________ ________ ________
2018-11-06 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
You've probably heard by now that I'm on / _/ / /
the outs with them so let's talk about the \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
SDF for a bit. / \/ \/ / \
/ _/ /_ _/
For a little while the SDF has been /- / _/ /
pretty broken, particularly permissions on \________/\________/\___/____/
the cluster (for git and perl for example),
the SDF VoIP service not configured for new users and not upgraded for paying
users and aNONradio frequently dropping out, sometimes to the point of being
completely unlistenable.
I've been pretty vocal about my dissatisfaction around the whole mess,
particularly the VoIP; it's fine to expect that if it's a free toy you might
have to be patient but if you are paying for a service and not getting it then
that's a different story. I posted a bit on Mastodon and in com during VoIP
discussions about how unhappy I was with the state of things.
In parallel with all this, another SDF user also voiced their frustration
with the state of the SDF and a lack of response from the sysop(s) and, though
far more civil about it than I was being was banned, to my knowledge without
warning, not only from their Mastodon social instance but from the SDF's shell
as well. I saw at least the Mastodon side of this happen as I was a moderator
at the time, and still have the email notification when they were reported by
the @SDF account, though I've lost access to the admin tools now so you'll
just have to take my word for this; they were reported by and immediately
suspended by @SDF with the reason being only "None".
It was so unthinkable that someone could be banned from a community for
very gently expressing something they didn't like about it. I was already on
the edge about SDF but that tipped me right over and I started withdrawing; I
moved to my own Pleroma instance for the fediverse, cancelled my MetaARPA
membership and backed up the config and mail I'd accumulated in my time on
their platform. At the time, I did stop short of nuking LOW WIRE.
So I think only a few days later, I was playing around on the new
Tildeverse Radio service and wanted to boost the usual "I'm live now, come
listen if you like!" posts on my old SDF account because it still had better
reach than my new account and it'd pop it into the SDF local to catch anyone
who might be interested. While I was able to log in fine, I couldn't view any
pages and everything told me I did not have access. My login had been
suspended and all it's content fragged.
To be fair, I can't see what happened and don't care to ask so maybe I was
reported by someone else for some stupid shit and was suspended for that but
who knows, unfortunately I don't have an email from whatever report was made
against me because I'd turned all that off when I left the SDF instance.
Knowing what had happened to the other user earlier I scrambled to check if
my shell access and everything was removed too; shell still worked, VoIP still
worked but LOW WIRE's mountpoint didn't.
At the time I just shrugged and moved on, I didn't have the patience for
any bullshit and I don't beg so instead I spoke with the Tildeverse Radio guys
and made arrangements to move LOW WIRE there if I needed to. They were really
welcoming, even though I was probably reeking of e-drama. I wasn't going to
even try and fix my aNON access because "fuck those assholes" but in the end I
did email the list, for no reason other than so no one could say I didn't try.
In the end I was told it was an unrelated issue that occurred when they
removed my MetaArray access. I'll take that with a grain of salt but have no
evidence to say either way. I did get a second-hand excuse that the new- old
admin is still learning the ropes but honestly don't really care. LOW WIRE
trucks on for now and still does ok for listeners despite my being the "black
sheep" of aNONradio.
The banning and mount problems solidified what was already a general
distaste for the SDF and that, paired with the fact that I'd already moved
most of my shell stuff to another system to work around losing screen access
left me wondering what even is the appeal of SDF anymore?
In my mind the SDF had two major draws; pedigree and community. I'm coming
at this purely from a shell provider angle, I can't speak to their web hosting
and MOTD stuff because I've never been interested.
The SDF has a long, long history and even in its current state of public
access NetBSD system it has been around for a long time, far longer than just
about anything else on the Internet. That's it's pedigree, but recently even
that has been eroded and when SDF's long-time admin smj stepped away, a large
part of that pedigree was lost. You could argue that iczer has been around
just as long but he hasn't, he left for, what, decades? With smj the SDF's
pedigree was tangible, I could point to him and say "that man has kept this
thing running all these years and you don't do that unless you genuinely
believe in it!"
You see his name all over the SDF in manpages, com dumps, ASCII network
diagrams and who knows what else, and that belief that no one would do
something so thankless for so long unless they were genuinely passionate about
it in turn makes me passionate. It makes me want to be a part if it and makes
me want to help out in any way I can.
To me, smj IS the SDF.
With him gone and the reigns handed over to someone who to my knowledge had
already abandoned the system once, I feel like the pedigree is just history,
the SDF in my mind becomes a "was" instead of an "is".
I'll admit iczer and I got off on the wrong foot but when literally the
first message I ever see from him is his complaining about how shit the SDF is
and then later, vague threats about being banned for 40 years or whatever the
fuck, what am I supposed to think?
Now take a look at the community on SDF. The only communities that are SDF-
specific are com and bboard, the IRC and Mastodon while mostly SDF members are
not SDF exclusive and both can be used even without an SDF membership. You
could argue that happening and profiles kinda count and maybe the gopher
spaces too but whatever.
For a system that boasts "about 30,000 members" you barely see more than a
dozen names in the community and in the case of com the vast majority of that
tiny fraction are perpetually idle. So now, with the SDF's pedigree fading,
what is the real appeal of its tiny active community beyond the novelty of
being a secret clubhouse for two or three users to gossip and snark-out any
newcomers?
I just don't know anymore.
There are so many other PUBLIX communities out there that are far more
engaged and far more transparent about what's going on behind the scenes. The
SDF has all the toys but there's always communities building their own.
circumlunar.space has it's com and bboard analogs, tilde.town has bbj and I've
got no doubt some upstart is working on some kind of tildeverse-inspired VoIP
concept.
Yes the SDF boasts "Imitators come and go - SDF exceeds them all" but what
is the point of just living longer if it's a life that's become devoid of
purpose?
I'm rambling but let me tell you a quick story before I close this file.
Before I was on the SDF properly I was on another PUBLIX system, I actually
found out about the SDF through them in an unpleasant, round-about way.
Anyway, they were small but had been around for a good while. They had a
pretty similar philosophy as the SDF and a pretty similar history in terms of
administration, in that a founder and original sysop lost interest and left
while the system continued on, evolved and grew under someone else. The system
never got huge but plodded along and even after I'd bailed for the SDF I had a
soft-spot for it so I'd still log in every now and then to check in and see
what was happening.
Earlier this year they had a catastrophic failure and were struggling to
recover from it and during that time the founder reappeared, joking that he
was surprised the thing still exists but offering to take back the sysop role.
The system is gone now and while I have no idea what went on behind the
scenes it left me wondering if they chose to see the end of what they had
built rather than hand it over to someone who had already abandoned it once.
