Better to use /m/cars which OP mentioned. I removed the image from mine, just leaving a red box as a reference for a codeberg issue. So it doesn't show how it looks with an image.
You should be easily able to add a banner using the magazine CSS. Though that's not being federated currently, I hope magazine CSS federation gets added in the future at least between kbin/mbin instances.
This should give you a banner above the threads section:
main > header {
/* Change both of these */
height: 100px;
background-image: url(https://i.imgur.com/zWuVa7U.png);
}
While this should give you one that also extends over the sidebar:
Changing the #middle to #header would put it above the kbin header (with the logo, the threads/microblog buttons, etc).
Community Engagement
There is an Active People section in the sidebar.
I think the issue here is that kbin simply doesn't have a lot of users yet.
One of the reasons I believe for that is also because the platform feels very stale or dead in plain sight.
This won't improve if you show people "0 people are viewing this thread" on every thread. Actually, it would worsen the impression that the site is dead.
A while ago, kbin's development came to a standstill because ernest was gone for weeks and the project's contribution guidelines are very restrictive.
Many contributors, including major ones, decided to leave the project and work on their own fork which uses more open contribution guidelines based on consensus.
They adopt all the changes ernest makes to kbin, but have their own features on top of that. I believe fedia.io, for example, runs mbin now.
I wouldn't say restrictive, but based on previous threads and his conversations with Melroy (guy who forked Kbin and brought Mbin), Ernest has been cautiously approving contributions in a more patient manner, and along with that the brief few weeks of absence of development from Ernest's side (and as a result, no approval on new contributions during this period of time) because he had some personal issues he had to deal with, this for some reason led some of the contributors to fire away and create a fork, I still question this move considering the pause was only briefly for a few weeks and Ernest, as always, did a great job at communicating about why things got slow during that period.
I've already mentioned my personal opinion in another message in this thread itself, so not going to repeat myself but that is what happened as far as I know.
Thank you so much! I will make use of this, what you can do with CSS is amazing although not so newbie friendly which I am to CSS, so a user-friendly option to add a banner similar to logo would be good still.
And regarding my suggestion about user engagement, showing how many people are viewing live actually does not work like that, it only shows the number of people viewing it live when the post is brand new/24 hours and when nobody is viewing it, it won't say 0 but simply not be shown at all.
Again that was a mere example, just like the online status was as well, my main reason to mention those things is to possibly spark an idea of something even better that could help kbin, but not really copy what reddit already his, they were mostly just examples of what we could have similarly or just get the thinking process going on there :)
Update: unfortunately the banner CSS given did not work, here is the imgur link I was trying to add to m/cars for reference: https://imgur.com/a/SDy0s5O. The issue is that even after I followed your instructions and posted it on the CSS box from mod panel, I tried refreshing, banner just does not pop up.
Maybe if you could help me out here, i'd really appreciate that, thank you again!
That's weird. I was testing it out with a userstyle, which worked, so I assumed it would work with custom css too. But I guess there might be some restrictions in place? Seems very restrictive though if that's the case here. Not even the first one I gave works. I'll see if I can find anything out.
Okay, so I've created a magazine and tested some stuff out.
In the first code I posted, I used the child selector (>) to select <header> elements directly inside <main> elements. For some reason, custom CSS doesn't seem to support the child selector. No matter where I try to use it, the style isn't applied.
I removed the child selector and instead used :has(hi1[hidden]) to make sure I only get the target element. Without it, it would also replace the background of the individual thread titles.
The image you're trying to use is a bit large, so I've included an example usage of background-size and background-position to change the size of the image and what part of it actually gets displayed.
With background-size, the first value is how wide the image should be, while the latter value is how high. Percentage values are relative to the element's size. So the width and height properties. You can also set absolute values, like I did with height in pixels in this example.
The big issue with this one though is that it'll only apply to the Threads and All Content views. Other views, including Microblog and individual threads, don't have the <header> element I'm looking for here.
The last two lines are there because this actually displays the name of the magazine on the banner. Since that's kind of redundant, since it's already in the bar at the top, I'm hiding the text and making it not selectable.
This one does work in all the views I tested except for when looking at a thread and its comments.
Though, something worth considering in case you intend to just use this code as-is: I just used pixels for simplicity. But the result might look entirely different on other screen resolutions than mine. Here's a list of better units to use if you want it to look the same on all screens. You can use percentages, pixels, and these other units interchangeably anywhere.
About the second code I posted, for some reason :before, much like the child selector, doesn't seem to work. I can very much target the #middle and #header elements from custom magazine CSS, but :before doesn't do anything.
