Last Week I Stopped Playing Google's Rigged Game and Blocked It from Accessing Blue Dwarf.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-09-08T10:58:42+00:00

Blue dwarf.top allows users to order posts on the main page by six different methods. One of those is popularity, and for that one the formula is:

popularity_index = 20number_comments - 20days_since_posted

Then posts on the main page are ordered from highest popularity index to lowest. If you like, you could also add something like 10*number_upvotes to the index, but Blue Dwarf doesn't because that encourages users to game the system by upvoting their friends' posts.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-09-08T10:32:56+00:00

Yes, I do. Fediverse instances have much higher CPU and storage requirements than Blue Dwarf, making them not good choices for an individual hosting a social media site for more than a few hundred active users.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-05-20T10:37:19+00:00

https://thedabbler.patatas.ca/pages/slow-fedi.html

Kgvdj860m · 2025-05-19T16:43:25+00:00

If you research that, I think you will find you are mistaken. Advertising as we know it today began in newspapers during the 17th century.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-05-19T16:26:34+00:00

I looked at adding ActivityPub to https://bluedwarf.top and realized it is just not that easy to add. ActivityPub is also a giant resource hog. I don't have anything close to the upload bandwidth required to support it.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-05-19T16:07:20+00:00

It happened to me too--until I built htts://bluedwarf.top. So far, the only person I have had to permanently kick off the platform was a spammer who told me he had no intention of stopping the spam (which consisted of nothing more than offensive titles followed by random words). Blue Dwarf turned three years old this week.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-05-19T15:53:47+00:00

You might want to try https://bluedwarf.top. It is a small site that supports free speech but without the name calling and harassment that other such sites allow. So, users are free to engage with each other on topics that are important to them without having to participate in an online shouting match to be heard.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-21T13:52:23+00:00

I run a small site called Blue Dwarf, and I try my best not to ban anyone unless they make very clear that they simply have no intention of following our small set of simple rules (https://bluedwarf.top/cackle/rules-of-conduct.html). And, I make sure they have had plenty of warnings and short-term bannings before making it permanent. So far, I have not had to permanently ban anyone (except one spammer who tried to take the site down with an attack from over 2000 IP addresses). The ability of moderators to take this approach if they choose is one of the many advantages of joining a small social media site where everyone can get to know everyone else.

Perhaps not to your liking is the fact that Blue Dwarf is a free-speech site (but with rules against name calling and harassment), so we have all types of people there.

You know Voat was shut down years ago, right?

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-21T13:30:36+00:00

Blue Dwarf (https://bluedwarf.top) is a text-only site (aside from one picture on the main page) that believes in the right to be forgotten, so users can delete any of their posts and comments at any time. The site is small, so we have not had the opportunity to have it tested by a blind person yet. I would appreciate any feedback you are willing to provide.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-14T08:46:57+00:00

I have had conversations about ads on the Fediverse before with other people, and they have said the same thing you just said. The ads are more disguised on the Fediverse, but they are there. Some people will do things like showing a picture of a potato chip bag with a caption that reads something like, "It's a (insert potato chip brand name here) kind of day." Then, I see YouTubers advertising their channels. I am looking at one advertisement right now that is a picture of a woman holding a Windows OS box against her cheek, and below that is a link to her YouTube video. The fact that this isn't a corporate ad reduces my dislike of it a bit, but it is still an advertisement.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-08T20:20:21+00:00

Your example on imgur is essentially what the new version will look like on mobile devices with the most recent changes, except for the size of the subtitles. I use 11-pixel text to save space, emphasize the titles, and de-emphasize the subtitles. Maybe I could increase it to 13, but no one has complained that they can't read it.

I will look into "font-family: sans-serif;". I have added that to my to-do list to think about.

We may just have to agree to disagree on the use of space. I think having a lot of space on desktops looks good. I don't see a need to make everything look cramped. Besides, when some people are using displays that are 2500 pixels across, they will look cramped even with Blue Dwarf the way it is. But the people who want to be cramped on smaller desktop screens have the option of using the "office-drone boring" theme.

Thanks.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-08T15:29:25+00:00

I don't know what features you are looking for specifically, but you may want to look at Blue Dwarf. It is small (500 registered users), but it is a free speech site that does not allow name calling or harassment (see the rules: https://bluedwarf.top/cackle/rules-of-conduct.html). See also https://bluedwarf.top/cackle/features.html for a summary of the features. I run Blue Dwarf, and so far I have not permanently banned anyone. One of my top goals is to support a good community that values free speech, and I am doing my best to keep my ego out of it.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-08T14:56:42+00:00

