I'm making this post because I'm shutting down my Kbin instance, kbin.lol, and redirecting it here for an undetermined amount of time.
But why?
Kbin isn't ready. Not even close. I know the developer, Ernest, has been working his ass off trying to get everything fixed and pushed, and I really value his efforts. However, it's still beta software, and as I've been unable to make a good user experience, it's being shut down until there's a better release, or a stable one.
What issues? Kbin.social works fine!
- There is no option to delete a user, except from the command line. Users can't delete their own data. I have to manually process all user removal requests, with the backend.
- Federation appears to be broken due to the messenger backend repeatedly crashing, with no information on how to fix it. All I did was restart the Docker stack, which shouldn't break anything.
- Compiling and running the site is extremely difficult. With Lemmy, I just pull a docker-compose, set some variables, and start it. With Kbin, I have to clone the git, change many variables across many config files, and then compile the entire stack from source(even though stable releases of some containers exist). I did eventually manage get the site running, except this leads into the next point...
- There's no way to do a stable update. I've tried pulling Git updates into the existing folder - that overwrites all my variables and the site doesn't start. I pulled it into another folder, and not only does it not start, but all the users and database get wiped. I'm sure I could figure it out...but I don't want to be providing a site to my users that's so duct taped together. Ernest, bless his heart, is patching stuff up on the source daily - but how do I update?
- It doesn't appear to be scalable. The main instance, Kbin.social, runs slow and unresponsive because of the sheer volume of users on it(which baffles me, because it's beta software that wasn't ready for prime time). It'd be better if we had more instances, but it's hard to deploy, so we don't have many instances...it's a never ending circle.
Okay, so it's got some issues. What now?
For now, you're more than welcome to join my Lemmy instance, which is right here. It's nice and stable and I feel confident providing it as a service. I'm still subscribed to Kbin development, and if it has a proper Docker stable release, or something that just makes it easier to host, I'll look into it again. It'd be a damn shame to let the kbin.lol domain name go to waste, lol, so I'm definitely invested in getting it running.
If you happen to be a smart web developer with spare time, and would like to volunteer your skills to get it running, feel free to reach out to me, but again, it's a hairball I don't feel comfortable with. With the right help, though, maybe it could work.
I don't like Lemmy, it's got tankie devs!
Personally, to be perfectly frank, I couldn't give a shit less. I've got a long history in the FOSS community and if I banned everybody I disagreed with it'd just be me, a scratch kernel, and nano. Outright political instances and instances that allow blatant racism are defederated here on my instance. Lemmy devs are willing to create a product that makes the entire internet better, and share it with everyone, for free, regardless of your beliefs. That's good enough for me. I'd rather see the internet become a better place, than to turn our nose up at a FOSS project, because of disagreements between humans. That's ruined enough of the world already.
What's a tankie?
Google it. I'm not here to be political.
Never mind all that, I just want Kbin!
Well, you're free to use any instance of anything, of course! Kbin.social is open for signups - although I can't guarantee that it'll keep up with the flow of new users from Reddit. We have hundreds of Lemmy instances including this one that seem to be doing fine, if you would like.
If Kbin can pull together a release that is actually worth running, I will deploy it and relaunch the site.
- P.S. All user accounts and data from the kbin instance have been deleted. Don't worry - your data is gone, not being kept or spied upon.