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[I'm not the author, I just relay the idea. If you have comments, send them on this list or to the author, not to me.] gemini://oppen.digital/memex/gempub/index.gmi "A new eBook format based on Gemini Protocol's Gemtext. Gempub can also serve as a Gemini capsule archive format."
Stephane Bortzmeyer writes: > [I'm not the author, I just relay the idea. If you have comments, send > them on this list or to the author, not to me.] > > gemini://oppen.digital/memex/gempub/index.gmi > > "A new eBook format based on Gemini Protocol's Gemtext. Gempub can > also serve as a Gemini capsule archive format." I love this idea (seems to be from the author of Ariane). I'd love to see a few reader implementations:
The author has a repository with the current version of the spec here: https://codeberg.org/oppenlab/gempub. I have a monster PR there, but there is a lot of thought still required so my ideas are (at best) tentative suggestions. The first rule of Gemini is don't extend Gemini, so most of my feedback was around firming up the boundaries of the gempub container itself, which is intended to consist primarily of text/gemini and some images. I really liked the idea that gempub containers can serve a dual purpose as a capsule archive format. Also, I'm new to this list and to Gemini (hi, everyone!), but I'm old enough to remember when we called it "the net" and not "the web". Gemini does a great job of bringing back the impossible-to-describe feel of the early 1990s internet, right after BBSs and right before Canter and Siegel did their thing and filled up my NNTP drive. :) Raph -----Original Message----- From: Gemini <gemini-bounces@lists.orbitalfox.eu> On Behalf Of Jason McBrayer Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2021 12:48 PM To: Stephane Bortzmeyer <stephane@sources.org> Cc: gemini@lists.orbitalfox.eu Subject: Re: Gempub 1.0.0 ; A new eBook format based on Gemini Protocol's Gemtext Stephane Bortzmeyer writes: > [I'm not the author, I just relay the idea. If you have comments, send > them on this list or to the author, not to me.] > > gemini://oppen.digital/memex/gempub/index.gmi > > "A new eBook format based on Gemini Protocol's Gemtext. Gempub can > also serve as a Gemini capsule archive format." I love this idea (seems to be from the author of Ariane). I'd love to see a few reader implementations:
On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 04:35:29PM -0700, raph@raphm.com <raph@raphm.com> wrote a message of 57 lines which said: > Also, I'm new to this list and to Gemini (hi, everyone!), but I'm > old enough to remember when we called it "the net" and not "the > web". Gemini does a great job of bringing back the > impossible-to-describe feel of the early 1990s internet, right after > BBSs and right before Canter and Siegel did their thing and filled > up my NNTP drive. :) I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin at the time of C&S.
On Sun, Apr 25, 2021, at 11:31 PM, 'Stephane Bortzmeyer' wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 04:35:29PM -0700,
> raph@raphm.com <raph@raphm.com> wrote
> a message of 57 lines which said:
>
> > Also, I'm new to this list and to Gemini (hi, everyone!), but I'm
> > old enough to remember when we called it "the net" and not "the
> > web". Gemini does a great job of bringing back the
> > impossible-to-describe feel of the early 1990s internet, right after
> > BBSs and right before Canter and Siegel did their thing and filled
> > up my NNTP drive. :)
>
> I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of
> their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young
> people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin
> at the time of C&S.
One can split the difference. I was on the Internet back when Gopher was a
real contender and NNTP was something I used daily, but I never really
produced much on the Internet back then.
_Peak_ nostalgia for me can be summed up with this bit of (anachronistic)
CSS, tuned for a mid-to-late 90s aesthetic:
body {
font-family: Exocet, serif;
color: red;
background: black url(/images/quake-logo.jpg);
}
Well, I'm 26, almost 27 oh my gosh I'm getting old! But yeah I just love
the enharrent accessibility of Gemini, minus unlabeled blocks of course,
but the fact that it's actually *hard* for once for content to not be
accessible is so, so refreshing. Like, even with its minimalism, it gives
power to content to be the content, and not just semantics.
Devin Prater
r.d.t.prater@gmail.com
On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 4:47 AM Nathan Galt <mailinglists@ngalt.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021, at 11:31 PM, 'Stephane Bortzmeyer' wrote:
> > On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 04:35:29PM -0700,
> > raph@raphm.com <raph@raphm.com> wrote
> > a message of 57 lines which said:
> >
> > > Also, I'm new to this list and to Gemini (hi, everyone!), but I'm
> > > old enough to remember when we called it "the net" and not "the
> > > web". Gemini does a great job of bringing back the
> > > impossible-to-describe feel of the early 1990s internet, right after
> > > BBSs and right before Canter and Siegel did their thing and filled
> > > up my NNTP drive. :)
> >
> > I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of
> > their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young
> > people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin
> > at the time of C&S.
