop more or there is a common set of rules agreed to. Would that be fair?
originalucifer
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •i would say youre running before you can walk.
you have an unfinished product, and you say youre in no hurry.. then why do you insist on scraping the fediverse?
finish your product, or dont. if you cant, there are plenty of open source platforms you could implement today. but youre not. why not?
if you insist on building a new wheel, finish it already or stop asking why people dont want to interact with you.
vinay_clubsall
in reply to originalucifer • • •originalucifer
in reply to vinay_clubsall • • •im tellin ya. make a product that participates and attributes the content back to its source, or dont bother. those are your options.
as it is you are monetizing other sites content with no attribution.
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vinay_clubsall
in reply to originalucifer • • •1 Can you explain how do you see us monetizing?
2. For attribution, currently you can see which user made the post. Should I display the server name on the sidebar?
vinay_clubsall
Unknown parent • • •Yes this is easy to implement. While I do not fully agree because impersonation can still be done by using username Bytes0nBikes. I feel showing instance names adds complexity for the user and it does not fully address impersonation anyways.
But then again, even though I disagree, many people mentioned that lack of attribution bothers them. So I should take feedback and get this done. I hope this is what everyone meant and they will accept this as a solution.
This is rather easier to implement. I should be able to get this done rather quickly. I will try to do this before end of Dec.