I’ve just read about ClubsAll in the Fediverse Report and did some digging. It seems to be another Threadiverse service federating with Lemmy and others.

While I always welcome new platforms into the fediverse, there are some weird things with this one.

  • It isn’t open source, but the developer mentioned on ProductHunt that they want to open source it in the future.
  • You can’t run your own ClubsAll instance at the moment
  • They want you to join their Discord, but wouldn’t it be better to have the conversation around it on ClubsAll itself? I’ve found a ClubsAll Community on ClubsAll but it only has two posts from 10 months ago without any comments or upvotes.
  • Their main search bar is just a Google search
  • They want to finance it through paid accounts, awards and donations according to their about page.
  • According to their privacy policy they collect interactions with the content, like voting, bookmarking and reporting to improve and personalize the website and to develop new products and services and for marketing and promotional purposes.
  • I haven’t found content that originated on ClubsAll yet, apart from c/ClubsAll. All I’m seeing is content federated from Lemmy communities.

For me there are some red flags in there, like closed source code, paid accounts and data collection for marketing. But, correct me if I’m wrong.

  • vinay_clubsall@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    Sorry for late reply.

    I posted update elsewhere but here it is again

    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. ========================

    How are you planning to do this in the long run? Hand picking communities will be hard to scale I want to find the communities I like, and I’m not sure I’d like a curated feed like that.

    Core idea is to create a frontend for simple users who do not want to learn about servers and navigation to use a product. So we are starting with curated feed, once we have traffic, we can add features for advanced users to let users pick any community from any server.

    Instead, would you consider keeping the servers and instances but making them smaller in the UI? That way it’s not a distraction, but the information is still there. A lot of people mentioned it this time around. So we will show the instance name along with username i.e. change from /u/otter to /u/otter@lemmy.ca . This should be live before 2025. Hope this addresses your concern.

    The problem the fediverse is tackling is centralization, not lack of open source. That’s what the comment was referring to. If the goal of this project is to be a one stop shop for all threadiverse content, you’re not going to find much support here.

    Understood. Not everyone has to or will agree with what others are doing. I am trying something different. I am only asking for not enforcing undocumented rules too hard until we have some minimum traffic like let’s say 100 active users in a month (can be easily seen by who makes comments, Comments are federated). That should be reasonable to say “now you have some traction, do participate in community”

    That’s totally ok, the fediverse has many projects like this in various stages of development. The concern expressed in this thread is less about what the project is doing now, and more about clarity on what the future plans are. For example: funding through donations instead of paid accounts, advertising, and user data a confirmation on what kind of federation it will have

    It will have 2 way federation. As for funding, I am myself not sure, we have to try something different, whatever works. Again, while others may disagree, but are there rules on what not to do? What I see is that donation approach alone has not generated enough money for any server to be a real competitor. So are others free to try other things?

    • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      5 hours ago

      Looking forward to the sublinks migration, I know a lot of people were looking into it for when it becomes ready!

      Core idea is to create a frontend for simple users who do not want to learn about servers and navigation to use a product. So we are starting with curated feed, once we have traffic, we can add features for advanced users to let users pick any community from any server.

      Well rather, how will you pick which communities go in that feed? It’s not a bad plan, but transparency would encourage your users to use that feed

      Understood. Not everyone has to or will agree with what others are doing. I am trying something different. I am only asking for not enforcing undocumented rules too hard until we have some minimum traffic like let’s say 100 active users in a month

      With how new fediverse tech is, a lot of new rules will be “written” based on what people try. Obfuscating or misleading people on where content is coming from (which is the concern people are expressing here), seems like something people will push back against.

      A simple toggle would fix this issue

      • show the instances (default)
      • simplify my feed (removes the instances)

      Again, while others may disagree, but are there rules on what not to do?

      Nope, no rules on what not to do. Users and other instances are free to decide which ideas to support.

      What I see is that donation approach alone has not generated enough money for any server to be a real competitor. So are others free to try other things?

      I don’t think any one instance is trying to be the replacement alone? That seems to be a big misunderstanding on what people want from the threadiverse. Despite network effects that limit growth, these instances continue to grow, self sustain from donations and grants, and prove how easy it can be to break away from the model big tech companies have adopted.

      My view is that most people chose to use Lemmy/Mbin/PieFed/Sublinks over the established alternatives (ex. Reddit) because they didn’t like how those alrernatives were being run.

      As such, you might find it easier to build a userbase by avoiding what Reddit has done rather than try to emulate it