>
> One can split the difference. I was on the Internet back when Gopher was a
> real contender and NNTP was something I used daily, but I never really
> produced much on the Internet back then.
>
> _Peak_ nostalgia for me can be summed up with this bit of (anachronistic)
> CSS, tuned for a mid-to-late 90s aesthetic:
>
> body {
> font-family: Exocet, serif;
> color: red;
> background: black url(/images/quake-logo.jpg);
> }
>
On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 02:46:49AM -0700, Nathan Galt said:
> _Peak_ nostalgia for me can be summed up with this bit of
(anachronistic) CSS, tuned for a mid-to-late 90s aesthetic:
>
> body {
> font-family: Exocet, serif;
> color: red;
> background: black url(/images/quake-logo.jpg);
> }
Oh my lord, my subconcious automatically rendered that.
I'm old enough to have been an avid BBS user but young enough to have hit
USENET after the peak. I remember when we called it writing instead of content.
--
Matthew Ernisse
matt@going-flying.com
gemini://going-flying.com/
'Stephane Bortzmeyer' writes:
> I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of
> their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young
> people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin
> at the time of C&S.
I'm one of the old ones. I was on Usenet the September before the
Eternal September, and I edited the WWW edition of a college newspaper
in 1993, maybe 1994 at the latest. My memory isn't what it used to be.
--
Jason McBrayer | βStrange is the night where black stars rise,
jmcbray@carcosa.net | and strange moons circle through the skies,
| but stranger still is lost Carcosa.β
| β Robert W. Chambers,The King in Yellow
On Mon, 26 Apr 2021 08:31:17 +0200 'Stephane Bortzmeyer' <stephane@sources.org> wrote: > I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of > their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young > people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin > at the time of C&S. Either way, I think we should try doing something like that - it would be interesting to see what kind of people the community is made of. By the way, I'm 15, so I can definitely be put in the younger group. Cheers! ~almaember
On 2021-04-26 08:31 +02, 'Stephane Bortzmeyer' <stephane@sources.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 04:35:29PM -0700,
> raph@raphm.com <raph@raphm.com> wrote
> a message of 57 lines which said:
>> Also, I'm new to this list and to Gemini (hi, everyone!), but I'm
>> old enough to remember when we called it "the net" and not "the
>> web". Gemini does a great job of bringing back the
>> impossible-to-describe feel of the early 1990s internet, right after
>> BBSs and right before Canter and Siegel did their thing and filled
>> up my NNTP drive. :)
> I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of
> their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young
> people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin
> at the time of C&S.
27yo here. Weβre the generation that had it the worst, literally went
to school and back uphill both ways :P I was a teenager as free software
desktop went from a hackersβ joke to a reality, almost. Saw computing
fly towards a nirvana of sorts, then get T-boned by FAANG and slowly
become the thing it is today. We went sideways and backwards.
What brings me to gemini is thus not really nostalgia but a desire to
track back to ~2010 and move in the better direction, reclaim that
ruined climax, if you will. Same with Fediverse, with static websites.
Thatβs also maybe why I wasnβt ever a fan of Gopher. I donβt think of
Gemini as a retro thing (even tho I like the vibe) or a minimalist,
simplistic thing (even tho I like the perks). This whole thing feels
like a net step forward to me.
-gk.
