Website League update for December
An update on what we've been working on, both software-wise and governance-wise, and information on how to join the Website League.
Howdy, folks. It’s been some time since our last newsletter update; we’ve been hard at work building the Website League on a variety of fronts.
What we've been working on
Software
Currently, we have the system up and running in a pre-alpha state. You can use the League right now, by joining a node with open signups. (See below for a list of nodes, and instructions on how to join the League.)
By “pre-alpha,” we mean that it’s very much a construction site; we are working on improving the user experience. Some of it is more Mastodon-like than it will be when we’re done with it; our centralized infrastructure allows us to eliminate many of the issues caused by the Fediverse's need to maintain decentralization while scaling to unlimited size. We may have more changes to make, but because we're not starting from scratch, it's very usable already.
Our developers have been working on several projects. The League currently runs on two pieces of software that talk to each other: GoToSocial and Akkoma, both of which use the ActivityPub protocol. We have forks of both, with modifications to suit the League and intend to upstream our changes. Those include removing metrics that inspire bad habits, removing network-wide global feeds, extending character limits as much as the software will bear, and squashing ActivityPub interoperability bugs. Eventually we hope to include CSS support (both for rich formatting and criminals), other features that helped make Cohost an enjoyable website to use, and other unique features of our own.
Viviridian is leading work on a cohost-inspired frontend, called pillbug. It currently focuses on GoToSocial and Akkoma, since those are the two servers used in the Website League currently, but it will work with other ActivityPub servers that implement the Mastodon API, including ones that aren't part of the Website League.
Pillbug structures posts so that replies appear as comments underneath the original post. When a post links to another post (e.g. quoting), the linked post is attached to the top of it. Generally, pillbug borrows design cues from cohost to make reading long-form posts more comfortable. It's currently under active development, missing features, and not yet ready for general use. Announcements are currently posted on the Website League at @pillbug@beam.phosphor.buzz; there is also an RSS feed available.
Governance and moderation
We are very close to finalizing the League code of conduct, which is derived from Cohost's community guidelines, with adaptations for our structure and issues that either have already come up, or can be reasonably expected to. Katja has been refining this, with input from all the interested Stewards, for some time. This will be a comprehensive document for moderators, with an accompanying concise summary for users; our ultimate intent is that this will be a good guide for how we can keep our community functional and healthy, with the spirit of the rules made plain in the text.
We are working on our vision document, which will be a summary of how we want the League to look when it's fully operational, which we will then use for project management. We have a collective vision, with small individual differences, and unifying those and writing it down will help us choose the best path forward.
We are also working on our finalized consensus procedure. The one we are currently using is temporary; we are learning how it operates and refining it into the best shape for our organization.
Finally, we've just finished a best practices for moderation guide to orient current and prospective League admins and moderators. This document summarizes existing peer-reviewed research on moderation, and how moderation can be made more fair, more sensitive, and more supportive of what we're building.
Infrastructure
We have also continued to refine our internal infrastructure. Anyone can log into these systems by signing up for an account on Authentication, our single sign-on system. Our intent is that these be accessible and open to all interested parties; we aren't locking anything up in private communications channels (other than sensitive operational information and PII).
The current tools for League users include:
- Our wiki, Information, which has been recently reorganized; it's where folks can go to learn about how the League works, how to set up and run a node, and how we govern the organization.
- Our Zulip, Coordination is our development, operations, and governance chat. Zulip is software that's a hybrid: it has Discord-style chat, organized into forum-style threads; the tools it provides us help keep conversation topics from getting lost in the shuffle. If you have questions or need advice on subjects that aren't yet written down in Information, ask here (or on our Discord, but we are directing people toward Coordination whenever possible, as it's easier to keep track of and help people there.)
- Our kanban board and task tracking system, Planning. This is where we keep track of what we've done, what we're doing, and what we're going to do.
- Our consensus-finding and decision-making system, Consensus. This is an instance of Loomio, a consensus management application designed for organizations like ours. We use it for taking polls of the Stewards to get a sense of sentiment, and for making official, binding decisions on our course of action.
- Our GitLab, where we are keeping patches to bring the software we use into compliance with our standards.
- Our Discord. We have wound this down for official use, because the work we need to do outgrew Discord's very limited organizational tools. All information and official League chat is on Coordination, which anyone is allowed to join and use, but we continue to maintain the Discord, primarily for user support.
How does the League work?
