I made a few patches to coax it into working. But I haven't gotten around to making a new GitHub account and I can't find @tanrax's email address. So...
Well, yes, technically you only need the first patch to get it to work. The second patch adds my name to the list of social-org sites. They're both one line changes, so it should be easy to verify I'm not adding to the global index of chicanery through software.
And if it's been a while since you applied a patch to a repo (instead of just pulled from a repo you merged into), here's the HOWTO I wrote about it:
Finally a social network that only true nerdy people will ever join, I might just finally pick up emacs again.
scubbo 172 days ago [-]
What about Mastodon?
(I'm, like, 80% joking)
krapp 172 days ago [-]
As far as I can tell, Mastodon is nothing but nerds, which is what I like about it.
giancarlostoro 171 days ago [-]
Anyone can get past a dog, nobody f$;&&) with a lion.
Anyone can get on mastodon, nobody f&)@) with emacs.
But seriously the barrier to entry is high enough you will only get the true geeks.
scubbo 171 days ago [-]
A barrier-to-entry isn't necessary if no non-geeks want to join in the first place (which is, IME, true of Mastodon). Mastodon has successfully made itself a place that no non-geek would ever _want_ to spend time on anyway, so no barriers-to-entry are necessary to maintain that state.
(You can decide for yourself whether this comment is praising or criticizing Mastodon)
cml123 172 days ago [-]
Just last week I was fiddling around with a tangentially related idea. I made some modifications locally to my setup so that when browsing a .org file in eww, org-html-export-as-html would render it in the buffer as HTML directly. eww doesn't really support much styling via shr, so I was working on adding some basic css parsing to expand the range of expression for an org-based blog approach.
Many people export their org file based blogs to HTML and then publish them, but my thought would be to skip that and instead provide a path for eww to directly render org files, cutting out my html export stopgap.
gentooflux 172 days ago [-]
This seems less "decentralized social network" and more "html-less www with extra steps," especially since it's only going to allow socializing between the specific types of people who fall within 3 very specific Venn diagram circles who 1) use emacs, 2) use org-mode, and 3) want to go through the trouble of hosting their own section of the network.
bee_rider 172 days ago [-]
I guess this is an internet for the folks who are still annoyed by the Eternal September?
Gemini is for hipsters who want to look like they like Gopher, but can't live without their cat pics.
(Said in jest, of course)
macintux 172 days ago [-]
You reminded me that many years ago I gave some Microsoft sales folks grief for dropping Gopher from IIS, and then I wondered whether IIS still existed, and that led me to discover that iis.net was retired this summer.
And I still don’t know whether IIS itself still exists.
raspyberr 170 days ago [-]
Gemini lives rent free in the heads of like 99% of HN users. It's really weird. Look at any Gemini network posts on here. So much hate for a little network that just sits there and does its thing.
Joker_vD 172 days ago [-]
And also 4) somewhat want to talk to other people ― but not that much that they'd be ready to exit Emacs.
small_scombrus 172 days ago [-]
> but not that much that they'd be ready to exit Emacs.
There's great news for the people who want to talk to other people and NOT exit emacs - you can get IRC built straight in.
Try as I might, I have not been successful in getting my wife to use IRC. I guess I should take that as a sign that she just doesn't want to talk to me...
Well, there is https://plan.cat ...which, hosts a user's plan files. :-)
I guess think of it as a little microblog for displaying one's plan file?
lemonberry 172 days ago [-]
This is kind of neat, thanks for sharing.
temp0826 172 days ago [-]
We're rewriting the books. finger was the first social network!
bitwize 172 days ago [-]
I've observed that Unix itself was a social networking platform. Your Unix account was your identity across many services: email, finger, USENET, talk, etc. And it was distributed. And didn't rely on cruft like ActivityPub.
temp0826 172 days ago [-]
Totally! ident alongside IRC too. So many reinvented wheels. (Side note- I'm a little sad that https is the only protocol used for everything anymore).
mtillman 172 days ago [-]
Still is if you have an account on sdf.org.
ethan_smith 171 days ago [-]
Exactly - the finger protocol with .plan/.project files was essentially a proto-social network where users could publish status updates on Unix systems, and org-social follows that same decentralized, text-file-based philosophy but with modern tooling.
kogasa240p 172 days ago [-]
As someone who uses org-mode to take notes this seems genuinely wonderful, personally cannot stand HTML/CSS drudgery.