I'm 31, and my first introduction to the web was in the late 90s. The "old web" of my memories is Geocities, marquee tags, flaming text and gratuitous use of GIFs (well, some things don't change I guess). Javascript was far from ubiquitous, but it was gaining popularity (9 year old me had a great time playing with alerts and prompts on my Angelfire page, which wouldn't have made for a great user experience, if I'd had any users to begin with). So, for me Gemini isn't really a return to anything, because the cleanliness and minimalism it aims for predate even my earliest experience of the WWW. Though I'm sure browsing Geminispace would be a breeze on dial-up - until someone wanted to make a phone call... On 26/04/2021 19:44, GΓΆktuΔ Kayaalp wrote: > On 2021-04-26 08:31 +02, 'Stephane Bortzmeyer' <stephane@sources.org> wrote: >> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 04:35:29PM -0700, >> raph@raphm.com <raph@raphm.com> wrote >> a message of 57 lines which said: >>> Also, I'm new to this list and to Gemini (hi, everyone!), but I'm >>> old enough to remember when we called it "the net" and not "the >>> web". Gemini does a great job of bringing back the >>> impossible-to-describe feel of the early 1990s internet, right after >>> BBSs and right before Canter and Siegel did their thing and filled >>> up my NNTP drive. :) >> I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of >> their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young >> people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin >> at the time of C&S. > 27yo here. Weβre the generation that had it the worst, literally went > to school and back uphill both ways :P I was a teenager as free software > desktop went from a hackersβ joke to a reality, almost. Saw computing > fly towards a nirvana of sorts, then get T-boned by FAANG and slowly > become the thing it is today. We went sideways and backwards. > > What brings me to gemini is thus not really nostalgia but a desire to > track back to ~2010 and move in the better direction, reclaim that > ruined climax, if you will. Same with Fediverse, with static websites. > > Thatβs also maybe why I wasnβt ever a fan of Gopher. I donβt think of > Gemini as a retro thing (even tho I like the vibe) or a minimalist, > simplistic thing (even tho I like the perks). This whole thing feels > like a net step forward to me. > > > -gk. >
On Mon, Apr 26, 2021, at 2:31 AM, 'Stephane Bortzmeyer' wrote: > I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of > their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young > people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin > at the time of C&S. I'm 43, first got online in 1996, and missed out on Gopher. IMO, Web 2.0, social media, and web apps were all mistakes and things only got worse from there. Nonetheless, here I am learning React for my day job.
> > I'm 43, first got online in 1996, and missed out on Gopher. IMO, Web 2.0, social media, and web apps were all mistakes and things only got worse from there. > > Nonetheless, here I am learning React for my day job. I'm also 43. I started in 1995 with a trip to the University library my senior year of high school. I love minimalist low-bandwidth, high-content internet like text-friendly websites, Usenet, and IRC. I've actually been running my own Usenet server since last year, and would one day love to start a custom telnet/ssh bbs (not just a dos emulated one). My gemini capsule is at gemini://gemini.theuse.net. It doesn't have a ton of new content yet, but I'm slowly working on it. It's mostly archives of my wordpress blog for now. Best Regards, Jason Evans
Yep. I moved my blog from a static site generator to Gemini. I mean, its basically my site now. I love not having to depend on a theme and the clutter and bloat of HTML+CSS+JS. Like, my stuff is just plain Gemtext tied together with index.gmi files. I'm eventually gonna try to get more blind people into it, because it's so easy to write. And WinSCP is such a great and easy program to connect to the tilde that I'm a part of, so I can just use that almost like Tramp in Emacs, just open, write, save, and boom, content! I mean I know I can just do Nano on the remote server but the cursor lag is just enough to make me nervous that my screen reader would get confused. Devin Prater r.d.t.prater@gmail.com On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 6:40 AM Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote: > > > > > I'm 43, first got online in 1996, and missed out on Gopher. IMO, Web > 2.0, social media, and web apps were all mistakes and things only got worse > from there. > > > > Nonetheless, here I am learning React for my day job. > > I'm also 43. I started in 1995 with a trip to the University library my > senior year of high school. I love minimalist low-bandwidth, high-content > internet like text-friendly websites, Usenet, and IRC. I've actually been > running my own Usenet server since last year, and would one day love to > start a custom telnet/ssh bbs (not just a dos emulated one). My gemini > capsule is at gemini://gemini.theuse.net. It doesn't have a ton of new > content yet, but I'm slowly working on it. It's mostly archives of my > wordpress blog for now. > > Best Regards, > Jason Evans >
On Mon, 26 Apr 2021 at 07:33, Stephane Bortzmeyer <stephane@sources.org> wrote:
>
> I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of
> their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young
> people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin
> at the time of C&S.
>
16 year old here :)
I've never experienced the older internet, but I always wish I
could've, it sounds a lot nicer than the modern one.
I'm not entirely sure why I like Gemini so much, but one of the main
things is the control being in our hands, and the personal-ness of the
whole thing. Exploring Gemini space, it's all sites for a person and
gemlogs, all made by people. And anyone can come along and join the
community.
I've stayed up late a couple of times going through a gemini-ring
("orbit") or going down rabbit holes of people's personal sites and
sites they link to. It's nice to read what people think.
Also, anyone can make software for it fairly easily. The technologies
behind Gemini (ignoring TLS and certificates, use a library) are
simple.
That said, I've still not got round to making anything yet, master
procrastinator here.