The best quick summary of this can be found on our website, under the "How it works, in four sentences" and "frequently asked questions" tabs. The "in-depth primer" tab goes further into it, for those who are interested. If you're seeking technical information or instructions, those can be found on Information, the aforementioned wiki.
How you can join the Website League
If you'd like to join and post on the League, you can join a node accepting open sign-ups. Our nodes currently run on one of two pieces of software; Akkoma and GoToSocial are mostly equivalent in functionality, but with some important differences, described below. Both of these are subject to active development, and feature parity between them is likely to change over time.
The software League nodes run is based on two components: the backend (which is responsible for hosting your data and communicating with the network), and the frontend (the part that you visit and post with). Akkoma comes with its own frontend; GoToSocial does not.
You can use pretty much any Mastodon-compatible frontend with either of these; we recommend Pillbug, our Cohost-style interface. If this sounds complicated, join an Akkoma instance; it's a simpler experience, and you can always try out Pillbug later.
Akkoma is heavier-weight (in terms of hosting resources), and written in Elixir. As of this writing, it has more features than GoToSocial; if you'd like to be able to edit your posts, join an Akkoma-based instance.
GoToSocial is lightweight, and written in Go. It's ideal for smaller communities, technically inclined users, and for people who want to host a node just for themselves.
Note that all our nodes can talk to each other; the League is a cohesive system, despite being made of multiple small communities. You can see, share, and reply to other League users' posts whether or not they signed up on the same node you did. When our code of conduct is finalized, it will apply to all nodes equally.
The following are a few nodes that are open as of the writing of this newsletter. An up-to-date list can be found on Information.
Akkoma-based nodes
- akkoma.questingbeast.fyi (allowing up to 50 users to start): questingbeast.fyi is an instance for fans of the mythological questing beast. It is also intended to be a chill, relaxed place that is intended for long-form content, link-sharing, blogging, and the like.
- pleasetf.me (allowing ~100 users to start): Welcome to pleasetf.me! This is a Website League instance for furries, lovers of furry transformation, and other fun furry kinks! You don't have to love transformation to be here, but be warned - you may not be the same when you leave
- weague.awful.cloud (allowing 25-50 users to start): weague.awful.cloud is intended as a relatively open-registration node of the Website League with a specific interest in longform writing and multimedia. We have an eye towards supporting and testing new additions to the Website League versions of our software to support this. Strange birds and rare creatures welcome.
- posting.isincredibly.gay (allowing 50 users to start): Heya. Welcome to posting.isincredibly.gay, where you can enjoy posting AND being incredibly gay at the same time. Cool, huh? We try to keep a pretty chill vibe here. There's no specific focus happening on this instance - just hang out, be gay, do crimes, and post along with everyone here and in the wider Website League.
- forest.stream (planned, signup list open, allowing ~100 users to start): forest.stream is a quiet place in the Website League, open to all who swear to tread carefully and leave no trace.
GoToSocial-based nodes
- beam.phosphor.buzz (allowing ~20 users to start): beam.phosphor.buzz is a general-purpose node of the Website League that is open for registration requests. Our focus is simple: to exist as part of the broader Website League so our users may participate in it. The domain was chosen after several hours of trying to come up with with and search for interesting domains; I was thinking about the sounds that CRT monitors make when you turn them on, off, or degauss them.
- lilypad.frogge.cafe (allowing ~20 users to start): Lilypad is a general-purpose node in the Website League which was formed out of a desire to remain "social." Registrations are open! From shitposts to longposts, we wanna hear anything you have to share. Lilypad aims to be a place where you can bring your honest self and feel cozy and accepted.
How do I do things once I'm registered?
- For Akkoma, we're in the process of writing a guide of our own. While it's not a completely satisfying guide for our purposes, in the short term please consult Akkoma's user guide which we've mirrored on our Information platform.
- For GoToSocial, we have a guide for general audiences on Information. This should introduce you to the absolute basics for navigating and using a GoToSocial-based node.
- For how you follow people who are on another node: type
@name@server.comor paste the full URL of someone's profile into your node (or frontend's) search bar. Since user accounts belong to a specific node, the node you use is responsible for loading posts from elsewhere in the network.
How you can participate in building the League
If you'd like to lend a helping hand, whether through development work or running a node of your own, join Coordination, introduce yourself, and check out the relevant channels.
I signed up. Now what?
Tell your friends you're on there, if they aren't already; find and follow them if they are. Check our your instance's local timeline, if it's enabled. Check out the tags. Post your heart out. Welcome to the Website League.