#known 2020-04-27
2020-04-27 UTC
[prtksxna], [LewisCowles], loicm and [mapkyca] joined the channel
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[LewisCowles] Can you create an issue with more details and assign me?
# [LewisCowles] or just @ mention me on GitHub. I'll come-a-running
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[jgmac1106] I just wanna publish my site, not learn backend engineering, wondering if I should just archive my current Known site and start fresh, looking for inconsistencies in metadata tables sounds scary
# [jgmac1106] okay reread you made a patch for folks like me, the postgres work is for Lewis trying to get to the easy install
# [LewisCowles] nothing as terrifying as it sounds jgmac
# [LewisCowles] it's basically key-value pairs, relating to data, which will exist, but perhaps be in the wrong places or cause upgrade errors
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jeremycherfas [jgmac1106] If you just want to publish your site, why don't you wait until upgrades are necessary for something you absolutely need to do? Going for each upgrade seems to me to be the problem.
# [jgmac1106] ...this was so I could try the course builder plug-in we are workign on....and having an ecosystem where n number of users are on n different versions isn't good for a community....could be WP and/or Android hangover too that not updating presents security risks
# [LewisCowles] for that profile of user only well supported SaaS makes sense
# [LewisCowles] there are very real costs to DIY or self-hosted
# [jgmac1106] good point Lewis....
# [LewisCowles] Which is why I'm only hosting HTML myself, trusting vendors for hosting more complex software
# [LewisCowles] and focusing on repeatable scripts
# [LewisCowles] I think that can be what holds Open Source back is that often those vendors are not correctly leveraged to give back
# [jgmac1106] yeah my goal by June is to create a publishign workflow on my main domain with longterm goal of micropub support. COVID got in the way of my scheduled PHP learning
# [LewisCowles] There's this "it's my precious" around the 100 lines of glue code to make a thing stable, when you just got 1M lines of code for free
# [LewisCowles] But there is also a need to provide mechanisms to reward those taking the time for 100 lines of glue code
# [jgmac1106] Known has always been my temporary (five year) solution to do what I do not know how yet....but my newer build are sooo much faster than my original site
# [LewisCowles] I think Known is a great solution. for self-hosted content publishing with indieweb tools in a specific environment. It's not very fair to view it with commercial product eyes, even if we all do because we're used to being consumers.
# [jgmac1106] another great point, and many of us started when it was either its own SaaS or well supported by shared hosts
# [jgmac1106] I have no problem going long term and trying to help rethink commercial as a collective, especially now when people questioning the "truths" of economic systems they thought were natural law
# jeremycherfas I know I'm a broken record on this, but really, what would it take to put Known on a commercial footing? Somehow, micro.blog seems to be healthy and growing, although I'm still waiting for the book I thought I was backing :)
# [jgmac1106] revenue, jeremycherfas and a push button install with auto-update features
# [LewisCowles] it's not just tooling
# [LewisCowles] direction may be an issue
# jeremycherfas I don't have the necessary skills, but I can imagine it being a service like that. Nobody installs micro.blog (do they?). They pay Manton to take care of all that.
# [LewisCowles] easy to point one arrow, than recruit a company of archers
# [jgmac1106] I did out revenue first...yeah like *.withknown accounts, they did shared hosting. I just think Ben and Erin were a little early to market
# [jgmac1106] Lewis I love that line!
# jeremycherfas Direction is THE issue, in my opinion. I don't know how to make purchasing a domain a reality, but I see it as centralised SaaS
# [LewisCowles] I had to google what a group of archers was 😂
# [jgmac1106] honestly help me figure out how you get somethign into installatron and softalicous
# [LewisCowles] "make it known" would be such a nice tag-line if we could get sir patrick stewart on-board
# [LewisCowles] dreaming here
# jeremycherfas Why bother with that? That's just going to land you in a world of pain with all the hosts being their. own idiosyncratic exceptions.
# [LewisCowles] jgmac106 I'm fairly certain I PR's installatron
# [jgmac1106] that covers almost every shared host, but no mater how many times I read installatron docs I can't find the process of adding your software
# [LewisCowles] which is not really a commercial solution
# [LewisCowles] all it does is repeat the known installer
# [jgmac1106] then you go with the patronage (hey be a part of the collective) or the freemium model like micro.blog
# jeremycherfas I'd help any way I could do launch and drive a commercial entity that allows anyone to have a Known site; the company hosts, pays Marcus, does the development, does the integration if that's wanted.
# jeremycherfas Micro.blog's model is NOT freemium. If you pay, they host. If you don't pay, they take care of RSS and webmention.
