This post is written on https://normals.me/ and delivered to !fediverse@lemmy.world over #ActivityPub, so if you are reading it the basic plumbing works. Now let me explain what is this.

Normals is a forum with communities, threads, and questions with an accepted answer. It is a single instance, not software you can host, and the core is closed for anti-abuse reasons. The federation module will be published separately with implementation notes (FEP-67ff).

What federates today Every community is a Group actor following the Lemmy model (FEP-1b12). Follow @selfhosted@normals.me or any other community from Lemmy, PieFed, Mbin or Mastodon.

Posts and comments go both ways. Replies from your instance appear in the thread on Normals, replies from Normals go back to the origin.

Remote content is labelled with its origin, links back to it, and is never copied. Media loads from the source.

Signed fetches, so it works with instances that require authorized fetch. NodeInfo 2.1 is up.

Policies, in case they matter to you, it has no ads, and no paid reach, and of course no AI training on posts. AI crawlers blocked by default, public mod log with reasons, and no automated removals. Numbers at https://normals.me/transparency so please take a look.

If something from your instance shows up wrong here, or something from here shows up wrong on yours, reply with the URL and I'll fix it. Andy Piper mentioned NodeBB uses the same group model, if anyone runs a NodeBB instance I'd like to test against it, if possible.

I hope we all have fun. Cheers!

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[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Epic

Edit: closed core...

[–] damon@lemmy.world 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Lots of people are getting pissed at it being closed source. I get that it isn’t the norm. But, there are closed-source paid software on the Fediverse. This isn’t anything new. Also, there’s ways to disagree and share opinions without being hostile - we are not children here nor teenagers lacking a fully developed brain

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 5 points 9 hours ago

As a counterpoint, sloppy projects are being shared all over and it's basically spam at this point. Even /r/rust had to disallow code projects, because there was simply way too much slop being posted all the time.

People share projects because back in the day, a project with hundreds of thousands of lines of code with a cool website and a lot of features were evidence of a lot of hard work, a lot of design decisions and a lot of tradeoffs.

Vibe coding has made that a bad metric. These things no longer mean that any actual work has been dedicated to this project. Anyone could use an afternoon prompting an agent to build the same thing. There is no value in sharing such a thing. At best, it's worthless and at worst, it's borderline a scam, an attempt at disguising a project as something it isn't.

[–] dil@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think its funny when someone doesn't disclose it's an ai project they get hella upvotes

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

As soon as they said "the core is closed for anti-abuse reasons," the red flags started flying

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 15 hours ago

The very first sentence made my ai-dar already go off

[–] toothbrush@lemmy.blahaj.zone 69 points 1 day ago (3 children)

If your "anti-abuse" security requires your software to be closed source, then your software is not secure. Well built software can be open source, and still secure.

You imply that your code could not prevent abuse if it was known, so, no offense, but that code must be pretty bad!

I like the fediverse because it distributes power. I, as a user, have the power to choose my instance, choose my moderation, choose the structure that my social interactions are built upon (threads based, microblogs, etc) and if I dont like something, I have the power to change it. Thats why open source is such a perfect fit to that model. Closed source federation then, sounds to me like you didnt get it.

[–] Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org 0 points 11 hours ago

Based.

[–] joeschmoe@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Added the "make no mistakes" to the prompt, but forgot the "make it secure". Rookie mistake.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 15 hours ago

This is what those higher level Prompt Engineering courses really come into play. This is big boy stuff.

(I really hope I don't need the s tag)

[–] Auth@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (3 children)

closed source federation is fine. Federation is sharing the content and allowing users to remain connected across platforms it has little to do with what app is being used.

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[–] squirrel@cake.kobel.fyi 71 points 1 day ago (36 children)

Hi, I got a couple questions that aren't answered on your transparency page yet.

Has AI been used to create this?
Two AI communities are on top of your communities list. Your terms talk about preventing AI scraping, yet your platform seems to welcome "AI founders". How does this go together?
Where is the source code?
Your terms talk about monetization through Normals Plus. Can you elaborate on this?

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 43 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Has AI been used to create this?

Do you really need to ask? 😅

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[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 32 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Closed source and clearly completely vibe coded? Just look at the site, it reeks of AI. Even this post has so much AI-speech.

Yea, no thanks.

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[–] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 day ago (7 children)

closed source and symmetric blocking. two strikes.

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[–] lime@feddit.nu 31 points 1 day ago (4 children)

if the core is closed for the stated reason, does that mean you are unsure about the safety of the system?

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[–] SanderZeldenthuis@nord.pub 21 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Polish law requires the operator of a web service to include the following information on it:

Full legal/registered business name
Registered address
Identification numbers (such as NIP, REGON, or KRS entry for Polish businesses)
Direct contact details (email/phone)

Failing to provide this means your TOS and Privacy Policy are unenforceable.

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