folk.zone

for the common folk

An experiment in IndieWeb commons, free services, real hardware, one person's conviction that the web can still belong to us.

beta

Services Temporarily Offline

I'm pausing the folk.zone project to completely replace Cloudflare in my infrastructure stack with more ethical choices. After a conversation with Adam Newbold of omg.lol, I realized that using Cloudflare is antithetical to the IndieWeb ethos I want to embody.

Cloudflare enables infrastructure for malicious entities through a false concept of neutrality, acts as a privacy nightmare by decrypting HTTPS traffic, and represents the convenience culture I actively resist. The project will take more time to launch properly, but that's the point.

Read the full explanation at brennan.day.

social & community

social social.folk.zone  nitro Mastodon Glitch, federated social, microblogging, the works offline lemmy lemmy.folk.zone  nitro Lemmy, community forums and link aggregation offline irc irc.folk.zone  cafe Ergo IRC + The Lounge, for the people who prefer it offline

writing & publishing

write write.folk.zone  casa WriteFreely, long-form writing, federated via ActivityPub offline pics pics.folk.zone  soon casa Pixelfed, federated photo sharing soon books books.folk.zone casa BookWyrm, federated reading tracker and reviews offline

code

git git.folk.zone  nitro Forgejo, open-source git forge, open registration offline

reading & research

rss rss.folk.zone  click FreshRSS, self-hosted feed reader offline bridge bridge.folk.zone  click RSS-Bridge, turn any site into a feed offline links links.folk.zone  click Linkding, bookmark manager and reading list offline

utilities & collaboration

paste paste.folk.zone  click PrivateBin, end-to-end encrypted paste, no account needed offline pad pad.folk.zone  click Etherpad, collaborative documents, no account needed offline wiki wiki.folk.zone  click DokuWiki, community documentation and guides offline go go.folk.zone  click Kutt, open URL shortener, create and share short links offline

hardware

nitro

cpu
Intel Core i5-12400F, 6c/12t
ram
15 GB
os
Ubuntu LTS
runs
Mastodon · Lemmy · Forgejo

cafe

cpu
AMD FX-4130, 4c
ram
7 GB
os
Ubuntu LTS
runs
IRC · static sites

casa

cpu
Intel Core i5-7200U (ThinkPad X270)
ram
7.3 GB
os
Ubuntu LTS
runs
WriteFreely · Pixelfed · BookWyrm

click

cpu
Intel Core i5-5257U (MacBook Pro 2015)
ram
8 GB
os
Ubuntu LTS
runs
wiki · rss · pad · paste · links · go · bridge

why this exists

I got tired of just talking about the IndieWeb and decided to actually do something about it. After running fanfiction.lol for a few months, 200+ users on a 2012-era CPU, I realized I had more capacity and no good excuse not to use it.

The IndieWeb can only survive if people contribute to the infrastructure and not just the conversation. At some point you have to help weave the strands of web gossamer yourself. folk.zone is my attempt to do that.

I'm taking a lot of inspiration from Adam Newbold's brilliant project, omg.lol. I really hold dear to my heart that indie operators can build something personal, opinionated, and useful for all. The difference here is that my project is far rougher around the edges. I'm running this on my local machines, not a robust Hetzner VPS, and it's also all for free.

Some of these services might seem redundant, but I believe in giving people choice. I care most about the longform. Someday I'd like to build something like AO3 for original creative work. WriteFreely is the closest thing right now.

This is an experiment. I don't know if people will actually use it. But I have to try, because it's the next step as a web developer, as someone who cares about the web as a place, as someone with the hardware sitting right there.

Registration is invite-only at launch. Find me at @brennan@social.lol to get on the list. Read more on the about page or the wiki.