this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2024
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As a reminder, ClubsAll is still showing all of Lemmy's content without federating back (clubsall.com)
submitted 1 week ago by Blaze@feddit.org to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
60 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A post from 2 months ago which explained the context: https://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

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[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

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?

[–] hono4kami@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Let me give you my opinion, specifically as a React developer, if you don't mind.

And let's be clear: I intend this to be a constructive criticism. I hope you understand and don't take it the wrong way.

To be honest, I don't know how good or bad federating one-way is. This is more of a "people" problem rather than a technical problem.

But, to be honest, what I am bothered by, is the fact that the website doesn't give an attribution in the UI about which instance certain users are from and which instance certain certain community are from.

Take a look at this post: https://clubsall.com/posts/theyre-trying-to-charge-luigi-with-terrorism-imagine-that-qfF82

The UI says that the post was posted by u[slash]BytesOnBikes. If I didn't know better, I'd have assumed this was from a user from clubsall. But if you click the username, you realize that the link says u[slash]BytesOnBikes[at]slrpnk.net. I think this would be confusing as a user. What if there is the same user under the username BytesOnBikes from clubsall? At least if you include the instance name, user would know right away that both users are different. But if you didn't include the instance name, I feel like this can be abused to impersonate user. This is a bad thing to happen to your website, don't you agree?

Now that we both understand that lack of attribution is a bad thing to clubsall... What's stopping you from adding an instance name to the username? I'm sure the app has a way to know which instance certain users are from. From what I gather, I feel like this is as easy as appending a string in the code.

I haven't even talked about the community name on the UI. Or the ethicality of misleading attribution.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

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.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

One request, whenever you post about clubsall, can you please tag me so I can also participate? Thank you.

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.

as long as there is not meaningful traffic, it should be ok

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: https://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

If we block all new sites on hunch or rules as we make up, it will kill anyone trying to do something new.

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.

In the meantime, can we have a discussion about a set of rules for clarification and fairness?

Every admin make their own rules. Feel free to convince them, a few of them are in this thread.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I just checked, the homepage of Clubsall shows content from !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone, while lemmy.blahaj.zone have you defederated: https://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”

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?

You are channeling the traffic from 44k monthly active users to your website without giving credit to the instances where the content is created. In our last discussion, you said "your site is small, so people just ignore it. Should it become more active, then users are probably going to call their admins to defederate." ClubsAll has not grown. This time you are saying we are not attributing. It seems even you change mind on to what is fair.

My request stays the same, give us some breathing room until some traffic threshold. Is that fair?

[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The content is coming from federation, so how is it being pushed to clubsall after blocking?

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.

My request stays the same, give us some breathing room until some traffic threshold. Is that fair?

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.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Thank you for responding. Here are my plans

  1. After some discussion with another fediverse developer, he recommended we move to sublinks library. I posted our tech plans here https://lemmy.world/comment/12922172. This will achieve a number of things - move db to postgres, deployment to docker/k8s, enable lemmy clients, make some security changes so our passwords are not exposed, this in turn will enable open sourcing and self hosting. This seems the best path forward.
  2. We almost completed the move when we found out that sublinks library itself does not have federation implemented. I was told it will be picked up in 2025 but it is also being developer by volunteers, so the timeline is not certain. Since we almost finished move to sublinks, as soon as they have federation, we should be able to move very quickly since work on our side is mostly done.

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)

  1. In the long run, idea is to have an simplified fediverse frontend that can realistically be a real open alternative to reddit.

Feel free to ask me anything else.

[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Thank you for the update. I honestly don't mind if you're not there in terms of federating out yet. As long as the plan for the project is to generate connectivity/community in some way, we'll be better off for your project being here :)

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Thank you for your support. We will get there.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

sublinks library.

Do you mean this? https://github.com/sublinks

There is almost no traffic today, users are not missing out on any content.

If there is almost no traffic today, why do you complain about being defederated?

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I mean this library https://github.com/sublinks/sublinks-api

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@feddit.org 2 points 3 days ago

https://github.com/sublinks/sublinks-api

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? https://github.com/sublinks/sublinks-api/activity

As I mentioned in another comment, why did you not fork a project like https://codeberg.org/rimu/pyfedi which is still being actively developed?

We have a handful of users.

How many do you have at this moment? 10, 25, 50?

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 41 points 1 week ago

@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com interested in cutting this site off perhaps?

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 26 points 1 week ago (9 children)

@jerry@fedia.io This seems like a reasonable instance for Fedia to block.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Hello @Chozo@fedia.io and @jerry@fedia.io 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?

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[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 25 points 1 week ago

i generally only block for spam or technical/legal reasons.

blocked for technical reason: scraper.

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm unfamiliar with Clubsall. Is it pulling them via federation or fetching via API? Would defederating work? I appear to have already defederated, likely in response to your earlier post, but not sure if that does anything. And that only stops them from pulling content from my instance, not what I posted to any other.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (9 children)

ActivityPub I would say, they show up on https://lemmy.world/instances for instance

api.clubsall.com
clubsall-api.renchesterjramos.workers.dev
clubsall-api.appcafe.workers.dev
clubsall-api3.renchesterjramos.workers.dev
clubsall-api2.appcafe.workers.dev
clubsall-api2.renchesterjramos.workers.dev
clubsall-api4.renchesterjramos.workers.dev

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 16 points 1 week ago

Thanks. I just had the main domain blocked, but I think I needed all of the subdomains as well. From the looks of those worker domains, it may be a cat-mouse game trying to keep them blocked.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks for this, we should get a wiki going somewhere for admins

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Please include me

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[–] recursive_recursion@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (3 children)

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

[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

My concern is that you receive content from our communities without generating anything back

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

We have no traffic, so even if we had federation out, we would still generate nothing back. In other words, I am promising to implement federation out before our instance matters.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

That is fair to say. 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.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 2 points 5 days ago

Well put

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

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.

Oh yes, that's probably why https://piefed.social/ and https://kbin.melroy.org/ are never praised as alternatives, nor are they fully compatible with Lemmy both ways.

(For people unaware, they are)

[–] vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Thanks for replying. I am not sure what is the history or intentions of these instances, but we will certainly get there.

[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 28 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Defederated. If they start federating outwards, I'll lift it

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 9 points 1 week ago

Well done!

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Last time they said their developer left. I doubt they found a new one in the meantime so I suspect this site will die soon

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