# jeremycherfas You still have to host somewhere and send RSS.
# [jgmac1106] when my shared host did their own installatron scripts for Known everything just got taken care of, they said it was too hard to maintain
# [LewisCowles] Right but if they are doing those without pay, it's something for free
# jeremycherfas Exactly.
# [jgmac1106] okay freemium isnt the right word but its kinda a version
# jeremycherfas It really isn't.
# [jgmac1106] jeremycherfas....if I can build in the s3 support and versioning may offer Known to schools again and give 70% of revenue to collective on each seat license
# jeremycherfas When I started my journey with known, I paid indiehosters because at that stage I could do my own SSL. I was happy to offload onto them. In the end, I abandoned that because they didn't do updating etc the way I expected, but by that time Lets Encrypt had come along, so it was moot.
# [jgmac1106] I have put in close to grants trying to fund Known development, some SBIR grants with Marcus and Ben, and 1.4 million IES grant, and smaller 50kish grants with Mozilla. I will hit the lotto one day
# [LewisCowles] I find grants a mystifying process
# jeremycherfas I can do no more than guess at costs, and I don't know what a dev would cost. But just imagine a fulltime dev on 100,000 dollars. Another 100,000 for hosting costs etc, and a salary for the director. Say another 50,000 for incidentals, marketing, sponsorship etc. If you can get 25 a year from 10,000 people, you're there.
# jeremycherfas What happens at the end of the grant? What's the sustainability plan?
# [LewisCowles] 100k for devs seems... part of the problem
# [jgmac1106] the course builder and OAuth plugin came from a grant, paid Marcus for that work
# [LewisCowles] It's not attractive to developers to say this, but coding should not be 2/3rds of cost
# jeremycherfas I'm totally guessing here. There must hbe people with real knowledge and experience who could put together an actualy business plan.
# [jgmac1106] 10,000 for ARR is not easy...remember that old VC post...nobody cares about your first 10k users
# jeremycherfas No VC money, steady growth, sustainable from 12 months out.
# jeremycherfas Screw VC money.
# [LewisCowles] I read figures wrong. 2/5ths 40%
# [jgmac1106] ohh yeah I only bootstrap, today's customer must pay for tomorrows
# [LewisCowles] Also screw VC money
# [jgmac1106] and revenue isn't only model, want to play with co-ops , collectives etc
# jeremycherfas Have you ever read the MailChimp history? That's very interesting. Also Pinboard.
# jeremycherfas Money has to come in.
# [jgmac1106] the site is down but I used to track all my sales on bootstrapsales.reviewtalentfeedback.com
# [LewisCowles] RE: s3, turn-key solution from heroku is not there, needs me to either convince them to let me offer platform addon (not sure I want to) or be clever with a hosted S3 service. But because I only really trust canonical AWS, it's problematic
# jeremycherfas Which is relevant why?
# [LewisCowles] was that to me jeremycherfas?
# jeremycherfas No
# [LewisCowles] without an address, 3-way conversation is hard
# [jgmac1106] we were talking revenue onlu sales paths, the s3 stuff Lewis was helping my kinda map out what a scalable push button 23 Beantsalk approach would look like
# jeremycherfas To Greg for the preceding comment
# [LewisCowles] oh I think he was sharing the importance of tracking sales
# [LewisCowles] and the importance of sales systems in such an endeavour
# [jgmac1106] meaning....been scraping by with a SaaS for almost five years now, and for just sharing tips on how to do no VC bootstrap sales only (and the irony of a Known site beign down bc I don't why)
# jeremycherfas I thought it might have had something to do with coops and collectives. I guess we'll find out.
# [jgmac1106] ugg Monday morning and my typing already this bad.....was working on a contract bid all weekend to what, use Known as part of a custom LMS for corporate instructional design
# [jgmac1106] no, not yet ReVIEW is an LLC, problem is k12 schools in US not really set up to be member of a co-op, but that makes the msot sense to me
# [jgmac1106] I like Ben's idea of a collective..just a shared group of companies who rely on the same stack and contribute back, share resources and talent, etc
# jeremycherfas I like the idea of world peace.
# [jgmac1106] the corporate instructional design space throws around stupid amounts of money, thus this weekend contract bid, trying to get more money into Known collective
# jeremycherfas Where can I find out about this "Known collective"?
# [jgmac1106] I think you already contribute: https://opencollective.com/known
# jeremycherfas I do indeed. But where
# jeremycherfas I do indeed. But where's Ben's idea spelled out?
# [jgmac1106] to me I think of it like the $5 I give micro.blog, try to do a bit more when I can, but mapkyca not working for free, we try to pay him even if it is just chewed up peanut scheels from the circus
# jeremycherfas Time I put in another tranche
# [jgmac1106] it isn;t really, job shifts, his mothers help, life...more form conversations and different blog posts
# [jgmac1106] from*
# jeremycherfas Even a collective needs some kind of direction. There is nothing there since Ben's update on 11 Feb 2019.
