Ask HN: Recommended reading for decentralizing a social network?

9 points by k00b 4 years ago | 5 comments

The question is too broad ... you need to be more detailed about what you are trying to achieve. Something like Facebook? Something like TikTok? Something like Twitter?

Video sharing? Audio? GIFs?

Replies? Discussions? Groups? DMs and PMs?

Who is your audience? People who can install Docker? Or people who don't know the difference between a browser and an "app"?

Look up and read about XMPP, Matrix, and ActivityPub. Here's a document:

https://docs.joinmastodon.org/

That talks a little about the protocols and the software and might serve as a reasonable starting point.

k00b 4 years ago | |

Specifically: something like HN so replies and ranking I guess.

Audience: a Docker audience suffices.

ColinWright 4 years ago | | |

Just so you know ... that would exclude me. That's OK, of course, a more niche audience can lead to better and richer conversations, and there will always be people on the fringes.

Maybe you want a Mastodon instance that specialises in your sort of thing, and allow federation to catch the people who have interesting things to say, but are on a different instance.

draygonia 4 years ago |

The Interplanetary File System is a good start for decentralizing websites. https://docs.ipfs.io/

I'm waiting to hear from the rest of HN, I've been curious about decentralized websites for a while.