On the lack of simple and reliable software to self-host a website
hasen.substack.com
hasen.substack.com
Author appears to desire "a discussion system" or facebook-alike as a minimal function level.
This sounds a lot like "i want to fly without all that pesky machinery. why can't someone make it so i can flap my arms and do it?"
Take a look at the "how to spin up a mastodon instance" docs, for example: how are you going to avoid all that complexity? I don't think you will. You'll either just hide it from the user (and make it impossible to adapt to any purpose you didn't anticipate, ala Apple), or you'll have the same bewildering forest of switches, options, and dependencies just stacked up in a form more pleasing to you (and hopefully others).
I'm not saying this to be discouraging. I just think you've got a false concept of how simple the goal is.
The only thing I don't intend to get rid of (at least at the beginning) is the need to buy a domain name. Everything else will be managed by the program. Even renting a VPS will be optional because you have the option to run on your local machine.
> I'm not saying this to be discouraging. I just think you've got a false concept of how simple the goal is.
Thanks for the concern. I've done this before at a smaller scale and I know you don't need any forest of switches and options.