# jeremycherfas So, you know, what is the collective? Is it just a bucket by the door?
# [LewisCowles] Probably not enough money to looking at it, although who is Paul Lindner?
# [LewisCowles] *not enough money for regular updates
# [jgmac1106] ^^^ see comment about life, job switch, family health, yeah bucket for now, but less than year old. I give Ben and Marcus so much credit for keeping a candle going
# [jgmac1106] I was trying to do some meetups tied to IWCs, maybe we just need to schedule some monthly collective meetings
# [jgmac1106] problem is West Coast US and UK and looking for that magic UTC hour of around 11=13:00 and mapkyca job is directly tied to COVID-19 support right now. He is working 24/7
# jeremycherfas I can remember almost this exact same discussion as part of one or more of those, along with Paul Lindner.
# [jgmac1106] but I will reach out to everyone and try to get some meet ups on the table, yeah want to make sure Paul can make it, has such good insight
# [jgmac1106] We had three collective meetings, one at Summit, one at NYC, and one online, but more money in the bucket requires community management, different skill set than dev, i gotta go by all
# jeremycherfas OK. Re-upped. See ya [jgmac1106]
# [LewisCowles] I have to go too. I'm investigating some Known things and then I need to look at making a site for my latest venture, which has nothing to do with 😛
# jeremycherfas Thanks for the conversation [LewisCowles]
# [LewisCowles] You too [jeremycherfas] and [jgmac1106]
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[mapkyca] Direction: well, I’ve certainly got places I’d like to take known, [benatwork] as well. Money: yes, that always opens doors. Fundamentally though I think the biggest blocker right now is time: Can’t speak for ben, but I’ve got a lot of plates spinning right now with COVID stuff, and others, and I struggle to find time to really get into any larger chunks of Known work. Instead, sniping at stuff trying to lay the ground work for things (e.
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# [benatwork] Coming back to this thread after a meeting
# [benatwork] I have .. thoughts
# [benatwork] Obviously we got seed funding for Known and have also been a VC myself
# [jgmac1106] yeah and to Ben's thoughts a no-vc/bootstrap approach is only possible with a ton of priviledge (and in my case full time salary...after five years finally got my first distribution)
# [jgmac1106] though I dig approaches like indie.vc (which I and I think Ben applied to) but they have a 500K revenue hard(ish) filter, isn't a right path expect your own
# [jgmac1106] except*
# [jgmac1106] [mapkyca] folks love what you do and you do not draw from Collective funds enough, I will keep hunting fro small biz grants...has helped me keep the lights ojn
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# [jgmac1106] speaking of which....https://edtechhub.org/coronavirus/call-for-ideas/ I was kinda ticked we didn't get the Mozilla COVID-19 fund...the lofi learning idea is 100% what world needs now
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# [jgmac1106] must teach Mondays, must teach oondays...okay time for a tomato-timer....not finding my focus....and someone build me a Pomodoro plugin...after the most popular tags footer plugin)
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# [LewisCowles] You're very appreciated [mapkyca] and [benatwork]
# [benatwork] My meeting is finishing up and then I'll provide some history and bg thinking
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# [Aaron_Klemm] Looking forward to that! This conversation has been awesome to read. Glad to know about the Collective so I threw in on that as I prop up my first Known site. If it works out for my personal domain, I'll be keen to contribute on making a SaaS offering. Re: direction 1) What are the goals regarding IndieWeb and Fediverse support? 2) What is the vision for supporting other arbitrary software at a domain/URL considering many of us use a bunch of
# [Aaron_Klemm] random stuff to make our personal web spaces work for us?
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# [benatwork] OK, so
# [benatwork] Finally out of my meeting and I've got 15 mins before the next one, so here goes
# [benatwork] I wrote Idno while I was watching my mother during her double lung transplant recovery. The original intention was to build a community platform that could be hosted securely, with discussion not monitored by the likes of a Facebook. She had made clear that she needed support from people with similar experiences, but would never put that personal info on a commercial platform.
# [benatwork] As I was writing it, I started to attend microformats meetups and then indiewebcamp, through my friendship with Tantek and Kevin. I realized that it could pretty easily support indieweb standards. But it was never built to be an indieweb platform or an individual blogging engine from the start.
# [benatwork] The core idea was: flexible social feeds that one or more people could contribute to, with per-item access control and integrations both in and out.
