Recently I've been thinking about if a decentralized forum is possible. For most forums this is not an issue but for KF, whose very existence is consistently threatened, this could be a solid option if truly necessary. I preface this by saying I have only a beginner understanding of decentralized technologies, so please correct me if needed.
A forum would have to support a trust structure, like how currently users of a forum trust admins/mods to cleanup and moderate. Authentication can be done the standard way with GPG keys. It would also need to support broadcasting thread updates (shouldn't be too hard). Ideally this forum would be relatively easy to use by any computer user and well supported by actual developers. For example it's pretty easy to open up the Tor browser and paste in an onion link. Personally wouldn't mind something a little more technical, like a traditional newsgroup. I think that even has its own charm.
I2P or Freenet sound like good foundations. Syndie looks reasonable as a start but may lack some nicer features of web forums. It would take an enormous amount of effort to migrate including redoing the whole backend, so this is only a last case resort IF admins have the energy and technical know-how to run such a decentralized forum. I may try to setup a test Syndie forum and if you're technically inclined and would like to participate, let me know.
Might work on a blockchain? Store posts in the ledger and require payment to post. I doubt it would be a compelling alternative to what we've got, but I'm sure some genius could make it work.
Might work on a blockchain? Store posts in the ledger and require payment to post. I doubt it would be a compelling alternative to what we've got, but I'm sure some genius could make it work.
Younglings who don't remember USENET detected. The problem of decentralized forums was solved before forums as we know them came into being (GPG is needed for authentication, of course, and user interface issues depend on having good newsreader software.)
Younglings who don't remember USENET detected. The problem of decentralized forums was solved before forums as we know them came into being (GPG is needed for authentication, of course, and user interface issues depend on having good newsreader software.)
What's wrong with it though? With (hypothetical tbh) modern software, you could have basically the same experience as this forum, backed by decentralized USENET, solving people's worries about centralization. Even stickers could be implemented by some ad hoc standard.
What's wrong with it though? With (hypothetical tbh) modern software, you could have basically the same experience as this forum, backed by decentralized USENET, solving people's worries about centralization. Even stickers could be implemented by some ad hoc standard.
the mentality has changed a lot. People need immediate feedback, people need to move large media files. A lot of nodes of that decentralized model are mobile devices with limited resources. It all could be made to work in principle, but by the time it will, it would be another beast entirely.
the mentality has changed a lot. People need immediate feedback, people need to move large media files. A lot of nodes of that decentralized model are mobile devices with limited resources. It all could be made to work in principle, but by the time it will, it would be another beast entirely.