-Oliver Simmons
On 2021-04-27 15:46, Oliver Simmons wrote: > I'm not entirely sure why I like Gemini so much, but one of the main > things is the control being in our hands, and the personal-ness of the > whole thing. Exploring Gemini space, it's all sites for a person and > gemlogs, all made by people. And anyone can come along and join the > community. Couldn't agree more! Using Gemini I can retain a small piece of autonomy in the world that sees me as a mere commodity (at best). I'm 19 btw.
On Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:46:34 +0100
Oliver Simmons <oliversimmo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Apr 2021 at 07:33, Stephane Bortzmeyer
> <stephane@sources.org> wrote:
> >
> > I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and
> > of their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or
> > young people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a
> > Usenet admin at the time of C&S.
> >
>
> 16 year old here :)
> I've never experienced the older internet, but I always wish I
> could've, it sounds a lot nicer than the modern one.
>
> I'm not entirely sure why I like Gemini so much, but one of the main
> things is the control being in our hands, and the personal-ness of the
> whole thing. Exploring Gemini space, it's all sites for a person and
> gemlogs, all made by people. And anyone can come along and join the
> community.
15 year old replying, I'm in exactly the same situation. When I first
went on the Geminispace, it really hit me how different it was. Instead
of the white, bland, corporate web I was used to I saw people's
personal capsules, and exactly zero ones wanted to earn money from
being here.
It feels like social media, but not as cancerous and actually having a
community.
> I've stayed up late a couple of times going through a gemini-ring
> ("orbit") or going down rabbit holes of people's personal sites and
> sites they link to. It's nice to read what people think.
I did too, a few times. Although I stay up late anyway, Geminispace was
a great place to spend that time.
~almaember
Hello, 'Stephane Bortzmeyer' <stephane@sources.org> writes: > > I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of > their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young > people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin > at the time of C&S. I'm 58. And I could in theory have lived through all the stages of the evolving internet. However, I had access only at university to various degrees. I was reading usenet for a while. But then, I was a student in physics, so computers were merely tools. I very much agree with R.Hamming: The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers. This quote predates me by a bit ;) I'm very text centric. I live on the shell and in emacs. I type "man" faster than I reach for webbrowser+search-engine. So gemini is simple enough for me to just write text down. I'm amazed that gemini attracts youngsters as well. Good on you! Content is imho much more important than "the looks" --- with a few exceptions. Thanks for sharing! Cheers, ~ew -- Keep it simple!
βββββββ Original Message βββββββ On Monday, April 26, 2021 2:20 PM, Matthew Graybosch <contact@starbreaker.org> wrote: > I'm 43, first got online in 1996, and missed out on Gopher. IMO, Web 2.0, social > media, and web apps were all mistakes and things only got worse from there. You didn't miss much - it was extremely difficult to search Gopherspace. Then again, it was extremely difficult to search anything until much later... as for webapps, it's nice to have stuff that's not all cgi-bin all the time. The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415/510] WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/ The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.
On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 07:40:37PM +0200, ew.gemini <ew.gemini@nassur.net> wrote a message of 60 lines which said: > I'm amazed that gemini attracts youngsters as well. Good on you! Yes, this is important for outreach. Some Gemini fans advertise Gemini with a reference to Gopher. However, Gopher means nothing for the young people. Using Gopher as a starting point to describe Gemini is a bit like explaining the DNS by saying it is "the phonebook of the Internet", as if young people knew what a phonebook is!
βββββββ Original Message βββββββ On Tuesday, April 27, 2021 4:40 AM, Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote: > year of high school. I love minimalist low-bandwidth, high-content internet > like text-friendly websites, Usenet, and IRC. I've actually been running my own Same. I was on dialup for far too long (until summer of 2000). Ran a BBS on dialup and Telnet (while on campus) from '95 until '99 or therabouts. > Usenet server since last year, and would one day love to start a custom telnet/ssh How much disk space does Usenet use these days? > bbs (not just a dos emulated one). My gemini capsule is at gemini://gemini.theuse.net. If you're looking for prior art to research before starting on your BBS software, I can recommend one or two things. > It doesn't have a ton of new content yet, but I'm slowly working on it. It's mostly > archives of my wordpress blog for now. I'm looking at adding a Gemini generation step to my blog deployments (right now, using Pelican and a couple of plugins to build the HTML). The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415/510] WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/ The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.