# [benatwork] I still believe that it has most value as a multi-user platform. Blogging is well-covered.
# [benatwork] I met Erin at an indiewebcamp and we began to collaborate on design. A year later, we decided to pitch it to Matter, a mission-driven accelerator. Because of my experiences on Elgg, a previous FOSS community platform, I was very anti-investment. But Matter had aligned values.
# [benatwork] Erin and I applied as a multi-user platform, specifically as anti-Facebook, and got in on that basis.
# [benatwork] We received a total of $50,000 in convertible note funding, converting at 7% at a qualifying equity round. (Essentially this is debt that turns into equity when you raise a bigger round of funding later on.)
# [benatwork] I don't believe in scratching your own itch. I'm a middle class white man in the San Francisco bay area. Those problems are so incredibly over-solved and are fundamentally uninteresting. So we used design thinking to figure out how we could solve problems for a specific group, and landed on higher education.
# [benatwork] Based on user research, we changed the name to Known; added a MySQL back-end; created a SaaS platform where anyone could sign up and host a site.
# [benatwork] In part because we were featured on This Week in Google (thanks to Kevin and Leo), we received thousands of signups on day one. Pretty cool!
# [jgmac1106] launched mine like the day after TWIG I think
# [benatwork] Major problem: we gave our entire platform away as open source, and it turns out there was a strong correlation between people who wanted to use it and people who didn't want to pay. Although they were happy to pay for an account on a shared host, which of course didn't go to us.
# [benatwork] So it didn't really work as a scalable business. What did work was one-off customization contracts.
# [benatwork] We worked with a bunch of universities, and with KQED here in the bay area. By this time Marcus had joined us (thanks Marcus!) who is a very long-standing friend of mine and also worked on Elgg. That helped a great deal.
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# [jgmac1106] <---this guy but I ended up paying for Convoy as h/t...people have no idea how hard the edu SaaS is...forever sales cycle with 15 gatekeepers
# [benatwork] So the SaaS business was loss-making; we did manage to make reasonable funds and cover some of our expenses through contracts.
# [benatwork] A lot of people saw value in social connections to Twitter and Facebook, but setting up those API connections is hard. So we ripped out the integration engine from the SaaS platform and made it available to all self-hosters as Convoy for ~$5/mo.
# [benatwork] Suddenly it was one-click.
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# [benatwork] Easy! Yay! But the market size turned out to be maybe 50 people.
# [benatwork] Ultimately it became clear that the business wasn't going to work, but the platform was also really popular.
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# [jgmac1106] <-- tried to convince partner to use Known as basis for ReVIEW...but partner just got burnt on a revenue sharing deal and wanted work for hire....been paying for inability to convince him of mistake since
# [benatwork] I had the opportunity to have the business be acquired by Medium and pay back our investor. So I did that. Medium actually balked at the software, saw POSSE as a legal risk, and chose to pay the acquihire funds without actually buying the business, in order to bring me on. So we still paid the investor back *and* kept the business.
# [benatwork] Eventually Erin also stopped doing this full-time and is now a really great UX researcher at YouTube.
# [jgmac1106] benatwork++ for microformats medium export
# [benatwork] We were working below the poverty line in SF for the entire time we were working on the business.
# [benatwork] Eventually, through work with the Matter community, I joined the team there and actually proactively invested. I deliberately invested in a few more open source projects.
# [benatwork] What has become clear is that VC and a business for Known is not the right way forward. I do believe open source businesses can work in a scalable way, but mostly on the infrastructure level.
# [benatwork] I also think open source has a diversity problem: only certain kinds of people can afford to contribute for free.
# [benatwork] So Open Collective is a great solution.
# [benatwork] (I know the founders and I think they're doing great work.)
# [jgmac1106] don't have to think "open source has a diversity problem" is the whitest and male of all tech sectors, will hunt down citations
# [benatwork] The idea is: create a way for people to contribute from the community, and then pay the people who are contributing work of all kinds. Not just code, but design, strategy, etc. It's all important to contribute.
# [benatwork] Meanwhile, my own involvement has dwindled, because: 1) every member of my immediate family is disabled, and my mother is terminally ill. This takes up a lot of my mental and emotional energy. 2) I've been filling my financial hole, created by Known, by working tech jobs. Currently I'm the Head of Engineering at a mission-driven financial company called ForUsAll.
# [benatwork] At my worst I was ~$50K in credit card debt trying to make this thing work. So I've been focusing on myself a bit. But I want to support the community in every way I can.