3036e4 171 days ago [-]
I am a heavy ORG-mode user, but this looks like a more complex variant of a gemlog. A gemlog is just a gemtext file with a list of links to posts, including the date of each post in the link text. Then each post is just a gemtext file. Gemtext being the extremely simple, line-based, format that is used for making Gemini sites. A gemlog is basically a blog that is also its own RSS feed, without any of the complexities of things on the real web.
It is never going to go mainstream, but there is a critical mass of people using it and it is probably for the best if it never grows much beyond that.
Sounds a bit like the idea that Bluesky started out with. I don't really get why specifically org mode though, sounds like you could be doing the same thing with a simple Markdown file. And while you're at it, why not just use HTML and read your friends' blogs in the browser?
abdullahkhalids 172 days ago [-]
Org mode is far more structured than markdown. Structured enough that so you can naturally store data in, and easily access/edit it later.
Whenever someone tries to do something similar in markdown, they have to invent an extension of markdown to do it.
SoftTalker 172 days ago [-]
Yes markdown is simply about formatting text. Org is a data format.
3036e4 171 days ago [-]
Markdown really isn't a specific thing with all the incompatible implementations, many of which allow embedding HTML (i.e. "whatever happens to be supported by current version of Chrome" is also part of those Markdown formats).
If you pick one of the more sane (or at least less insane) variants of Markdown, like Pandoc's variant, you do get at least some ways to embed data in reliable ways. It also makes it easy to export and style documents and write your own filters that can make use of the data in various ways. In general I prefer to use ORG-mode, but for some purposes I use Pandoc Markdown instead.
Because that would require leaving emacs, I guess.
Just a guess. I'm a Vim user so unlike emacs users I do know how to shower but like emacs users I can't manage to carry a conversation with someone in person. We only think partly alike.
bsoles 172 days ago [-]
> Because that would require leaving emacs, I guess.
Yeah, but if this kind of social network was hosted on Vim, nobody would be able to exit it I guess.
arduanika 172 days ago [-]
Frankly, you'd need to make vim even harder to exit if you want to compete with the big players in this space.
omaranto 171 days ago [-]
You could do the same thing with a Markdown file, but I wouldn't call it simpler than Org. Maybe by simple you meant "familiar to more people"?
t_mann 170 days ago [-]
I meant 'less markup' (in the sense of a simple ratio of markup characters over total characters). Now you can say that the markup is still fairly low and actually useful. But that goes to my second point of why not just use HTML. This is pretty much exactly what it's been designed for originally.
tocs3 172 days ago [-]
I think you can use whatever. The markdown is very org mode like.
crabbone 172 days ago [-]
We kind of already have groups in Gnus... I even messaged one group, like twice in my life.
jraph 172 days ago [-]
If this takes off and becomes mainstream, will you show some inclusiveness towards poor people like me who will dare editing their org social files with an editor like Kate?
nosioptar 172 days ago [-]
(I don't use org mode or Kate. Love Kate, but prefer vim.) At least one person's set Kate up for org mode.
This sure is a social network for a very small and specific set of people.
jancsika 172 days ago [-]
In other words, it's a real social network.
mtillman 172 days ago [-]
I feel like https://github.com/buckket/twtxt didn't get enough love when it was released. Registry hosting doesn't seem to be any harder than DNS.
stronglikedan 172 days ago [-]
> harder than DNS
Oh, so extremely hard then.
arduanika 172 days ago [-]
The anti-social social network
rhelz 172 days ago [-]
You say that like it's a bad thing? :-) I almost never see posts on facebook from my actual friends. it's all either E.D. adverts or bots pushing an agenda.
egypturnash 172 days ago [-]
I do not say it like it's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm just observing this fact.
I'm not in that very small and specific set of people but I am not that far from it; last week I logged into Furrymuck for the first time in decades and attended a memorial service for one of its wizzes and remembering how that text-only MMORPG worked sure was interesting when I wasn't busy crying my face off.
ruslan 172 days ago [-]
How about social.md which is gpg signed ?
OhMeadhbh 172 days ago [-]
Why not just sign the social.org file and publish it as social.asc or something?
ruslan 172 days ago [-]
Right. But I would still prefer markdown file format, so I could simply open it in web browser. :)
OhMeadhbh 172 days ago [-]
Sure. But the point of this system is you use it from emacs.
