#Swanye Meta

[swanye-fediverse]

Looks like we picked up a modest amount of new followers (thanks, @queerplatonic-msr).

To answer your question – as the post is now restricted, for commenting –, things are still moving, albeit at somewhat of a pause (right now).

The whole family caught COVID, back in August (which our bodies did not take well, this round; gentle reminder to keep yourselves and others safe and keep masking), and I was let go from my job, after that.

As you might imagine, most of my time and energy is focused on trying to reemploy myself, at the moment; so a bit of a lull in development.

But I have every intention to continue working on Swanye, once I have a guarantee of income.

For newcomers, I lay out – at a high level – what I want Swanye to be and what I want it to do here: https://www.tumblr.com/swanye-fediverse/690187019453890560/what-this-project-is-all-about.

While that can be useful, – for some people – that format can be hard to get excited about so here're images of all the stuff that's been developed, so far:

Alright…; well, I was going to but Tumblr won't let me put any more than one video in this post so I'm afraid this is all I can show, here. But you can take a look at the original posts I uploaded, when I had been developing the feature, at the bottom half of this post: https://www.tumblr.com/swanye-fediverse/701303664961323008/swanye-fediverse-with-people-from-twitter-heading. I go into a little more detail in them and there are video descriptions, as well.

And I try to tag posts which talk about ideas I have regarding Swanye (that aren't development related), when I remember, with Swanye Meta.

In case Tumblr ever does actually go down, I have an account on Mastodon at https://fosstodon.org/@Swanye.

I have a lot of excitement about the social media, currently, that's being built and tries to circumvent or avoid Capitalism and Corporations; people want alternatives and we have a real opportunity to supplant the status quo – at the very least, in this niche – with something better.

[swanye-fediverse]

You know, my posts explaining why I'm making Swanye go through a lot of the high-level reasoning and lofty goals but this post made me realize I didn't mention a rather large, undergirding one:

Every corporate owner that Tumblr's ever been through took over the queer, neurodivergent website with the goal of making it profitable rather than just doubling down on – well – the Queer neurodivergence.

I'm just saying, Swanye's made it if it starts generating responses like this from people.

[swanye-fediverse]

IRC Channel?

So I was working on a (entirely open-source and copyleft, of course) sort of chat thing – similar in UI to Discord – that could serve as a real-time community space, for any interested, etc.

I've never enjoyed those spaces as much as more static platforms like micro/blogging platforms (like Tumblr or Mastodon; I think the quickness of the space always weirded me out, as a generally shy and introverted person) but I've seen a lot of other people apparently prefer them (maybe it feels less daunting that talking directly to one person, like you'd have to do if you message me).

I've been hanging out a ton in the Guix IRC channel and, probably, spent way more time than I should have getting my IRC client to look really nice (in my opinion) and figured, in the interim, why not provide some space, for those who want it.

I can't work on any of my projects until I have a job, again, but I worry about inactivity making it feel like this project's dead (I try continuing to reblog things here (and so, also, – hopefully – the account doesn't feel too foreign or standoffish, either) but, like, people did follow (presumably) because they're interested in a Tumblr alternative for the Fediverse so I don't want that to get lost, as well).

So, until then, there's a Swanye IRC channel! It's hosted on Libera Chat; join with your favorite IRC client or through the web via https://web.libera.chat/#swanye.

[swanye-fediverse]

Given some recent events causing people to exodus from Tumblr again, how is Swanye coming along?

Well, I meant to respond to this definitely less than a full month later but…can't claim success, there.

Thanks so much for asking; the answer is, unfortunately, that I'm still out of a job so I'm still preoccupied with finding one.

I'm the main source of income for our household so – unlike many other things – I really can't slack off on this one.

In terms of Swanye, nothing has changed, other than a momentary, involuntary hold.

I still have every intention of continuing to work on this (and, really, am absolutely itching to do so; nothing's worse than refraining from something you're excited about and want to hyperfocus on, like this).

If you have any other questions, always feel free to drop me an ask; and, as soon as I have stable employment – again –, I'll – of course – post an update to let people know I'm able to work on this, again.

[swanye-fediverse]

I generally try to refrain from just straight griping on here (as it's much easier to just complain about a thing rather than take action for otherwise) but, seeing as I've already implemented this in Swanye, please forgive the indulgence:

I really like how the new Tumblr layout no longer shows the icon of who reblogged a post alongside the post, as you scroll, so I have to scroll all the way back up to see which of the people I'm following is responsible for the post on my dash⸮

That was a really smart UI (user interface) decision⸮

[swanye-fediverse]

That's definitely been my experience, in trying to write a Tumblr-clone which uses Mastodon's underlying protocol.

There's still stuff to iron out but you can see a Tumblr-like layout we've developed, so far, in various development updates (such as https://www.tumblr.com/swanye-fediverse/694354146636267520/id-a-screencast-of-the-dash-i-scroll-past).

I've got Mastodon federation working and plan to iron out all the edge cases to federate with other Fediverse platforms, as well.

I wonder how hard it would be to build a mastodon host into a Tumblr.

Like, it already works somewhat similarly. You'd need relatively small changes to make it work Tumblr-like.

Change it so that reboosts of a post show the whole thread history, not just that post.

Let you put images inline, not just at the end.

There's not really an equivalent to Tumblr's reblog-with-commentary vs reply distinction, though.