# [benatwork] I don't believe SaaS is the way forward here, and could be proven wrong.
# [jgmac1106] I think collectives make a nice in between for co-ops and full blown independent companies,, I am not anti-capitalist....juts more hyper local niche artisanal restore the local kind
# [benatwork] I don't believe investment or a commercial enterprise are the right ways forward either.
# [benatwork] I'm not anti-capitalist either, or even anti-VC - I just don't think it matches here.
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# [jeremycherfas] That was very interesting and useful benatwork++
# [jgmac1106] my idea...but it is way off nowhere near market, and I just lost close to 90% of revenue...is if I ever sell Known to a district "donate" more than >50% back to collective.
# [jgmac1106] "donate" in quotes because I will let my accoutnant figure it our...and it is vapor revenue thus quotes
# [jgmac1106] benatwork needs to make that a blog post
# [jeremycherfas] And given your personal circumstances, I don’t think anyone expects you to take the helm.
# [jgmac1106] sorry for the credit card debt, founders worst nighmare at 20+%
# [jeremycherfas] But even a collective needs to agree on a potential destination and routes.
# [jgmac1106] We keep trying grants...but boy does my partner hate them...calls it free labor with no return....
# [jgmac1106] JeremyCherfas want to take the lead on setting up monthly meetings for next 3 months, maybe we rotate organizer role
# [jeremycherfas] You charge overhead on the grants don’t you?
# [jgmac1106] depends....is through my Uni or my company....trying to go outside uni because fringe steals sooo much
# [jgmac1106] the OAuth and Course Builder plug-in came from a 10K start-up grant from university of Connecticut
# [jeremycherfas] Sure, but even though I have far fewer calls on my time, my availability is restricted. But yes, let me think about that.
# [jgmac1106] I didn't get a dime of that, but figure it is part of my day job
# [jgmac1106] no pressure, but a rotating Collective chair a neat idea...didn't mean to throw you under bus
# [jgmac1106] what is neat with the OAuth plug-in now we have a some Moodle instances adding Known
# [jgmac1106] ...up next I wanna finish (by that I mena start) the webmentions plugin..It is NDAd but I spent all weekend working on an instructional design proposal for the private sector
# [jgmac1106] they dump STUUUPID money into corporate training...its all bad...bunch of animated Captivate videos and a multiple choice quiz
# [jgmac1106] [benatwork] been telling Manton smae thing, and thought of it with your media role at Matter, I would love something like Elgg or Known to be a subscription service resurgent local media can sell to subscribers
# [benatwork] had that thoought too
# [jgmac1106] have had two meetings with East Haddam Public News (our local 503c paper) with COVID-19 they moved online
# [jgmac1106] starting to see a return of some classified revenues, need to break the facebook town marketplace
# [jgmac1106] Had a thought it could come with a weekly digest newspaper, local business by a banner coupon add on. Trying to convince State of CT to use CARES act money to get a Known server in the libvrary
# [jgmac1106] that is my dream, lets root the web where lieracies have always belonged, libraries, schools, local media...this 15 year stain on human hisotry can be washed away
# [Aaron_Klemm] [benatwork] Can you say more then about Known _is_ currently and where it should be headed from a feature or use-case perspective?
# [jgmac1106] and +1 to thoughtson the multi-user feed reader site, much like @mblaney done with ihazawebsite
# [jgmac1106] I love Known as a multi-user network....just needs that bit of polish on syndication and social reader components
# [jeremycherfas] I don’t mind being voluntold.
# [jgmac1106] jeremycherfas++ for serving as Collectives First Quarterly Chair
# [Aaron_Klemm] [jgmac1106] re: subscription service appeals to me. I guess that's what I think of when I say SaaS, but I suppose that targets institutions.
# [benatwork] [Aaron_Klemm] So we have a roadmap up on GitHub
# [jgmac1106] yeah in way the paper would be SaaS so this would be B2B but all those terms silly
# [benatwork] In another meeting, will come back to talk about the future at noon PT 😉
# [jgmac1106] benatwork++ thanks for history lesson and all you do.. and the story of Knowns founding needs to be a video at top of Collective page
# [Aaron_Klemm] Ditto, very cool!
# [jeremycherfas] The only thing odd in the history from [benatwork] is the choice of Known as name. Unsearchable, alas. And WithKnown confusing at best.
# [jgmac1106] better than idno.....
# [Aaron_Klemm] Get a million users and it will be searchable.
# [jeremycherfas] How so [jgmac1106] ?
# [jgmac1106] SEO discovery is doable that just good content, forget the tricks.. when I tell non tech folks my blog is "Known" it resonates
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# [benatwork] Back from my meeting. So!
# [benatwork] We actually did extensive testing with the name. Originally I owned idno.de from another project and I just reused that. ID node. Not very friendly. But Idno sounded weird and memorable to me. So I reused that. Erin ran a Mechanical Turk test with hundreds of people and a bunch of different names for ability to spell, pronounce, recall. Known won. So we ran with that.