"The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415/510]" <drwho@virtadpt.net> writes: > You didn't miss much - it was extremely difficult to search > Gopherspace. Then again, it > was extremely difficult to search anything until much later... as for > webapps, it's nice > to have stuff that's not all cgi-bin all the time. Gopher was a lot of fun to explore. I could lose myself for hours at a time in it. As for web search, I remember Altavista being useful in the late 90s, maybe starting sometime between 1995 and 1997 or so. It was my favorite search engine for a number of years. I'm 42. I went online starting in 1993 with local BBSes and two of the commercial online services of the time: CompuServ and GEnie. In December 1993, I signed up for my first account that included Internet service. It was through a company called Delphi. I really loved usenet, and it would be great to revitalize or recreate it in some way.
βββββββ Original Message βββββββ On Tuesday, April 27, 2021 11:19 AM, Chris Brannon <chris@the-brannons.com> wrote: > Gopher was a lot of fun to explore. I could lose myself for hours at a > time in it. As for web search, I remember Altavista being useful in the I guess we had different use cases - I was always looking for specific things. Specific archives of stuff for my research. > late 90s, maybe starting sometime between 1995 and 1997 or so. It was > my favorite search engine for a number of years. I used Hotbot for a while, and later Dogpile (which got me interested in search as a thing in the first place). > I'm 42. I went online starting in 1993 with local BBSes and two of the 43, here. "Acquired" net.access in '94, BBS'd until 1997, ran a board of my own (Tessier-Ashpool SA) until '99 (InfodΓΌmp kind of killed that), been a cyborg since then. Were you on any BBS networks, in particular? I used to hang out on VampNET quite a bit; made a lot of friends there that regrettably I've lost contact with. Still have all the QWK bundles, though. > commercial online services of the time: CompuServ and GEnie. In I had AOL access for a time in high school. Not ashamed to admit it. The libraries and encyclopedias had MLA citation formats with them, so it was easy (albeit weird to the baselines) to use them when writing papers. They had an AP newswire, too, which scared my parents a bit because I found out about the flight 782 crash two hours before it hit the cable news in our area. :) > December 1993, I signed up for my first account that included Internet > service. It was through a company called Delphi. I really loved Excellent. I was a telerama.com customer for quite a few years. > usenet, and it would be great to revitalize or recreate it in some way. alt.cyberpunk and alt.gothic.* were a lot of fun. I miss 'em. The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415/510] WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/ The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.
"The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415/510]" <drwho@virtadpt.net> writes: > Were you on any BBS networks, in particular? I used to hang out on > VampNET quite > a bit; made a lot of friends there that regrettably I've lost contact > with. I was on PODSnet and FidoNet sometimes, but mainly spent time on local echoes. Most of the friends I made in the BBS world were local. > I had AOL access for a time in high school. Not ashamed to admit it. The > libraries and encyclopedias had MLA citation formats with them, so it was > easy (albeit weird to the baselines) to use them when writing papers. They > had an AP newswire, too, Funny you should mention that. I was on the debate team for a while, and access to news and libraries for debate team purposes was my justification for getting set up with CompuServ. > Excellent. I was a telerama.com customer for quite a few years. I also used concentric.net quite a bit. If I recall correctly, they were one of the first ISPs to offer unlimited plans. Initially I used my friend's shell account, but I lost that access when his religious parents discovered some of the stuff I had been saving from usenet and anonymous ftp sites. Concentric shell accounts were where I learned Unix. I eventually moved on to local ISPs, and there were a lot to choose from. That is one of the things I miss from dialup; there was real diversity of choice among different providers.
On Tue, 27 Apr 2021 at 18:58, Stephane Bortzmeyer <stephane@sources.org> wrote: > > On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 07:40:37PM +0200, > ew.gemini <ew.gemini@nassur.net> said: > > > I'm amazed that gemini attracts youngsters as well. Good on you! > > Yes, this is important for outreach. Some Gemini fans advertise Gemini > with a reference to Gopher. However, Gopher means nothing for the > young people. Using Gopher as a starting point to describe Gemini is a > bit like explaining the DNS by saying it is "the phonebook of the > Internet", as if young people knew what a phonebook is! The opposite isn't too good though, from the two videos that popped up on my YouTube homepage they seemed to describe it as a "replacement for the web" and as if the aim was to take tracking for the web. Which Gemini is not. In Gemini's current state, if you're hoping to get the stereotypical person of my age to join in, good luck. Not gonna happen. Myself I learnt about Gemini via the OpenStreetMap Discord server (libre volunteer mapper community^). I can't remember exactly, but I was complaining about the web and someone gave a link to the Gemini Wikipedia page. => https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/About_OpenStreetMap => https://www.openstreetmap.org/about -Oliver Simmons
On Tue, Apr 27, 2021, at 3:37 PM, Oliver Simmons wrote: > The opposite isn't too good though, from the two videos that popped up > on my YouTube homepage they seemed to describe it as a "replacement > for the web" and as if the aim was to take tracking for the web. Which > Gemini is not. Despite being one of the "olds" I don't find most of the messaging around Gemini particularly compelling. Gopher doesn't cut it for me because it's ASCII-only, but I know better than to expect people who aren't techies to care about that. The web doesn't appeal because it's too big and too-thoroughly colonized by capital. I just want a chill space that's mostly text-oriented, but that's *my* reason for being here. > In Gemini's current state, if you're hoping to get the stereotypical > person of my age to join in, good luck. Not gonna happen. I can't speak for anybody else, but I harbor no such hope. It's better if individuals find their own way here for their reasons. -- Matthew Graybosch gemini://starbreaker.org "The lies you tell yourself are the lies that define you."