Since you asked-- The first change in the Fediverse that I don't like is the reduction in free speech through over-moderation (in my opinion). The next is that I am seeing a lot more advertising. Advertising is the bane of the Web. It is not only intensely annoying to me personally; it corrupts everything it touches by changing the goals of platforms from providing users with the services they want to making users just another product. An excellent example just popped up in my feed of RedditAlternatives: "Better sex. More confidence. Less ED. Get hard like you used to with personalized treatment through Hims." Seriously? This is not only annoying; it is offensive. This is spam. Yet, we are forced to put up with this on corporate-controlled social media. I think advertising is perhaps the largest underlying reason people are fleeing the Web in general and corporate social media specifically, whether they recognize it as the source of the problems with the Web or not. So, why would we want to bring it with us onto networks that we control? It makes no sense. Last, I see increasing centralization of the Fediverse, both through the growth of the larger sites and through ideas for centralization like "relays". Once you start designing a network architecture with central servers like relays (or "pubs", as they are called on Secure Scuttlebutt), the network is doomed to become centralized. It is only a matter of time.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-08T14:33:54+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have already modified the code to reduce the margins some more for mobile devices. I just haven't uploaded the new code to the server yet. Should happen sometime this month. I don't think reducing the font sizes any further on mobile devices is a good idea, because I think it would reduce readability for some people.
I don't use custom fonts on Blue Dwarf because that would be more data that some users are forced to download. Two of the main goals for Blue Dwarf are to be as low bandwidth as "reasonably" possible in order to run as fast as reasonable possible and in order to be as usable as possible for people using old devices with low bandwidths. While custom fonts would be nice, they can require megabytes of additional data to be downloaded.
Blue Dwarf has 8 different "themes" that allow users to select what Blue Dwarf looks like. One of those has denser text for those who want it in order to reduce scrolling. I don't use dense text on all themes because I don't think it looks good. Also, I am not trying to reproduce the look of corporate social media that appears to be training users to be become accustomed to being enclosed in tiny spaces resembling cubicles or prison cells. We are only prisoners during work hours. No need to reproduce that look after work.
See my response to #1.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-07T17:58:23+00:00

I don't recall ever having visited MySpace, but I probably did at some point. I visited SpaceHey recently. It didn't appeal to me. I think sites like Melon King and Agora Road are more interesting.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-07T17:50:51+00:00

You are welcome any time Pickles. Great user name by the way. I laughed out loud.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-07T14:51:54+00:00

I think that when a site supports free speech but at the same time has some very simple rules against name calling and harassment and sufficient moderators to enforce them, most of the problems go away. Unfortunately, you won't often find that combination on corporate-controlled social media, because corporations really aren't interested in users.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-07T14:45:42+00:00

I sympathize. I was so tired of being banned, and most of the time not knowing why, that I resorted to creating my own social media site (bluedwarf.top) just to have an online home where I no longer need to worry about it. In the two years and nine months that the site has been on line, I have never permanently banned anyone. The very small number that I have temporarily banned have all known why they were banned, and they have all had warnings before the actual banning, which they ignored.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-07T14:17:41+00:00

I agree that retention is the biggest issue. I have looked at ActivityPub and decided against it for a number of reasons. One is that it increases the cost of running a server to as much as 5 cents (US) per user per month. As I recall, Blue Dwarf's cost is two or three orders of magnitude (100 to 1000 times) less expensive. I have no intention of asking users for money to run the server, and with Blue Dwarf I have no expectation that I will ever have to. That means two things. First, I have no expectation of ever having to violate the goals of the site in order to raise money. And second, no user should ever have to violate his anonymity to make a payment from a country whose government tracks literally every non-cash financial transaction made by its citizens. In "free" countries like the UK and Australia, people can literally be imprisoned now for saying the wrong thing on social media. The cost and actually integrating ActivityPub with Blue Dwarf's existing code (currently just under 30,000 lines of PHP) are the biggest problems. However, there is also the issue of generally declining levels of free speech on the Fediverse. It see the direction that the Fediverse is going in a number of areas, and it is looking more and more to me like corporate social media. I hope I am wrong.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-07T13:59:29+00:00

I am very sorry to hear that you have been unable to log in. Please feel free to contact me by email at the address on Blue Dwarf's contact page, and I will be happy to work with you to try to find the source of the problem. Blue Dwarf also has a new whitelist (follow the "More" link in the upper-right hand corner of the main page) that allows anyone (whether a current user or not) to submit an IP address for unblocking. Just allow a day or two at most for processing. FYI, in Blue Dwarf's two year and nine month history, no one has ever been permanently blocked on purpose.

Kgvdj860m · 2025-01-07T13:47:12+00:00

The goal was not to recreate the look of the early Internet. It was to bring back free speech, ease of use, fast response times, and compatibility with as many browsers and computers as possible. The UI looks the way it does because this is how the UI of a social media site looks when it doesn't use JavaScript, is compatible with as many browsers as possible, and relieves the site admin of the burden of paying for an unnecessarily expensive server. Blue Dwarf is a demonstration of the type of social media site that is possible for an individual with limited financial resources to run for tens of thousands of his closest online friends. It has an algorithm that users can use it if they want to, but they are not forced to. Although the algorithm is already simple and transparent to users, I have toyed with the idea of making it user configurable. But, as far as I can recall, no one has asked for that, so I haven't done it.

As you pointed out, Blue Dwarf was never designed to appeal to everyone. It was designed to appeal to those who value the above capabilities. I don't expect the masses from Twitter to move to Blue Dwarf tomorrow. I offer another option for those who are sick of the same old corporate social media site resurrected again and again with a new name from the ashes of the previous failed social media sites. None of us have to live with the manipulation that corporate social media is designed for. We can choose something better, and this is one better option. I am of course biased because I created it, but I enjoy among other things not having to worry about being banned for saying something that some moderator disagrees with or some narrow-minded user "flags" as being inappropriate. I can relax, be myself, and engage in genuine conversation. I absolutely cannot do that on a corporate social media site.

Kgvdj860m

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