# [benatwork] She had a very strong belief that we should use a .com intead of a .co, so we used "with Known" as the SaaS name because we could get the .com. We actually paid a few thousand bucks for known.co, and I feel like we should have used that. The open source project should probably switch to it.
# [benatwork] The name did have a sort of ring when used with a subdomain though. "ben with Known". Or at least, it's not terrible.
# [Aaron_Klemm] .co vs. .com isn't as big a deal now, obviously. agree it would be useful to use
# [benatwork] As for the future --
# [benatwork] I made a terrible architectural decision, which was to use URIs as IDs. It was an experiment. I think it sucks for a bunch of reasons. I regret it immensely and I think the URIs need to be torched. Doing so will immediately make the platform more portable and allow people to move their sites. Sure, "cool URIs don't change", but frankly, no URI is cool.
# [benatwork] Bootstrap is completely out of date and heavy as hell and it needs to go too.
# [benatwork] but more deeply --
# [jgmac1106] "frankly no URI is cool" hee hee
# [benatwork] This needs to be a fast, easy to use platform for building a social stream. It needs to be portable and easy to integrate with using webhooks rather than per-integration plugins. The logic needs to be completely divorced from the presentation layer. And I think it needs to focus on server use rather than shared hosting use. In 2020, installation from the command line or from an image is more important than being able to FTP files.
# [benatwork] a social stream with any number of users, I should have added.
# [jgmac1106] you got close there are bits and pieces in the code base for the reader....don't be too hard on yourself, ihazawebsite is a good model here
# [benatwork] It needs to have great automatic test coverage, and great linting, with the latter running as a pre-commit hook
# [benatwork] If I could do it all again, I'd build it in Node, and I'd like to see that level of developer support and framework - getting away from the FTP-centric or Rails-like tendencies that PHP tends to fall into
# [benatwork] And there has to be a way to make those streams feel like a first-class web application from the user end - there is an "open source look", which is the same as something that has never been touched by a designer and is unapologetically code-first, and I think that's the kiss of death for most users.
# [benatwork] It should continue to support indieweb standards, _and_ support ActivityPub, _and_ traditional feed formats.
# [benatwork] I could imagine making it trivial to hook up a sensor to Known to automatically publish new readings. Or to create one for a class. Or to have one running internally in a company tracking uptime or major issues. Etc.
# [benatwork] And for the community, I would like first-class contributors to come from all disciplines. Not just coders, but certainly designers, and people who bring new perspectives. And I'm hoping the collective can help with that.
# [jgmac1106] like [cleverdevil] barbecue to Known posts
# [jgmac1106] [benatwork] part of reason I trying to help [Sadik_Shahadu] to seed in Global South and OER community
# [jgmac1106] I think you have a post somewhere why liberal arts folks make great foudners...may have been a matter blog post
# [jgmac1106] my other target is the niche artist communities who want to espace the etsy/insta hell
# [Aaron_Klemm] "focus on server use rather than shared hosting" aww yeah
# [Aaron_Klemm] So, what would you say is the main entry point or problem Known should solve? Personally, I want a personal web space with everything federated and IndieWeb-ified (also self-hosted, but when everything is federated I'm willing to use paid third-parties for hosting services since I'll know they can't lock me in). Is that it? Or is it something for entities or publishing outlets?
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[cleverdevil] I wish I had more time to contribute!
# [cleverdevil] I’m stuck about 4 months behind the latest in GitHub though :/
# [cleverdevil] Honestly I just need to pay Marcus to move me to the latest...
# [jgmac1106] [cleverdevil] your life crazy busy with kids and work, just finish a micropub as migration tool and all we be forgiveen
# [cleverdevil] Last time I tried my site performance completely tanked. To be fair, I have a lot more content in my site than most.
# [jgmac1106] I thought my site performance was just a me issue, good to know that brand new installs are way faster....though then the DB quite empty
# [jgmac1106] [mapkyca] needs to set an update price, though his job is 24/7 covid-19 support right now....
# [cleverdevil] My site is pretty performant right now
# [cleverdevil] But the last major database change was a big problem so I rolled back. I see he just pushed another major change.
# [cleverdevil] I’m betting it’s all good stuff! I just need to test and don’t have time.
# [jgmac1106] bigger schema changing come in next batch...yeah especially when what you got works...I wonder how many different versions there are
# [jgmac1106] the Plex integration, BBQ inegration ,this day in....everything you built is cool
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# [jgmac1106] JermeyCherfas volunteered to facilitate some Open Collective meetings over next quarter or so, hopefully you can join us
# [Aaron_Klemm] [benatwork] I ask partly to flesh out what you said about 'blogging' already being covered for people
# [benatwork] I mean, WordPress exists. And Ghost and Microblog and ... etc etc etc.
# [benatwork] If you want to write on the internet, there are plenty of ways
# [benatwork] (although I say this as someone who blogs using Known)
# [benatwork] What Known can do is create a stream of many different kinds of content, and present it differently based on context
# [benatwork] Filtering is a similarly powerful idea. "Show me all posts that are sensor readings and photos tagged with bats, from January 1st."
