Hello everybody,
It's time for a update on feddit.uk.
This time, it's good news, and stability.
I'll keep things concise, then elaborate later in the post for curious people:
- feddit.uk has been stabilised, and we have access to everything we need to move forward with it.
- The new domain name will not be used as the main instance, feddit.uk will remain the domain.
- Emperor and myself are responsible for instance and domain respectively.
- The domain has been transferred to me.
- We will be working with Tom to transfer the instance to new hosting under Emperor.
- The instance is currently running at capacity, which requires manual intervention every so often. This will be permanently resolved once the server is migrated.
- Images may be disabled while the system is prepared for migration, other services should be working
"What went wrong?"
"Why has conflicting information been showing up at times?"
The honest answer is, for the last few months, there have been two paths forward. These plans were constantly being updated, and the needle swung between viability for Plan A, and Plan B, often at the last moment.
At first, when Tom wasn't able to respond:
Plan A, new Admins added, new admins carry on the work.
Plan B, new site made, Emperor and I splitting responsibilities to make sure we had a bus factor >1.
As time went on, we started down the Plan B.
Lots of long discussion over names, discussing with community members, registering domains, and getting back-ends set up.
I was battling ansible setup, when suddenly, we had admin, and swung back to Plan A.
Things calmed down a little, but we were still lacking back-end, and needed to discuss how things would work long term.
Eventually, we started having to make A/B plans again:
Plan A, start doing back-end work, and work out long-term plans.
Plan B, build a new site.
It all came to a bit of a head on Christmas
(when doesn't it? Never agree to do on-call over the holidays, folks)
feddit.uk was down, Emperor and I still didn't have back-end.
So Plan B started again.
I put on Bridget Jones Diary, in the hope that my partner wouldn't notice I was about to spend two hours trying to build a new lemmy instance from scratch.
(Don't ever do this. They knew. I still need to make it up to them.)
And it was just about working.
But Emperor was unwell, and I felt it would not be a good idea launching with half the team unavailable.
A few days later, Emperor is back in business.
Great, lets continue with Plan B.
And I recieve a message that we're getting back-end access.
Plan A time. The needle swings again.
So that's where we are now. Plan A. Everything is now in place.
feddit.uk stays up, and we work on it.
Questions that might come up:
"When are you going to a new host?"
Once Emperor and I have had time to run through the process, and schedule a day to make the change over.
When we have set a date, we will communicate it.
"When are we going to 19.2 (or higher)?"
The aim was to perform the upgrade after the site was migrated.
This morning, the site was upgraded, and we are dealing with a few of the impacts of this.
(Tom has been very busy, and we're very thankful!)
"What about email verification?
Email should now be going out correctly.
We may go through the list of accounts that have not been validated, and re-send the email verification.
Who is "Teasmade?"
Teasmade is the face of site processes. Validations, password resets.
If you message admins, you may get a response from them.
They may end up with a backstory and personality down the line.
"I like/don't like the name Teasmade"
We'll happily hear alternative suggestions.
"Why didn't you continue with migrating to a new site?"
Because even with full migrations, we would never be able to move everything.
Now that we're able to improve feddit.uk, we aim to achieve a lot of the same goals, while keeping existing communities intact.
"Who is running things?"
Currently, it's a combination of Tom, Emperor, and GreatAlbatross (me).
Tom may stay on as an admin post-migration.
"What happens if one of you disappears?"
Our overall role definitions are based on responsibility, realistically we could function on just one until new admins could be recruited.
"What is happening on the technical side at the moment? Can I be involved?"
Once the system is on a new host, I will do some writing up, and we will consider people for back-end access.
Until things are more settled, and we have change-control in place, we're keeping configuration simple.
There will definitely be talk about the technical issues encountered, as people may find it interesting.
In the meantime, if there are reasonable features you would like to see, and you're happy to send us documentation, we'll absolutely look into them.
"How can I contact someone outside of the Lemmy instance?"
We have a Matrix channel (run by emperor).
For general queries, you can email teasmade at the domain (just trying to keep spam down a little).
And we have general complaince addresses (abuse/trouble).
"I wanted to sign up, but I couldn't/the email didn't arrive"
If you email Teasmade, we can sort it. We do have to do this manually, but we're happy to do so.
Other questions?
Pop a reply in, we'll do our best to reply.
Emperor, Tom, and GreatAlbatross.
Thanks for stepping in and giving us some stability!
Thank you also to Tom for working to keep the site up, alone, for so long.
Have you given any thoughts to funding? For example a Patreon or other fund raising sites. Not sure how many people would send you cash but I assume even £10 from a few people would help cover expenses and keep the site healthier.
We've had a few thoughts. While we get everything stable, I'm happy to cover costs, as it's important that people have confidence in the instance.
Once things are in place, and we have upgrade/restore/backup procedures nice and solid, we'll discuss things further.At the moment the cost isn't an issue but when we move to a new server and expand the storage for images we'll have a better idea of what we'll need every month. If a bunch of people chip in £1/month we should quite quickly be able to cover the outgoings and start building up a modest ward chest. And it's not just the money but the principle - I think we'd all be happier knowing that one person isn't footing the bill as they might disappear at any time. Instead, it's a cooperative effort that should guarantee the future of the site.
There are a number of options for fundraising:
- Patreon is well known and lots of people will already have accounts on there.
- Open Collective is popular on the Fediverse, for example the .world family of services is on there, and is specifically set up to be as transparent as possible, aimed at non-profit groups
- Ko-fi was used by Tom and there are many alternatives
Ideally we'd want something with minimal fees that has enough openness that no-one should be worried about where the money is going.
