Internet Archive launches Mastodon server at archive.org | Hacker News Reader

Internet Archive launches Mastodon server at archive.org

mastodon.archive.org

178 pointsriffic42 comments

Hi everyone. Glad word of this is getting around.

It's only open for official Internet Archive role accounts and employees. We don't really have the time or resources to have a fully-running open-registration community from the server. But you can definitely visit it if you're on Mastodon to find official accounts and employees to connect with.

Why are you censoring the Internet Archive? This is supposed to be a library-like resource, not a opportunity to cover up the misdeeds of members of today's sacred caste.

freemasons run the country!

Those who pretend conspiracy doesn't define the human experience actually do.

Freemasons are in the doxing and DIY HRT business now?

god I wish

You might want to disable sign-ups or make them on approval only, as apparently two other people from HN have already signed up.

We had signups for a couple days for some of our employees to have an easier time hopping on, but yeah, switched to invite-only.

sorry (I'm the OP), I was enthusiastic about your instance and did not see you had open regs. I would have refrained from sharing if I had noticed until you had the opportunity to switch.

You may also want to be on 3.5.3? https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v3.5.3

Adding "for internal use" to the end of the title could save confusion, considering the direction of the other comments here.

I'm curious what the purpose/use in their workflows is for this though.

didn't notice, oops!

Speaking to purpose, this may be helpful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33509613

Everything about Mastodon is confusing.

"I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."

― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

Maybe, but I doubt the kids are gonna flock to Mastodon. I'm happy to be wrong though.

Enough of the kids have flocked to Mastodon that articles bemoaning the death of the platform and ruin of the culture have already been written, admins have closed instances to new members and an almost xenophobic hostility towards Twitter newcomers is becoming commonplace. If that's not a sign of some degree of success, I don't know what is.

It doesn’t require any mental model more complicated than email to understand this. They’re running a server so people in their org can have mastodon addresses under @archive.org. You can follow, send, or receive messages to mastodon accounts on the archive.org domain, but you can’t have an account there yourself.

Similarly, you can send emails to people with @archive.org email addresses, but you can’t send email from an @archive.org email address (unless somebody at the internet archive let’s you)

But it isn't for internal use, is it? It's fully federated and you can follow the accounts on there from every other server. Thry just don't allow everyone to create accounts on that server.

"for official use" might be better?

The purpose seems to be for people who work for Internet Archive to be able to have an official presence on the fediverse for public announcements. Things that would be tweeted by various people connected with the IA can now also be tooted.

Fun piece of Mastodon lore, of course, being that an employee of the Internet Archive was fired for a Mastodon post

so "F*** Brewster Kahle" was then heavily, heavily, heavily posted/reposted on the network

Having trouble finding any external writing on it from the time to link (to be able to show without pointing to someone in particular)

Aww, I was going to suggest changing the submitted URL to be the "/public" of Mastodon instances which allows previewing who's there and what they're talking about, but it seems theirs has it switched off: https://mastodon.archive.org/public is a 404

it's generally a good idea to disable /public, for reasons.

This endpoint shows those who choose to be listed in the directory:

https://mastodon.archive.org/explore

> it's generally a good idea to disable /public, for reasons.

Okay, I'll bite; what reasons?

You may inadvertently publish unsavory things. It's a risk and for that a reason the author gave admins the option to turn it off.

Having companies run ActivityPub servers on their own domain makes technically a lot more sense than begging/buying a blue checkmark from somebody else.

This is relevant to my interests because I don't want the hassle of running a rails app, but I sure would love to host enough of the endpoints to make my existing vps accept and transmit ActivityPub messages. Like a single-user server (which I fully recognize would remove any "Local Timeline" view but OTOH would mitigate having to switch servers/losing control of my fediverse identity

The ActivityPub spec itself seems pretty approachable, but a couple of alternative implementations I saw recently mention "Mastodon compatible" so I wonder how far it has deviated from the actual spec

I signed up (who wouldn't, this internet institution is an institution) but then had another look at the rules and was wondering: Is this meant as an IA employee-only resource?

textfiles (Jason Scott) hangs out here, so hopefully he'll comment! I signed up in case it's meant as a public resource.

Well he's already said it on twitter. https://mobile.twitter.com/textfiles/status/1591100036557197...

Looks that way:

"The mastodon will only have Internet Archive employees and role accounts"

from https://mastodon.archive.org/@textfiles/109326946121755295

Would love a bot we can follow that will archive our feeds. This would be doable even without an Internet Archive server- anyone could write a bot to follow & submit content to Internet Archive- but it'd be cool to see it officially hosted at Internet Archive itself.

Anyhow, cool to see!! Welcome to the fediverse Internet Archive, glad to have you here!

Just asked the guy who runs a similar bot for Twitter and is also on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@dewey/109327260799744348

Speaking of this, is there an archive of Twitter anywhere? If not, wouldn't it be a good idea to start archiving the public content?

One question I have about these employer-run mastodon servers- what if you wanted to say something bad about your employer? Seems like that wouldn’t really work out well.

What do you do if you have a work email account, and want to say something bad about your employer? You use your personal account.

Some people have three different fediverse accounts just for fun, so I'm sure employees can keep two accounts on two different instances straight.

Does anyone remember that audio chat thingy which was next big thing and I can't even remember the name?

After search I think it was Clubhouse, somehow I expect same thing about mastodon two years from now.

Mastodon existed for 4 years before Clubhouse launched, and will likely still exist after Clubhouse eventually fades into irrelevancy

and your point regarding mastodon now enjoying 15 minutes of fame, before it becomes just another fad?

My point is that Mastodon existed before it was as famous as it is now, and will continue to exist after, because it never needed to be famous to exist in the first place, unlike Clubhouse.

and how is it opposing my comment? I just said it's fad enjoying its 15 minutes of fame with bunch of people promoting it right now before it will be all forgotten again in few months

we all remember that "huge" WhatsApp exodus due to privacy policy, this is exactly same thing

the Fediverse has existed since 2008 in some form (https://fediverse.party/en/post/fediverse-14-years-in-2022/). It embodies the spirit of longevity noted by the Lindy Effect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

and? how is it mutually exclusive with being fad right now? pretty much nobody heard about mastodon up until now

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