On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 08:37:44PM +0100, Oliver Simmons wrote: > On Tue, 27 Apr 2021 at 18:58, Stephane Bortzmeyer <stephane@sources.org> wrote: >> Yes, this is important for outreach. Some Gemini fans advertise Gemini >> with a reference to Gopher. However, Gopher means nothing for the >> young people. I get what you mean, but you'd be surprised at how many Gophers aren't old enough to drink in the U.S. (i.e., <21yo). At least a fifth of the gophers I've met on IRC were around my age group (20Β±5). > The opposite isn't too good though, from the two videos that popped up > on my YouTube homepage they seemed to describe it as a "replacement > for the web" and as if the aim was to take tracking for the web. Which > Gemini is not. Agree that this is problematic. I prefer to describe Gemini as "an alternative to--but not a replacement of--the Web and Gopher". > Myself I learnt about Gemini via the OpenStreetMap Discord server > (libre volunteer mapper community^). > I can't remember exactly, but I was complaining about the web and > someone gave a link to the Gemini Wikipedia page. This is very similar to my experience; I was initially introduced to Gemini on IRC by another teen when I complained about the Web, but I didn't go all-in until some bloggers and Fediverse users started talking about + adopting it. -- /Seirdy
On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 08:31:17AM +0200, 'Stephane Bortzmeyer' wrote:
> I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of
> their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young
> people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin
> at the time of C&S.
20yo here. My first exposure to the Web was Playhouse Disney's flash games
when I was 4 (around 2004 I think) and I first published my Gemlog in
November 2020. I was introduced to Gemini when I was 19 by a 17-year-old
over IRC; IDK what she's up to right now.
My computing preferences aren't exactly "modern": I dislike the modern Web
and most GUIs, preferring to stick to CLI and TUI programs (in that
order.), and think that people shouldn't have to "upgrade" their computers
unless their use-cases change. Naturally, this drew me into Gopher and
Gemini. I'd been lurking in a few Gopherholes for a couple years before
being introduced to Gemini.
After seeing some bloggers I followed set up Gemlogs and seeing Gemini
brought up on the Fediverse a few times, I decided to finally set up a
{Gem,Web}log (seirdy.one) on a VPS. It's been a great experience so far.
The main appeal of Gemini to me isn't related to the "old web"; it's that
presentation is up to the user agent, not the author. Authors only control
content, not form. Normally I have to cross my fingers and hope a page
works in retawq or NetSurf before loading it in Firefox, flipping a bunch
of uMatrix switches, and seeing if my dark-mode addon broke anything.
Gemini "just works": if I click a Gemini link, I'll know I won't have to
jump through any hoops or tank my battery life.
While the "old web" tends to work well in textual browsers, it still
shares the problem of presentation dictated by authors AFAICT.