# [Aaron_Klemm] Ok, interesting. So to consider it for one's landing page might then be a mistake? It sounds like would be the stream provider and manager within or next to whatever one is using for their more broad personal web space solution.
# [jeremycherfas] On the design front, I completely gave up when I took a brief look at the templating.
# [jeremycherfas] That needs to be more accessible too.
# [benatwork] Yeah. It needs to be very, very simple.
# [benatwork] Thumbs up from here for that
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# [Aaron_Klemm] Is my question nonsensical?
# [Aaron_Klemm] So interesting that you worked on Elgg, I remember when that came about. I think I'm still chasing that dream, so I wonder where that's at today.
# [cleverdevil] [mapkyca] I can't honestly remember what the last change was?
# [cleverdevil] It was something that required a schema change or migration or something.
# [cleverdevil] I attempted it, but then my site would just start randomly timing out and everything got super slow.
# [cleverdevil] Had to roll back to an old backup.
# [cleverdevil] I've been stopped since then.
# [Aaron_Klemm] Not where Elgg is, but where the idea is.
# [cleverdevil] ↩️ MySQL
# [cleverdevil] ↩️ I wasn't kidding, I'd happily pay you a little something to bring me up to the latest. My website is probably one of the largest Known sites and most customized out there. A good test case 🙂
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[chrisaldrich] Some serious conversation going on in here today!
# [chrisaldrich] [jgmac1106] I considered it before on a much smaller scale, but I know that Jim Groom's Reclaim Hosting offers a product to universities that essentially is large scale hosting that can be overseen/managed by a smaller sub-group.
# [chrisaldrich] Do you think if we asked nicely, he might "donate" such a service to us at cost to allow a group to essentially offer managed hosting of Known?
# [chrisaldrich] I think they've got all the heavy infrastructure that would allow someone to do a one click install and just go. They handle domain registration, provide email etc. We could just pare the program back to do what withknown.com did, but also offer email as gravy. Could allow for $5/month basic subscription with a modest profit to bootstrap the next thing.
# [chrisaldrich] From Reclaim's perspective, it would just look like they've added another University, but one whose primary offering is WithKnown sites. The only difference is that rather than a minimum number of "seats" our "University" would have the ability to grow in size.
# [chrisaldrich] Essentially it would be something like a "WithKnown" Domain of One's Own: https://reclaimhosting.com/domain-of-ones-own/
# [Aaron_Klemm] That's the model I've brainstormed. Wasn't aware of Reclaim's mission except that they did Known hosting. Why is it targetted at Universities? Their homepage reads like exactly what individuals need.
# [Aaron_Klemm] The idea of putting something of their own into the hands of University students and hopefully they take it with them forever is interesting.
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# [chrisaldrich] Reclaim's model is doing the high end hosting, but they can keep their team relatively small because they're leveraging the fact that universities that use them are traditionally providing a small on the ground group of people paid by the university to do some level of the local support.
# [chrisaldrich] I suspect a small group of us could do a bit of that on a somewhat volunteer basis and then spend the additional money to fund the developement of Known and at the same time create a stronger Known community out of the process.
# [Aaron_Klemm] Well that's cool
# [chrisaldrich] The number of people who have been talking about this today is larger than most universities provide and I would suspect our level of technical expertise is either on par or greater than that of their average university as well.
# [chrisaldrich] Given our "mission" I suspect that Reclaim might take a flier on their profit margin to help support us, particularly since we'd also be making one of their offerings in cPanel better for the educational community they target.
# [chrisaldrich] Several of us are also known quantities to Jim and his team who keep an eye on the IndieWeb portion of the space.