I'm not sure why this is. I see no security reason to block them, so I assume it's not intentional. It's a bit hard to debug :before specifically because I don't know any way to get its styles without making it visible. So I have no idea if something is overwriting the style or if the selector just doesn't work, like is the case with the child selector. I'll have to look into this a bit more over the weekend.
I tried both the ones you mentioned, unfortunately it still does not work, is it because the image is Jpg instead of png? I also copied the image's address and pasted it.
I can see it. Maybe it's the point I mentioned here:
Though, something worth considering in case you intend to just use this code as-is: I just used pixels for simplicity. But the result might look entirely different on other screen resolutions than mine. Here's a list of better units to use if you want it to look the same on all screens. You can use percentages, pixels, and these other units interchangeably anywhere.
Maybe the values I gave are too small for you to see on your screen?
edit: wait, why does the image not work, I literally just uploaded it
edit 3: right, I just noticed that, because I'm mixing percentages and absolute units here, the image actually moves around as I change the screen size. I'll refine the example with more reliability later today.
Here's a list of better units to use if you want it to look the same on all screens.
Honestly, I pretty much suck at CSS and I honestly don't understand how i'd use it, but what I can tell you is that I am using a 2017 iMac, so you should be able to tell the screen size based on that. I am also using Firefox on MacOS.
not sure if you can view this since it's blocked in some countries, but here's a catbox upload.
OMG Wow, it looks so damn good! I wish it worked for me!
right, I just noticed that, because I'm mixing percentages and absolute units here, the image actually moves around as I change the screen size. I'll refine the example with more reliability later today.
No worries or hurries, take your time on this and let me know :)
Say, do you see any custom CSS anywhere? I mean, I'm not even sure which magazines use it anyway, do you see something on /m/pamasich? Besides the test banner, I also made the magazine name in the sidebar red.
If you don't see anything changed there, do you maybe have custom CSS turned off? In your settings, there's an option Ignore magazines custom CSS under a text field that lets you enter personal custom css. Make sure that's not checked.
In Field of Dreams the ghost voice says "If you build it, they will come.", but fails to say "Oh yeah, you have to look after it once you've done that. You're gonna need a ride-on mower."
Like many folks on aggregator sites, I'd create magazines / communities / sub-sites if it didn't mean I then had to manage and moderate them afterwards. (There are many things in life that fit this pattern.)
Rhyme criticism:
"-zines" and "weeks" is, well, weak.
"Arrives" and "cries" is slightly better, but not by much.
"Soul" and "foul" don't rhyme either, despite appearances.
Then again, maybe it's my own accent that's spoiling these?
@palordrolap
oh, the rhymes are quirky, and filled with joy :)
Like many folks on aggregator sites, I'd create magazines / communities / sub-sites if I didn't mean I then had to manage and moderate them afterwards. (There are many things in life that fit this pattern.)
yes, creating a magazine is the easy part, whereas maintaining a magazine is a matter of discipline
One of my favorite things about /kbin is that it utilizes threads and microblogs. In my experience thus far, users here seem rather shy. I don't hold it against anyone though, because I totally understand.
Federating content from the likes of Mastodon is very helpful for having discussions trickle in from the fediverse. I think it's also really helpful for establishing an ongoing daily discussion space so the thread feed isn't as cluttered. IMO, there's more potential beyond that, too (Think: drawing everyday for a month, photography-based posting/challenges while using tags for content organization, language-learning exercises, the list goes on...).The combination of threads with microblogs has shown me the power that lies behind content federation. As a result, /kbin is by far my favorite of the fediverse platforms so far.
I still have some minor issues with how it currently works. Currently, I believe the name of a magazine causes hashtags with the exact same string to federate content to that magazine. The magazine that matches the desired hashtag also takes priority, even when the hashtag isn't assigned in the magazine's settings. An issue with this is that if any subsequent magazines try to federate content using that hashtag, it won't be able to do so.
It seems as though microblogs can only federate content to either the magazine that matches the hashtag in question, or the magazine that uses the hashtag first. There's also an issue where a microblog that uses multiple hashtags will only federate content to the magazine with the first available tag. E.g. if someone writes an unused tag for the first, followed by #kbinmeta, then #fediverse third, the post would only go to the kbinmeta microblog section. It would be lovely for microblogs to be federated, or even mirrored across magazines (as in child comments/replies) that implement the same tag. Hopefully, this could also be done without adding excessive overhead to Ernest/the server. Perhaps even offer the ability to have a magazine choose to refuse federating tags that match the magazine's name.
