this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Fediverse

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Hey, I host a lemmy instance focused on books and reading (and all the communities that fall under that umbrella) (literature.cafe)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by gabe to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
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I don't think this was posted here already, but this instance has been up and running for a bit. Apologies if this isn't the best place for it, feel free to remove if need be! The instance has been running for a few weeks now and has a few users already, but if there's people invested in that specific niche interest that wants to spread the load across instances it exists. It has some extra lemmy front end UIs available, and I am building up the local communities as I have time to.

Some policy stuff as to how it operates, for sake of transparency.

Although I am currently the "only admin" I do have a "break glass" admin account and will be giving it to a trusted point person just in case (life happens sometimes...) as well as scaling up the team as need be.

If the instance ever has to go down, at the very least a 30 day notice will be given in advance as well as an outlined explanation as to why and a good faith effort will be made to keep it up as well.

The de-federation policy might be slightly controversial, and I completely understand. It is currently temporarily defederated from lemmys pornographic instances, mainly because of just how much it spams c/all. I will refederate in time when there more granular federation options, but I just can't reasonably moderate that right now. I also do defederate from the "worst of the worst" fediverse instances (ie, known CP hosts, far right, nazis, etc) as a precaution despite how janky cross federation is for lemmy right now, hence why the instance blocklist is long.

The instance currently uses object storage, and I post monthly financial statements as to what the cost of the resources for it are.

I also use a community seeder bot that runs every 12 hours to diversify content in all. The local communities focus are mainly book related, but it federates with most other instances.

I also am currently taking manual secure database backups at least weekly and storing them remotely, but I will be automating that process as soon as I can. I value security greatly.

The link is https://literature.cafe

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[–] MonkeyBusiness@lemmy.one 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I took a quick peak and I created an account too.

I don't see too many communities for individual series, except for Harry Potter. I can think of a few that I know I'd like:

Lord of the Rings Wheele of Time GameofThrones The storm light archive Mistborn Cosmere Cremposting - this is a shit posting sub of the above three TheExpanse

Yeah, I'm pretty basic.

[–] Kaladin 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Holy fuck, Gabe you approve people super fast.

[–] gabe 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

😂 Yeah I have it linked to my email whenever I get a new registration. Also community creation is open, I love pretty much all of those that you listed, but I just made the basic writing and reading communities first. I considered making a camp halfblood community but it's best to focus on small communities and build those up instead of making a bunch of empty communities out of the gate. I do want more specific fandom spaces and communities, it's what the instance is generally for.

[–] Kaladin 6 points 1 year ago

You've clearly put a lot of thought into this, it's gonna be awesome

[–] JaymesRS@midwest.social 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you have a place to post when we find significant discounts on ebooks?

[–] gabe 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not presently, but that community can be made! It might be a good idea to consolidate it into c/deals for the time being though, for all kinds of deals then splitting off eventually if needed. Whatever you decide though. I can either make it for you, or you can. I can also mod on this account for you. You don't have to join the instance to participate or mod. :)

[–] JaymesRS@midwest.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The extent of my moderation experience has been a few old phpbb forums and a few admittedly large Facebook groups. Let me think it over and I’ll get back to you shortly.

I also wonder if it might benefit from ebooks being separate because authors could post updates about them as theoretically as well as it’d be easier to manage spam.

[–] gabe 2 points 1 year ago

It's all good. I think it might be a good idea keep it separate when you put it that way :)

[–] Dee@lemmings.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I just found it the other day and subscribed to some of the communities! I don't have anything to post there myself just yet but am finishing up Mort now and plan to do a little write up. I always loved the quotes from Discworld but I really should've started reading it ages ago.

[–] Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nice explanation! For latency purposes, where is the instance located?

[–] gabe 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The physical server is located in the US, but the host provider is Lithuanian. It does use Cloudflare to speed things up a bit and the object storage is located in the US as well. The latency outside of the US is likely still pretty good, I know there's already some users on it that aren't in the US.

[–] Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago

Nice, thank you!

[–] MiddledAgedGuy@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Disclaimer: fairly uninformed opinion. I don't know the inner workings of lemmy nor am I a legal expert.

Re: NSFW defederation. I remember reading somewhere around here about an instance that defederates from nsfw instances because of concerns over illegal content. That feels plausible, and being unintentionally in the middle of it feels risky. Something to consider.

[–] NateSwift@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You aren’t hosting any of the images from federated instances, so legally you should be fine. I do agree that the clutter from them can be a huge pain though, and I don’t see many users from those instances involved in SFW conversion

[–] hitagi@ani.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You aren’t hosting any of the images from federated instances

Images sometimes cache and create a copy locally. Sometimes they don't. I don't actually know when or under what conditions they cache.

[–] NateSwift@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

The more you know! It seems the best way to learn is still by saying the wrong thing online