# [jgmac1106] [chrisaldrich], I don't think so. We even updated their custom Installatron script for Known and Composer and they came bask with "just get it added to Instalatron rather putting labor on shared hosts"
# [jgmac1106] so there is history. A: I know Tim feels guilt for the "Open Source people didn't pay" as Reclaim helped Knowns userbase explode (edu bloggers being such a niche...explode too strong) as much as TWIG...or because of TWIG
# [jgmac1106] then after 0.9.2 and Known stopped updating they had a large customer service problem....I think, though I do not know for sure, they only support LAMP stack open source from Instalatron (or any sofware you upload)
# [jgmac1106] because of the experience. I have tried to connect them with manton, but I think manton should just spin up servers for communities....allow federation to micro.blog proper
# [jgmac1106] probably using his JSON blogging format but micro.blog...) rely on a ton of building blocks so therefore have proper mf2/html support .(some theme issues as people edit CSS or use other HUGO themes without mf2)
# [jgmac1106] [Aaron_Klemm] can a tool allow you to put stuff online....then it is a good personal stream. Known does this very well, not tumblr well, but better than WP, and Open Source if that matters to your values (does for me)
# [jgmac1106] I have always wanted a "page builder" plugin that gave just gave the ability to build a landing page....kinda why I always kept a WP (now a an HTML homepage as well)
# [jgmac1106] I might stuff my dresser drawers full of crap, but I want my front step looking real pretty. Nobody paints there house every day. Love a more static homepage
# [jgmac1106] [benatwork] you, or someone got Elgg into Instalatron. Is that a possibility compatible with the roadmap?
# [Aaron_Klemm] [jgmac1106] And that approach is all good if it weren't for the subdirectory problem, right? And regarding tools/streams, I like that thought and this stuff is starting to gel for me a little more.
# [jgmac1106] "open source people don't pay" is where I see future in more collective and co-op type operations, especially with more niche shared host....you won't retire but maybe spinning up an LLC getting some digital ocean space and helping neighbors could cover a car payment or monthly food
# [jgmac1106] [Aaron_Klemm] I am a very unique case coming from three sides: 1) my install was through a special script through shared host, 2) it was very old 3) my partner will leave me if I buy another domain
# [Aaron_Klemm] We've all been there with #3
# [jgmac1106] plus I really like where I landed, I got quickthoughts on the rando notes, my new longthoughts wiki, and jgregorymcverry.com in the middle
# [jgmac1106] in a way I stumbled on how I wanna organize my Common Place Book
# [jgmac1106] I also have probably 13 instances of Known running right now (personally) not counting another 20 or so through elmcitywebmakers and goifnetwork
# [jgmac1106] so any update comes with an edge case use.
# [jgmac1106] In terms of ReVIEW we just do talent development, aaron's boss observes you, we look at the report they write and say "this is how you can observe and coach better"
# [jgmac1106] I want to add Known as an option to school districts because real growth is driven through reflection and Known has the built in public/private/mebers only crucial for groups that IndieWeb hasn't really solved (say with the functionality of private messages in ActivityPub)
# [Aaron_Klemm] "open source people don't pay" I wonder if that's becoming less true with subscriptions exploding in recent years. Also wonder if it's mostly only true with young open source people. And finally, I've always thought identity and core services might garner more revenue if they were bundled with Internet access. So we need an IndieWeb/Fediverse ISP.
# [jgmac1106] If I ever bring to market I would just donate 50-70% back to Collective
# [jgmac1106] you have oi idea the hustle $5.00 mrr takes, grueling and below povertylevel probably never going to work in most cases
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# [jgmac1106] I lose money on my ARR (sorry annual recurring revenue, monthly recurring revenue) seat licenses, but that's because I have proprietary assessments I can sell
# [jgmac1106] I just finally took majority stake in the company so I want to begin process of moving to Open Source...it's not a matter of "flip a switch" as people think...takes a lot of replumbing
# [jgmac1106] so I think [benatwork] should build this but you then you sell the niche sensor integration or the hosting of the ML/AI (why stop at tags) that can be open source but no one will ever host
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# [jgmac1106] or you keep it proprietary, I do with assessments, they cost me 10ks to develop,,,but will move...also feel Ben's pain about "if I started over" ..( think Known as schema/database users as uri....my user provisioning database issues haunt me)
# [jgmac1106] "So we need an IndieWeb/Fediverse ISP" this I want to do with libraries...something like "checkoutyourdomain" and other projects: https://jgregorymcverry.com/sparkgrant and https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/
# [jgmac1106] the getting of a domain and building of a website still a hard lift for folks and wix and weebly still easier.....plus I really believe in and want a world where literacy and identity work gets re-rooted in the community
# [jgmac1106] sickens me we have made human growth and development into a profitable algorithm where one company owns the majority of 10 top networks and networks
# [jgmac1106] that and I want to keep yelling just make a browser both read, write, and remixable why I find beaker so fascinating...it could have (still could) work that way with HTML
# [jgmac1106] !tell JeremyCherfas As rotating organizer what do you think we just call all of today a meeting of the Open Collective
# [jgmac1106] off to dinner have a great night all
# [jgmac1106] sorry for the verbal diarrhea
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# [Aaron_Klemm] Good stuff!