I like conspiracy theory minded topics, 9-11, new world order,
covid, even "alex jones" (oh my) UFO's, spirituality, vanlife, and a lot
of things that are outside the realm of technology.

I'm wondering if there are pubnixes that are centered around non-tech
topics. Seems like it'd be a good fit, since a lot of people who are
into that sort of thing are very annoyed with social media, censorship,
etc..

It probably wouldn't really have to be a "pubnix" it could just be a
mailing list. (or even better, one or more NNTP servers, like this one) especially for "vanlife" because nomads often don't have reliable
internet connections.

I love the text interfaces, old school shell accounts but I think it's
kind of boring to just talk about shell accounts and text interfaces,
I'd use gopher more.. if all the gopher pages weren't about how great
gopher is.

I don't have the money or resources to start my own tilde. If I did, I
think I'd do it in "bbs-ish" fashion, with menus and such for people
who wanted the BBS experience. I'd use plain old telnet, but only make
it available as a Tor/I2P service. (no need for encryption) and I'd set
it up with its own "username/password" database, in a chroot'd
environment. You'd sign up for the pubnix side via the BBS if you
wanted to, but people who aren't into that could just use the BBS like
an old school social network. (the "BBS" might be a glorified menu
system, with gopher, mail, etc.. but the ascii/ansi artwork would be
the central feature)

I've heard some people talk about BBS's as a way around censorship
because the NSA isn't really setup to index telnet connections. :-) I
think it'd be a neat way to get people into it, sign up for a BBS and
from there you could join the pubnix if you wanted to.

Alas, I don't currently have the resources for that.. so I'm thinking
about joining one again, (I was on the black tilde server, but lost my
account info, and anyway it was shut down)

Thanks for your time.

--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

Bogus User <bogus@example.invalid> writes:

I like conspiracy theory minded topics, 9-11, new world order,
covid, even "alex jones" (oh my) UFO's, spirituality, vanlife, and a lot
of things that are outside the realm of technology.

sdf.org might have some of this stuff in their BBOARD?

It probably wouldn't really have to be a "pubnix" it could just be a
mailing list. (or even better, one or more NNTP servers, like this one) especially for "vanlife" because nomads often don't have reliable
internet connections.

Citadel? Look at uncensored.citadel.org as demo. That's reachable via clickycoloured web interface and calssic BBS style.

I'd use plain old telnet, but only make it available as a Tor/I2P
service. (no need for encryption) and I'd set it up with its own "username/password" database, in a chroot'd environment.

And Tor would give you a constant address, no matter where/how you are connected to the internet. I like to play with such too, but definitely
am *not* in the target group for [Alex Jones] stuff.

Alas, I don't currently have the resources for that.. so I'm thinking
about joining one again, (I was on the black tilde server, but lost my account info, and anyway it was shut down)

It should be done as a swarm of peers using oldstyle protocols
implemented in boring universal macro assembler (C). That would
minimise cost and maximise interoperability.
--
Take Back Control! -- Mesh The Planet!
Do you GNUS too? -- yeti@tickle-me--but-please-only-over-nntp--club
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

It should be called:

___ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ __
| _ |_)___| |___ / _|___| |__| |___| | | / \
| _ \ / -_) / -_) _/ -_) / _` |___|_ _| () |
|___/_\___|_\___|_| \___|_\__,_| |_(_)__/


;-D
--
Take Back Control! -- Mesh The Planet!
Do you GNUS too? -- yeti@tickle-me--but-please-only-over-nntp--club
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

UAPs and other stuff:

https://tube.cadence.moe/channel/UCd6qylQWz49LNjE4xrKf3RA
--
Take Back Control! -- Mesh The Planet!
Do you GNUS too? -- yeti@tickle-me--but-please-only-over-nntp--club
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On 2022-08-22, Bogus User <bogus@example.invalid> wrote:

I'm wondering if there are pubnixes that are centered around non-tech
topics. Seems like it'd be a good fit, since a lot of people who are
into that sort of thing are very annoyed with social media, censorship,
etc..