-- /Seirdy
On Tue, 27 Apr 2021, 20:58 Matthew Graybosch, <contact@starbreaker.org> wrote: > On Tue, Apr 27, 2021, at 3:37 PM, Oliver Simmons wrote: > > > The opposite isn't too good though, from the two videos that popped up > > on my YouTube homepage they seemed to describe it as a "replacement > > for the web" and as if the aim was to take tracking for the web. Which > > Gemini is not. > > Despite being one of the "olds" I don't find most of the messaging around > Gemini particularly compelling. Gopher doesn't cut it for me because it's > ASCII-only, but I know better than to expect people who aren't techies to > care about that. The web doesn't appeal because it's too big and > too-thoroughly colonized by capital. > > I just want a chill space that's mostly text-oriented, but that's *my* > reason for being here. > > > In Gemini's current state, if you're hoping to get the stereotypical > > person of my age to join in, good luck. Not gonna happen. > > I can't speak for anybody else, but I harbor no such hope. It's better if > individuals find their own way here for their reasons. > > -- > Matthew Graybosch > gemini://starbreaker.org > "The lies you tell yourself are the lies that define you." >
I'm Miguel, 50, my first computer was a lovely Amstrad CPC 464 which I got for Christmas with a green monitor. I loved everything of it except loading games from cassettes. Nothing like spending a literal 15 minutes to get a game to load only to hear your mother telling you to stop playing. It made you feel in control, those kind of computers. The manual taught you the basics you needed to do whatever you wanted from it. But we had no access to the Internet or anything remotely like that. My first experience was at college on terminal linked to a 286 computer running Xenix. That beast had a 20 MB HD serving 7 students at the same time. Then, some time in the 90's I found the Web, which was the place to know about stuff you could not access anywhere else and meet very interesting people. (I remember once asking something about killer whales and had a researcher answering it to me). At some point people saw they could use the web as a dollar cow, and it some senses it all went downhill. I'm not in Gopher and Gemini for any nostalgia. I never experienced Gopher until last december, and Gemini just a week later. Not too long afterward I joined cosmic.voyage (a tilde hosted by our local hero Stephan B.) However, I still keep a presence on the Web, because for some kind of content there's no better alternative, really. In my case, I'm writing gamebooks, and some of them benefit from a little typography and a dash of JS, even if it's only to simulate a dice roll. That all said, I have this hintch that Gemini and Gopher are protocols for the kind and the enterprising. Now, if we only had Gopher back in the 80's
(sorry if you received a blank message, the GMail mobile app continues to be weird, back on my laptop now) On Tue, 27 Apr 2021 at 20:58, Matthew Graybosch <contact@starbreaker.org> wrote: > > Despite being one of the "olds" I don't find most of the messaging around Gemini particularly compelling. Gopher doesn't cut it for me because it's ASCII-only, but I know better than to expect people who aren't techies to care about that. The web doesn't appeal because it's too big and too-thoroughly colonized by capital. > > I just want a chill space that's mostly text-oriented, but that's *my* reason for being here. I only started using email frequently a few months ago, and it's similar in a way to Gemini for me. Simple, (preferably) plaintext, and just people's thoughts. No 'algorithms' like social media, you and the community powers what you'll find. It's just people's thoughts put into text. And a generally pleasant space to be in. > It's better if individuals find their own way here for their reasons. Agreed with all of this, Gemini is a place for people, and people that want to be here (but don't know it) will find their way. Gemini isn't just about it's privacy-by-default and it's simplicity, the community is the real thing that makes it good. -Oliver Simmons
On Tue, Apr 27, 2021, at 4:20 PM, Oliver Simmons wrote: > (sorry if you received a blank message, the GMail mobile app continues > to be weird, back on my laptop now) I figured you had hit "send" prematurely, but I'm not surprised that mobile Gmail is still wonky. Google's motto ought to be "Even in the future nothing works." > I only started using email frequently a few months ago, and it's > similar in a way to Gemini for me. Yeah, email can be pretty chill as long as spam and office life haven't ruined it for you. :) > It's just people's thoughts put into text. And a generally pleasant > space to be in. I like the lack of immediacy; there's no option but to take your time and think. > Agreed with all of this, Gemini is a place for people, and people that > want to be here (but don't know it) will find their way. I agree, but when I migrated to Geminispace again (this isn't my first time) I made sure that my website pointed to my capsule via portal.mozz.us. If people want to visit my site that badly they'll find a way. > Gemini isn't just about it's privacy-by-default and it's simplicity, > the community is the real thing that makes it good. I like not having to worry about presentation. Once I've formatted the text, how it looks depends on the client, and is thus no longer my problem. :) -- Matthew Graybosch gemini://starbreaker.org "The lies you tell yourself are the lies that define you."
ew.gemini writes:
> I'm amazed that gemini attracts youngsters as well. Good on you!
> Content is imho much more important than "the looks" --- with a few
> exceptions.
What's interesting to me is that this thread is bearing out my general
impression that there's a bimodal distribution of people on Gemini β
almost everyone's over 40 or under 25. Lots of GenX and GenZ, not a lot
of Millennials.