There are also some minor issues with moderation federation, but I don't exactly want to specify here, because I'm worried it could be used maliciously.
That being said, I can't wait to see how /kbin will mature.
Another thing I wish kbin would do, is that while kbin picks up mastodon posts (ie microblogs) - albeit not as seamlessly as would be ideal, as Mr Murdoch points out, it doesn't go the other way. When I post a thread to kbin I always attach relevant hashtags, but my Mastodon account does not pick these up. Mastodon does have the ability to follow kbin users, but not pick up kbin threads based on the thread's hashtags.
I really hope magazines get the ability to detach from hashtags since currently @fediverse and @fediverse seem to be picking up all microblogs that use #fediverse even if said hashtag is used to just refer to fediverse users.
I empathize, as I've spent quite some time trying to learn about content federation trying to manage my own magazines. However, /kbin is younger than its Mastodon/Lemmy counterparts, while trying to provide a unique space that allows for both types of content to exist on the same platform. While there are things that need to be resolved, I'm quite satisfied with the recent update, personally.
I’m glad you said that you don’t think that privacy is the biggest issue. Our posts are already public and can be scraped easily. I’ve stopped reading posts about privacy issues because they seem misinformed to me.
I don’t know what to think about the rest at this stage, but I’m beyond suspicious of Meta, which has proven itself to be a deeply unethical company.
mod workload increasing to unsustainable levels with the overnight addition of millions of users
meta would be a large enough instance to be considered a monopoly of the entire fediverse
the fediverse goal of putting control of social media back in the hands of users would no longer be possible if companies controlled the majority of the space
Most people probably didn’t consider the internet something that could be monopolised at the start either.
We have the same view on private social media.
IMO we should treat this like any other instance that goes against what we want to see on the fediverse, defed it on all the main instances and if someone wants to access it they can have a threads account or an account on a small instance that is federated with them.
Meta (or any large entity) cannot monopolize or control the fediverse. If their implementation starts drifting from established norms, they will be blocked by most instances or will just be incompatible. The example used to back up this argument is usually XMPP, but people forget that XMPP is still around. It never died; its just a smaller, niche network.
The fediverse is already a small, niche network. So if Meta comes in and tries to control the network, it will then be responsible for maintaining its own "Meta-fediverse" network (that some instances may choose to be a part of) while the remaining instances will remain as a small, niche network. Meta can't force current fediverse servers to implement any Meta-specific features or to change their software in any way.
The mod workload argument is the only one that I see being a real issue, but the target is wrong. Anyone worried about that should be discussing it with fediverse devs to improve mod tools, not trying to force the entire fediverse to stay at their preferred size
Meta (or any large entity) cannot monopolize or control the fediverse. If their implementation starts drifting from established norms, they will be blocked by most instances or will just be incompatible.
Right now, many are already desperate for activity and thus hesitant to defederate. Do you actually think that you'll convince people to defederate once everyone's used to all the content they provide? "Hey guys, Meta's starting to make changes, so we're going to cut the content you're used to seeing by 99%." That's an impossible sell. Once content dependence is established, there is no turning back.
… but people forget that XMPP is still around. It never died; its just a smaller, niche network. The fediverse is already a small, niche network.
Most of us want to see the open fediverse grow into something a bit less small and a bit less niche, but that possibility will be dashed away if we put activity in Meta's hands and then let them take it away from us. Tons of people will leave platforms like Mastodon to go to Threads or otherwise have to live with most of their content being gone and no longer seeing the posts of most of whom they follow. That's lots of people who would have been sold on the fediverse but now see it as dead because of the massive activity drop. Threads coming and going takes the view of our situation from "It could grow a lot," to "It really fell off when Threads left," and the latter will make it impossible to grow again.
If we want a fediverse with the values we care about to grow, we don't need Meta. It's insane to start pretending that this is the case just because Meta is offering to control 99% of the content. Patience will help us in the long run, whereas relying on Meta to carry the fediverse will absolutely hurt us.
Once content dependence is established, there is no turning back.
Everyone who is on the fediverse has already made that choice. They are intentionally on a network with less content because of the other benefits And a huge portion of the discussion of Meta joining the fediverse is made up of ppl who are saying they will block Threads on day 1.
the latter will make it impossible to grow again.
That's what everyone was saying back when the fediverse was even smaller, or even before it existed. "How can you compete with giants like G+, twitter, and facebook?" There will always be groups of people who will not participate in corporate social media. And there will always be people who like the convenience of corporate social media but get fed up with it and seek alternatives. And there will always be people who bounce between services.