Cosmic Voyage is not really tech oriented. It's sci-fi themed but it's
really about creative writing. breadpunk.club is geared toward baking.
Non-tech tildes are certainly doable!

It probably wouldn't really have to be a "pubnix" it could just be a
mailing list. (or even better, one or more NNTP servers, like this one) especially for "vanlife" because nomads often don't have reliable
internet connections.

Whatever form it takes, to be a "tilde" it should be "home on the
internet". A mailing list on its own isn't really that. A NNTP server
also isn't really that. But it could have those things, certainly.

I love the text interfaces, old school shell accounts but I think it's
kind of boring to just talk about shell accounts and text interfaces,
I'd use gopher more.. if all the gopher pages weren't about how great
gopher is.

Menu based systems are great. You could make a BBS using syncronet or
mystic or wwiv or something, or you could create a menu-driven shell experience. I have a light version of this on cosmic (run 'menu') which
uses pdmenu to make the system easy to navigate. You could go a step
further and make some pretty TUI interfaces with charm.sh and have SSH
launch it directly. It would have a BBS vibe but really be a shell
login.

I would like to see some tildes pop up with that aesthetic in the
future. Teaching/learning the command line is a great goal for *some*
tildes, but it doesn't need to be a requirement for all of them.

I suppose it's a blurry line between that and a "web based tilde", which doesn't feel very tilde at all. I couldn't draw the line where it stops, personally, but I think it's in there somewhere.
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On Mon, 22 Aug 2022 18:01:48 -0000 (UTC)
James Tomasino <tomasino@cosmic.voyage> wrote:

I would like to see some tildes pop up with that aesthetic in the
future. Teaching/learning the command line is a great goal for *some*
tildes, but it doesn't need to be a requirement for all of them.

Me too!

People can easily learn the command line by installing linux themselves
if they want to. But the community aspect isn't really something you
can download. :-) We used to watch X-Files and chat about it on IRC
sometimes. Those were the days..

Besides, once you learn the command line... then what?

I played with node's blessed terminal interface awhile back, people are
doing some very, very cool stuff in this new UTF-8, 256 color terminal
world. I'm not an ascii artist, but I really appreciate the artwork I
encounter sometimes. It's really impressive.

I suppose it's a blurry line between that and a "web based tilde",
which doesn't feel very tilde at all. I couldn't draw the line where
it stops, personally, but I think it's in there somewhere.

I draw the line with gopher, or RSS/Atom. Using 'rz/sz' to send files
over a telnet connection would be clumsy and since BBS's were in many
cases file exchange points, I guess you need the web for that. (can't
really use ftp over Tor)

Phones are probably why text mode interfaces aren't more popular. It's
not easy to use news or telnet from a smart phone.

I'd like to see more mailing lists and NNTP news software, coupled with
a BBS. People on phones should be able to at least access a mailing
list, and mailing lists are one possible way to escape big tech,
they're decentralized and they'll work off-grid.

I've looked for "David Icke / Alex Jones / Etc.." themed mailing lists
and I haven't found any. It's odd, because people who are into these
topics talk about big tech censorship a lot, you'd think someone would
have started such a mailing list. I'd start one, but I don't have a
reliable internet connection or mail server.


--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On 2022-08-22, Bogus User <bogus@example.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 22 Aug 2022 18:01:48 -0000 (UTC)
James Tomasino <tomasino@cosmic.voyage> wrote:

I suppose it's a blurry line between that and a "web based tilde",
which doesn't feel very tilde at all. I couldn't draw the line where
it stops, personally, but I think it's in there somewhere.

I draw the line with gopher, or RSS/Atom. Using 'rz/sz' to send files
over a telnet connection would be clumsy and since BBS's were in many
cases file exchange points, I guess you need the web for that. (can't
really use ftp over Tor)

Ahh, but you can! I run gopher and gemini over tor. FTP would be no
different. Just need to handle port 22. :)
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113