--
Jason McBrayer | βStrange is the night where black stars rise,
jmcbray@carcosa.net | and strange moons circle through the skies,
| but stranger still is lost Carcosa.β
| β Robert W. Chambers,The King in Yellow
> How much disk space does Usenet use these days? My server only hosts text-only newsgroups and I see 1-3GB of new articles per month. When you consider that's just plain text, there's still a lot of life in Usenet. People also wonder if it's all spam. The good news is that while spam is still with us, it has diminished considerably in the past years because spammers make no money from it and because a lot of the spam bots have been taken offline. There are still a number of newsgroups with lively active conversations every day. > > > bbs (not just a dos emulated one). My gemini capsule is at gemini://gemini.theuse.net. > > If you're looking for prior art to research before starting on your BBS software, I > can recommend one or two things. I was thinking about using tor+ssh to log into a container that hosts the BBS and the framework is a python based tui. If you break out of the tui, your session ends. If you do anything unexpected, the session ends. This keeps me safe from having my system hacked though it would still be prone to DDOS attacks as any other service. I would like to host an online ebook reader with a large selection of books, some text/curses games like chess, checkers, snakes, whatever, and maybe a message board if I can find something like that already put together. > > It doesn't have a ton of new content yet, but I'm slowly working on it. It's mostly > > archives of my wordpress blog for now. > > I'm looking at adding a Gemini generation step to my blog deployments (right now, using > Pelican and a couple of plugins to build the HTML). I found a wordpress plugin that exported everything to markdown and then a markdown to gmi converter. The output is ugly to say the least, but it's legible for the most part. > The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415/510] > WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/ > The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters. > Best Regards, Jason Evans
On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 03:57:33PM -0400, Matthew Graybosch wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 27, 2021, at 3:37 PM, Oliver Simmons wrote:
> > The opposite isn't too good though, from the two videos that popped
> > up on my YouTube homepage they seemed to describe it as
> > a "replacement for the web" and as if the aim was to take tracking
> > for the web. Which Gemini is not.
> Despite being one of the "olds" I don't find most of the messaging
> around Gemini particularly compelling. Gopher doesn't cut it for me
> because it's ASCII-only, but I know better than to expect people who
> aren't techies to care about that. The web doesn't appeal because it's
> too big and too-thoroughly colonized by capital.
> I just want a chill space that's mostly text-oriented, but that's *my*
> reason for being here.
> > In Gemini's current state, if you're hoping to get the stereotypical
> > person of my age to join in, good luck. Not gonna happen.
> I can't speak for anybody else, but I harbor no such hope. It's better
> if individuals find their own way here for their reasons.
Second this, mostly. Personally I favour being approachable and
charitable over outreach and active recruitment, especially for
something like Gemini. If we have great documentation, if we do not
welcome toxicity, and if we keep things simple, people that share the
mindset will be drawn in.
Of course we should be explaining Gemini to people and strive to make
this space a diverse, lively, interesting one, but IMHO we shouldn't do
that with a mathematical/economical/religious `growth' mindset. It's
annoying to people and it seldom leads to serene and cohesive
communities.
I like how I discovered and joined fediverse: mastodon.sdf.org became
a thing, and I made an account around 2017. Two years later, after
having totally forgotten about it, I noticed many cool people were on
Mastodon, so I joined. I haven't regretted the decision since. I've
also went in after a decent amount of learning how the community works.
If I was instead compelled to joining when I had no interest in nor any
knowledge of the community, I'd inevitably enjoy it less and be a less
cooperative member thereof.
Same kinda happened with Gemini. I heard of it pretty early on in its
development but it was uninteresting. A new protocol? :/ But as I saw
cool people I know join in, I looked in deeper, and learned what I can,
and joined in as a self motivated member that knows most of the basics
and that is eager to participate constructively.
That's of course all my experience and my 2Β’.
-gk.
P.S: I never really introduced myself to the list, dunno if that's
something you do here. In any case my capsule is at
gemini://cadadr.space; it's been about two months or something that it's
been up. I have two gemlogs, one a generic blog, another a grad school
journal. I may add a podcast in a few weeks--months. Also, I've a repo
on github, https://github.com/cadadr/gemini-scripts, that will slowly
accrue some random scripts regarding Gemini (unsurprisingly ;P).
> On Apr 29, 2021, at 04:37, Δ°. GΓΆktuΔ Kayaalp <self@gkayaalp.com> wrote: > > > Second this, mostly. Personally I favour being approachable and > charitable over outreach and active recruitment, especially for > something like Gemini. If we have great documentation, if we do not > welcome toxicity, and if we keep things simple, people that share the > mindset will be drawn in. Thank you! 100% this. β Emma
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