commit 234eda63e5c0e37192ed49af075a088367b5e2ac
parent 3572d508bbccd4fe8cd47bb299d8dd3964fd0c74
Author: rra <rscmbbng@riseup.net>
Date: Tue Jan 7 19:03:45 +0100
also the rendered output
Diffstat:1 file changed, 53 insertions(+), 57 deletions(-)
diff --git a/on-not-scaling-lurk/index.html b/on-not-scaling-lurk/index.html
@@ -175,67 +175,62 @@ governance</title>
instance. So what to do? Well, the bottom line is that there is only
so much we can, and, honestly, want to do.</p>
<p><img src="iFfov8BmSq21IIPSNJtDFg.webp" /></p>
- <p>Since the start, we tried to focus on quality over quantity on
- post.lurk.org. This has meant that we try to maintain a healthy
- diversity—across genders, creative practices, cultural backgrounds
- —rather than aiming at opening the door to a large number of people
- vaguely connected or interested in digital media and cultural
- practices. This is to a large extent because we do this for the sake
- of it and in our spare time, so we want this to remain an
- interesting place and hub for communities of practice that inspire
- us, rather than a chore. At times, and since last November 2022,
- particularly that has meant that we need to engage the brake on new
- sign-ups to be able to make sure that this sentiment keeps on being
- shared by everyone. At the same time, this means we have had to
- exclude some folks, who, as a consequence, felt left out. We’re not
- saying that the way we’re doing things is perfect, and it’s
- difficult to communicate about this choice, hence this long text. It
- can be a bit discouraging when from the outside, and from peers we
- had to decline, we hear that this reticence of letting more, and
- more-of-the-same, people is perceived as an attempt to create some
- exclusive cool kids club (true story).</p>
- <p>Nevertheless, we feel that this strategy has paid off. For us,
- one of the great things about having been involved in post.lurk.org
- is the quality of the space and how generative it has been for our
+ <p>Since the start, we tried to focus on quality over quantity. This
+ has meant that we try to maintain a healthy diversity—across
+ genders, creative practices, cultural backgrounds —rather than
+ aiming at opening the door to a large number of people vaguely
+ connected or interested in digital media and cultural practices.
+ This is to a large extent because we do this for the sake of it and
+ in our spare time, so we want this to remain an interesting place
+ and hub for communities of practice that inspire us, rather than a
+ chore. At times, and since last November 2022, particularly that has
+ meant that we need to engage the brake on new sign-ups to be able to
+ make sure that this sentiment keeps on being shared by everyone. At
+ the same time, this means we have had to exclude some folks, who, as
+ a consequence, felt left out. This sucks, we know it sucks, and it’s
+ the consequence of refusing to scale.</p>
+ <p>Nevertheless, we feel that not-scaling has paid off. For us, one
+ of the great things about having been involved in post.lurk.org is
+ the quality of the space and how generative it has been for our
practices versus how little time we, as an admin team, have to put
into it to keeping it running. That is something we want to maintain
- and something that is at risk when growing the instance more and
- more. Still, we want a mechanism where people can join
- post.lurk.org. After all, even if we want to not grow, there is also
- the fact that some people join and eventually leave, some just join
- and never use their account. Some simply disappear into the ether
- after a while. That’s cool. But this means that we could potentially
- welcome new people occasionally, without compromising on our way of
- running the instance.</p>
+ and something that is at risk when scaling the instance. Still, we
+ want a mechanism where people can join post.lurk.org. After all,
+ even if we want to not grow, there is also the fact that some people
+ join and eventually leave, some join and never use their account and
+ some simply disappear into the ether after a while. That’s cool. But
+ this means that we could potentially welcome new people
+ occasionally, without compromising on our way of running the
+ instance.</p>
<p><img src="3DCjoMkpReeZYDijQbP_4w.webp" /></p>
- <p>Until now, we did this is in a relatively unstructured way,
- opening applications every now and then, and receiving suddenly a
- huge wave of messages from people explaining to us why our instance
- is meaningful to them. Filtering these applications is one of the
- most unrewarding and stressful things about this approach, all the