BrouteMinou 172 days ago [-]
What does it solve compared to a normal plain HTML blog?
deltasquared 172 days ago [-]
This filtered out those who
1) don’t use eMacs
2) don’t use org-mode
I suspect org-mode users are willing to go through an extra step if needed.
My notes are in .org if I want to share with someone else I export to .md and use the output
OhMeadhbh 172 days ago [-]
My take on it is it's for people who live in org-mode. Though I'm thinking a org-social to html converter would be a decent tool to have. One more project to fill my copious spare time.
kyykky 172 days ago [-]
There seems to be a function to generate a feed based on the posts of the people you are following.
172 days ago [-]
philipwhiuk 172 days ago [-]
> Because of the decentralised nature it is very difficult to discover new users. You have to think of it as a technology similar to email or RSS feeds. The natural flow to find new addresses, URLs, or nodes, is because you have been given the address or because you have seen a link on a website. Org-social is the same. You have to share your address with your friends or on social media.
Feels like it's missing the point.
ontigola 172 days ago [-]
[dead]
danluvscock 172 days ago [-]
[dead]
Beretta_Vexee 172 days ago [-]
This looks like a bad hybrid between RSS and Markdown. Am I missing something?
jayde2767 172 days ago [-]
In the end, Streaming Services have proven to be nothing more than advertising platforms scattered with brief moments of content. The ads outweigh the content making it less cost effective than going back to Cable, which is still terrible also. Hence the need to pirate and control what content you see.
monkeywork 172 days ago [-]
think you replied on the wrong post friend.
frogulis 172 days ago [-]
Which is funny, because my mind filled in the word "social media" and I thought it was a fair point, until I got to the word "Cable".
nosioptar 172 days ago [-]
Same. It's almost like everything has been enshittified to the point that the same complaints can be made in numerous places.
Rendered at 21:48:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
And if it's been a while since you applied a patch to a repo (instead of just pulled from a repo you merged into), here's the HOWTO I wrote about it:
(I'm, like, 80% joking)
Anyone can get on mastodon, nobody f&)@) with emacs.
But seriously the barrier to entry is high enough you will only get the true geeks.
(You can decide for yourself whether this comment is praising or criticizing Mastodon)
Many people export their org file based blogs to HTML and then publish them, but my thought would be to skip that and instead provide a path for eww to directly render org files, cutting out my html export stopgap.
(Said in jest, of course)
https://www.iis.net/
And I still don’t know whether IIS itself still exists.
There's great news for the people who want to talk to other people and NOT exit emacs - you can get IRC built straight in.
https://github.com/emacs-circe/circe
The installation instructions are scary but It has been straightforward to install melpa version via use-package with telega-server in docker.
I guess think of it as a little microblog for displaying one's plan file?
It is never going to go mainstream, but there is a critical mass of people using it and it is probably for the best if it never grows much beyond that.
https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/gemtext-specification.gmi
Whenever someone tries to do something similar in markdown, they have to invent an extension of markdown to do it.
If you pick one of the more sane (or at least less insane) variants of Markdown, like Pandoc's variant, you do get at least some ways to embed data in reliable ways. It also makes it easy to export and style documents and write your own filters that can make use of the data in various ways. In general I prefer to use ORG-mode, but for some purposes I use Pandoc Markdown instead.
https://pandoc.org/demo/example33/8-pandocs-markdown.html
Just a guess. I'm a Vim user so unlike emacs users I do know how to shower but like emacs users I can't manage to carry a conversation with someone in person. We only think partly alike.
Yeah, but if this kind of social network was hosted on Vim, nobody would be able to exit it I guess.
https://akselmo.dev/posts/kate-and-orgmode/
http://ahungry.com/blog/2013-04-01-blogging-with-org-mode.ht...
Oh, so extremely hard then.
I'm not in that very small and specific set of people but I am not that far from it; last week I logged into Furrymuck for the first time in decades and attended a memorial service for one of its wizzes and remembering how that text-only MMORPG worked sure was interesting when I wasn't busy crying my face off.
I suspect org-mode users are willing to go through an extra step if needed.
My notes are in .org if I want to share with someone else I export to .md and use the output
Feels like it's missing the point.