We've previously floated the idea of a Finance Admin (plus back-up) who could sift through the alternatives and present the best options. They would then make sure everything is ticking over and the server and domain costs are getting paid.
Open Collective sounds like a great choice. I would be happy to donate £1 a month. 👍
If a bunch of people chip in £1/month
Will happily be one of a bunch. Open Collective seems like a pretty good option.
Great work lads! FYI for anyone else reading this from a different browser or computer you might need to clear your cookies wherever you were logged in before, I spent the afternoon getting error messages before I thought to just try a different browser.
Yeah, exactly the problem I was having. Error page whenever I looked at the feddit.uk page; clear cookies, error cleared, can log in again.
Fantastic news and thank you for all the hard work. The potential loss of existing community content was really demoralising so I'm glad Plan A came out on top (currently and hopefully permanently!).
Thank you again!
Yes, you and other contributors have done a great job getting communities up and running so starting from scratch was always a last resort. It nearly happened but everything came good in the end. There will be a bit of instability until we migrate to a new server but the future is now assured.
Keep up the good work.
“I like/don’t like the name Teasmade”
Anyone who says that is wrong. I'm happy this instance won't be quackhouse though! Also, Lemmy doesn't have anything to migrate content and we've lost enough already to do it on purpose.
Also, Lemmy doesn’t have anything to migrate content and we’ve lost enough already to do it on purpose.
It would have been painful initially but we'd have made sure everything was archived first so it still be there and in 5 or 10 years time we could look back on those awkward first 6 months as teething troubles but it was definitely the Doomsday scenario, just one that we came very close to having to implement.
I’m really glad we don’t have the “quackhouse” name as I strongly disliked that
Ditto. It's the best news I've heard all week.
Excellent news! Great work and thank you to all involved!
Long live feddit.uk!
Anyone else picture Teasmade like Miss Minutes? 👍
Anyone else picture Teasmade like Miss Minutes?
I had something like this in mind:
*removed externally hosted image*
But now you mention it...
"I like/don't like the name Teasmade"
We'll happily hear alternative suggestions.If I may put forward my suggestion - Mrs. Doyle.
Go on.
Go on Go on Go on Go on Go on....
Great work maintaining and managing this place! I'm sure we all really appreciate your efforts and your time -- so thank you! I heard some mention of fundraising through OpenCollective, which I'd happily add some cash to - do we have a link?
Emperor has been more focussed on that, so may have something to add. But I think the plan at the moment is to get everything settled and stable, then be transparent what the costs are before opening up to donations.
I think we might also like to come up with a donator perk. I'll need to be something that's nice, but isn't essential for using the site.
I don't know about others, but I'm personally not fussed about perks. Plus, building any sort of perk functionality would mean extra workload for the two of you in terms of devving and managing it. But it's definitely not a bad idea, I just know I wouldn't be too bothered either way personally!
Godammit, Ray, I want perks! A hat. A shiny hat. With a logo on it. Otherwise, what's even the point? Or a goat. An underwater goat with an aqualung. Or special underpants. Or the power of life and death over others. Oooh, or a shark with lasers. Or an emoji which I would never use but would know that I could, if I wanted. Or a torch that had one of those filter things that means it would shine the Feddit.UK logo on things. Or a Ferrari. Or a utility belt. So I could use my Fedditerang, or my Fedditshark Repellant. Unless we also got the sharks with lasers in which case that would be counterproductive.
Hey amazing stuff, thank you so much for keeping us updated. And good luck going forward. Hopefully we'll grow a great community here.
Thanks for this, I was logged in on a lemmy.world account just to find this comment and sort Feddit out
Firstly great work. Much appreciated, we appreciate the effort that goes into all this.
I've not been able to access for the last few days because apparently I needed to log out and log back in. I only realised this because someone posted on asklemmy community.
It would be great if we can agree a second communication channel for the future, in case this happens again? It's only natural and a good precaution.
Absolutely, sorry for the issues. It caught me out too for a little bit!
My working theory is that because there was an upgrade, then a downgrade, then another upgrade, that all existing sessions went invalid.
We do have a matrix channel, and we should probably see if we can put them in the sidebar. And possibly see if I can modify the error message with a "contact us" link.
Appreciate the feedback!
No need to apologise mate. I know how difficult this stuff can be.
Thanks for considering the feedback.
Great effort keeping the instance together. I'm very impressed, and grateful for both your efforts. It's probably just going over my head, but what is the inspiration for the name "Teasmade"? Is it a play on Tea and Maid?
I was looking for something silly to use as the butler/minion/robot name, and it was the first thing that came to mind.
A Teasmade is a device that you fill with cold water the night before, set the alarm, then in the morning wakes you up byspraying your with boiling water because it malfunctionedmaking a delicious cup of tea.Well TIL. Didn't think to search for it. I am in my thirties and have lived in the UK my whole life, and I have never encountered or heard of such a device until now!
Given that, I think it's really creative name to use for such a purpose 👍Don’t feel too bad, you’d have to be at least 50 to have used one during their heyday! My grandmother had one and they did work really well, although the thought of milk spending all night sitting on my bedside table does put me off.
Bedrooms were usually a lot colder during the heyday of the Teasmade ☺️
And quite a few people would nick those little "buckets" of long life milk from trains and hotels to use with the teasmade.
The "little buckets of milk" are known in the trade as jiggers. My brother was in the hotel trade and I got a wholesale box which I used when running mobile training courses at work, very handy for carrying from site to site in the back of a van with teabags, coffee etc for the trainees. The UHT (Utterly Horrible Taste) milk does have a long life but as I discovered not an infinite one resulting in having to send a runner to the local shop one morning 😀
Very glad to hear you guys have a plan to keep the instance going. Good luck with it :)