- while having to make important but also, at times, arbitrary
- selection. Part of the issue is because of the crappy interface for
- selection—there is no possibility to respond to an application
- outside accept or reject, for instance—but a larger part is based on
- the arbitrariness of it. The secret LURK truth is more often than
- not, people we found exciting based on their application turned out
- to not be super engaged (if at all), and likewise, people we let in
- on a whim have become some of the nicest LURKers! Of course, we’re
- not naive, and this is a social process that is not that surprising
- in community building. The point is that we feel that the
- application method is not only stressful, but also doesn’t add
- anything to existing social processes emerging in online
- communities. Let’s try something else!</p>
+ <p>Until now, our onboarding was ad-hoc.Opening applications every
+ now and then, and receiving suddenly waves of messages from people
+ explaining to us why our instance is meaningful to them. Filtering
+ these applications is one of the most unrewarding and stressful
+ things about this approach, all the while having to make important
+ but also, at times, arbitrary selections. Part of the issue is
+ because of the crappy interface for selection—there is no
+ possibility to respond to an application outside accept or reject,
+ for instance—but a larger part is based on the arbitrariness of it.
+ The secret LURK truth is more often than not, people we found
+ exciting based on their application turned out to not be super
+ engaged (if at all), and likewise, people we let in on a whim have
+ become some of the nicest LURKers! Of course, we’re not naive, and
+ this is a social process that is not that surprising in community
+ building. The point is that we feel that the application method is
+ not only stressful, but also doesn’t add anything to existing social
+ processes emerging in online communities. Let’s try something
+ else!</p>
<p>One of the decisions we made in November 2022 is to cap the
number of accounts on post.lurk.org at 666 (keeping with our
tradition of using Meaningful NumbersTM™). The past years we stuck
- with that and it has felt pleasant. And here is the plot twist,
- starting now, we will automatically remove unused accounts. We will
+ with that and it has felt pleasant. And here is the plot twist, in
+ the future, we will automatically remove unused accounts. We will
warn (of course!) accounts that have not logged in for 12 months and
delete them after 13 months of inactivity. This allows more people
to join post, and automatically and slowly open up new spots for
others to join, as people lose interest or move on, which is fine
- really—please send postcards, though. We will hand out invites to
+ really (please send postcards, though!). We will hand out invites to
you if you request them, but we <em>really</em> still want to
privilege both diversity <em>and</em> people that are not yet on the
fedi. You will be for sure lectured about it once more by the
@@ -262,8 +257,8 @@ governance</title>
instance is not trivial, but it’s not impossible for a small group
of motivated people, as we’ve seen in our workshops. And this
instance mitosis is the kind of scaling we’d like to see more happen
- on the Fediverse instead of the emergence of heavily centralised and
- large instances.</p>
+ on the Fediverse instead of the emergence of unsustainable and large
+ instances.</p>
<p><img src="eU8gcyIPReOL-nGS2uTJlQ.webp" /></p>
<p>As mentioned above, we do this for the sake of it, and, outside
some flurries of work on technical things or moderation issues, it
@@ -454,10 +449,11 @@ governance</title>
an idea of all the options!). Keeping things constantly online that
are essentially ephemeral, or low value, feels wrong since it uses
actual resources. If you need to keep an archive, you can export it
- from the configuration panel, and with all the clever LURKers
- around, perhaps someone can make a masto2static script to serve your
- glorious toots elsewhere (and perhaps this is something we should
- put some LURK funds towards or crowdfund?).</p>
+ from the configuration panel and either <a
+ href="https://s427.github.io/MARL/">explore it</a>, <a
+ href="https://purr.neocities.org/">explore it some more</a>, or <a
+ href="https://codeberg.org/oliphant/posty">turn them in to a web
+ site</a>.</p>
<p>We want to mention this because one of the big unknowns at this
point is whether we can continue running the server as we have done
before as the entire network grows in size. For instance, one way
