Read here for a more detailed writeup: https://unfinishedprojects.net/wiki/About/Ethics

But essentially we actually heavily encourage copyleft licensing. Copyright is different then copyleft (at least from my understanding - but maybe I need to reword the sentence you quoted?)

Pretty much any type of “open” license is allowed except for CC-ND, because “no derivitive” sort of kills the spirit of our collaborative nature of allowing our projects to grow and evolve.

As for who controls the system, read more here: https://unfinishedprojects.net/wiki/About/Vision

In short, I “own” the VPS, but I am trying my best to make the platform belong to the community, while I simply act as a steward of the commons. I back up nonsensitive data publicly to Codeberg, and share actual backups with other admins. The goal is to have the community outlast any one individual. If anyone ever wants to, they can essentially copy the platform to a new VPS and Domain, and continue the platforms operations.

In practice, there may be a few hurdles as I am inexperienced and still learning - but hopefully the systems and operations will evolve with th community if successful. I want the platform to be a commons, not “belonging” to anyone - but stewards that may come and go. Outlasting me or any other admins. The goal is to diversify control and decision making as much as possible, allowing the community to self regulate/govern, but obviously in these early stages we can’t do that without members.

Hope that answers your questions, and we are always open to feedback. It’s tough getting a community off the ground, and we are just a couple of individuals who are passionate about the idea.

Thanks for the interest! As I mentioned on one of the other comments, our community is still small so if you are able to share or get involved it would greatly help build engagement for other members as well. Hope to see you over there :)

Sorry, just saw this reply. Thanks for registering :)

As our current number of members are low, it would be helpful if you have some stuff to share, or stop by the introduction category and introduce yourself! Hope to see you over there if not already.

@[email protected] is there any chance you might be able to clarify this? Is this the case, or am I mistaken?

This is part of NodeBB forum software, and settings in your user profile you can adjust what you receive. I think (unless I am mistaken, and I simply need to adjust the settings) that this is a blanket statement that covers the forum admins to adjust settings without violating consent. I will need to do some more research if this is even changeable on my end (both technically & legally).

On our end, we are hosting the nodeBB forum on a VPS, and are not doing any sort of telemetry or data gathering (except that information that nodeBB gathers for site usage data), and we don’t send any digest emails (other than what the individual sets up in their profile settings that get auto sent through the software).

I know that doesn’t necessarily fix the issue, but hope it at least clarifies it a little. I will look into this issue further though.

It is a “standalone forum” but it also is integrated into the fediverse (nodeBB).

That is good advice, thanks. I will try that out.

And yes, I constantly remind myself to take it slow. . . But I seem to rarely listen to myself haha.

Yay! You’re the best ;)

If you have any projects or discussion to share, it would be much appreciated - as often the beginning stages are the hardest since there is not much content to interact with for new members

Ours is federated too :)

All super valid points, and I agree. I really appreciate the feedback :)

As for the “one more place to go”, I agree that I hate having more logins and such, but it felt worthwhile to have a dedicated space its own if we wanted to build a community that was more closely knit. The structure of a traditional forum allows discussions to last and not get buried. A small compromise is that the forum is federated, so each category can be accessed from the fediverse.

As for initial content - that was the plan, and we will slowly be working on it, but sadly I burnt myself out on actually creating the platform and needed a break - and now I am reattempting, but am currently in the process of IRL things that are preventing me actually working heavily on content/value for initial landing. But hopefully we will slowly be able to get actual content up to prevent the issue you described.

TLDR: I completely agree with you, and hopefully we will address the content issue eventually. In the meantime, I figured I would try to spread the word and hope a few individuals might be willing to add their projects or ideas.

We’re trying to be more than just coding projects, and really any project that is not under a closed license.

Just as an example, a couple of us designed board games. It can be things even like world building, CAD projects, tinkering, craft blueprints, etc.

While FOSS is pretty much centered around coding (the “software” in FOSS) we want to build a community where people can collaborate on more than just code.

Not sure if that makes any difference or not, but I figured it was worth pointing out :) - either way, thanks for the interest!

I’m honestly not sure how we will handle it as we grow, but for now I think that posting your project in the forums is more acceptable if you want to discuss it, but aren’t sure if it’s going to be openly licensed yet. As for the wiki, we will likely be more strict about the open licenses, since it is intended to be more of a collaboration space where others will contribute and adapt.

If you want to post about your project on the forum and you think you will likely pick an open license, just mention that you don’t yet have a license picked out and explain the situation.

Like I said, as we grow - we may get more strict with this if it’s taken advantage of, but if it’s posted in good faith and stated clearly, I’m ok with it for now.

Thanks! hope to see you over there. Since we are in the early stages of trying to establish our community - every interaction and contribution is greatly appreciated to get us off the ground :)

Yeah, I know a lot of people are skeptical with the name - and I get it…but part of it is the fact that we embrace the fact that a project is unfinished. The idea is that the projects are carried forward by the commons, and even if someone abandons a project, someone else might be able to pick up where you left off and carry it forward.

I feel that the current open source and creative commons projects all exist in small bubbles - where each individual or team tries to prop up their own project(s)…the idea is to try and bring the community together and work on projects within an ecosystem, rather than in isolation. Essentially, have each individual, team, and project intertwined with the other projects within our community/ecosystem. Obviously, until we actually build a community with this type of culture - its just a pipe dream…but that is the hope and vision. :)

I played that game you’re talking about! I loved Wc3 custom games :)

:D. I hope we can see you over there! It’ll probably take a while for the community to take hold, but hopefully enough people are interested to help it be worthwhile!

I agree, so many people disregard Debian, but if you’re not gaming and don’t need to keep up with the latest things - Debian is rock solid and most of your packages you can just use flatpak. For the majority of daily users who aren’t gaming, I think it’s a super solid choice.

As for the layout - yeah it’s the layout that the software nodeBB has set, and we could look into trying to customize the layout to something more intuitive. Thanks for the feedback :)

As for the potential for abuse - you’re right, of course - there will always be potential for abuse. However, the open source and creative commons community is what we are trying to align our community with, and will hopefully also contribute to building the community culture of collaboration in good spirit, without focusing so much on profit or business, but more on the collective good.

Thank you. The preset alt text in the markdown threw me off, as I thought the text was the url. It should be fixed now. Thank you so much for the in depth answer :)

I would love to, however I am not exactly sure how - Do you mean the alt text for the link? I can add a quick note below the image that says alt text, is that the best way to handle it? Sorry for my ignorance in the matter.