Tons of people will leave platforms like Mastodon to go to Threads
They're only here because they left corporate social media. If they were going to leave for Threads, why wouldn't they do it now? They've heard all the warnings about some supposed EEE and assume that Threads won't connect to the fediverse forever so why would Threads adding ActivityPub support suddenly change their mind? Going to threads now puts them in the same state as going to threads later in some hypothetical future where the fediverse is too small to matter.
If we want a fediverse with the values we care about to grow...
I don't care about Meta and I'm not relying on them for anything. When they join the fediverse, individual instance owners will still have all the power. User on the fediverse will still be able to control their own feeds. But there are people who use Threads and being able to communicate with them would be nice. I don't think any of the fears about Meta on the fediverse are justified and I think the fediverse will continue on just like it has for more than a decade.
Is the fediverse a technology or an ideology? The... fundamentalism I am seeing around the issue of Threads is a little disturbing. It feels kinda culty.
If you have enabled option "Show top bar" then "Magazines" will not be displayed at the top of the page between "People" and "Collections" and you will have to click "All magazines" at the end of top bar to go to the magazine search.
I’m not worried about dependency on content from threads. I’m primarily concerned with facebook’s data harvesting. I have a Facebook account, but I only touch it when I have to. All other aspects of my social life are pretty much divorced from Facebook. I fear that with federating, my activity will populate on their servers and they will feel completely entitled to all of it to train their AI and create advertising profiles without any consent. All of our activity will be free use for their profit.
I’d actually feel better if the process of federating required an EULA or something where the instance seeking federation must deny any right to use community content without explicit, signed permission from individual users.
@ThatOneKirbyMain2568
given the sheer size of threads, most fedi platforms still lack well-developed moderation tools > this is a tough nut to crack, thus preemptive defederation is a must when it comes to threads
Very well said and you have captured many of my exact fears.
Personally, if the decentralized fediverse was more developed and mature, I would not be as concerned about federating with Threads. But, Meta is entering at a time when everything is really just starting to develop.
They’ll be the big instance and they’ll have a lot of influence over the others as a result.
Just to give an example, What would happen if Lemmy.world decided to cut off kbin? Kbin would lose a ton of content and access to most of the large communities. Threads, thanks to Meta’s resources and huge Instagram user base, will likely gain more active users and communities than lemmy in no time and they could do the same. The difference is I believe Meta may be more likely to down the line because an open fediverse doesn’t fit super nicely into their business model.
I understand many people disagree and that is fine; nobody knows the future. If we decide to federate with Threads then so be it, and if it turns out I am totally wrong then I will eat my words. All I am trying to articulate is that I think there is reason to be skeptical of Meta.
100%. Additionally, there's a difference in magnitude between lemmy.world and Threads. While it's obviously not great that so many of the large communities are on lemmy.world, Threads would have a vast majority of the fediverse's microblog content. If Meta leaves the fediverse later on, people outside of Threads will suddenly lose almost all of the activity their used to and will likely move over to Threads. And Meta, being a profit-driven company, has all the incentive in the world to do this given that it would pull tons of users from competing platforms like Mastodon.
These corporations have shown time and time again that profit is their priority, and that profit explicitly goes against our own interests. You're not going to see Zuckerberg asking people to keep things balanced by joining other instances. He'd love to pull users from Mastodon, Firefish, and Kbin over to Threads, and it's easily doable if he's welcomed with open arms like big instances across the fediverse are doing right now.
I think corporate instances should be allowed only as hosts for accounts of their own employees. Letting large companies dominate the fediverse kind of diminishes the idea of putting control of social media back into hands of the people. If the companies really wanted to help the fediverse out they should be donating to fediverse projects rather than trying to monopolize it.
Lots of people here worried about Meta destroying their space, and rightly so.
But I see this from another lens. This is what success for the fediverse looks like. The fediverse was never going to compete with the big players in social media. But it can influence them to be less shitty.
Is this a threat to the fediverse as we know it? Absolutely. But we have the opportunity to make things better for several orders of magnitude more people than are currently here. To me that is a risk worth taking and fighting for.
I’m not saying everyone should roll over and do whatever Meta wants. There’s going to be tension and we are going to need to fight them tooth and nail on many things. But let’s at least participate.
Absolutely agreed. I came here to escape proprietary corpo bullshit, and if we don't defederate, I'll just stop using kbin altogether. I love it here, but that will change if Meta's grimy tentacles are able to take hold of the place.
kbinMeta
Active
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.