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Public access unix server for tildes.net?
Reading about tilde.club and cmccabe's excellent post about public access unix servers has made me want one for tildes.net. I realize that there are several alternatives, like tildes.team and sdf.org, but I think it would be really cool to have one specifically for the people here, and once the API is done, it could even integrate with the site.
Thanks for linking to the other topic; I missed it the first time around and it was an interesting read.
The idea is neat, but a couple of dissenting thoughts:
Item 1 isn't necessarily a problem; an IRC server of people who're already here could keep people involved, but it also has a likelihood of leaching activity away from the site and into chat. As for moderation, people will have to be kept from the standard stuff (don't upload copy-written material or porn), but also uploading/writing spam bots, botnet scripts, participating in DDOS attacks, etc. Such a communal system would have to be pretty darn locked down and monitored.
If you're interested in the subject, there's nothing stopping ya from getting something started. Even if it doesn't kick off, it'd be a great learning opportunity.
One of my favorite replies to people in the tech industry is, "That sounds expensive."
In order to do something like this, Spectria would need some pretty serious infrastructure upgrades. More servers (because we can't risk users being on the production website hardware), more administrators (because those with strong unix-fu would need to build and maintain the system without taking time away from Tildes development), and yes, even in unix land, more moderators, to deal with abuses of the system and manage the users. In fact, it'd require network upgrades and federation... it's like when your mom and pop shop goes from running a single site for their business to setting up their own rack in a datacenter with business-serving services like email, etc. It's not trivial at all.
Once it was built, though, maintenance wouldn't be all that hellish. It does sound like something that would be a nice incentive to pay for a 'premium' membership, though, doesn't it? Your own shell, your own email, your own /user/~public website directory.
Story time. Back in the good old Everquest days, our EQ server had geeks who actually set this stuff up for us. We had our own forums (and I was one of the admins, phpbb) and we had a stat/database server contributed by the legendary Moslad where people could put up files to share with each other. He even had a database that was like the NSA for our server, tracking user name changes, when they were last seen online, etc. It was pretty epic.
Let me tell you just some of the fun things that happened to us because of it..
At one point I uploaded a text copy of Return of the King into my user folder there. A full three years later the Tolkien estate finally noticed and threatened legal action.
Another user was on a quest to find the most legendarily fucked up porn, and was rather famous for it server-wide. These are the things teenage geeks do for fun. He uploaded a multi-gigabyte mountain of horse/clown porn to his folder. Much fun was had, despite bestiality being illegal in most jurisdictions.
Another user was hacked or through poor judgement uploaded some sexytime video between her and her boyfriend. That was the hottest file on the server for a while, despite it being taken down something like a week later. There was something very... unique and noticeable about her that I won't disclose here, but it did result in a multi-year-long tsunami of jokes and cultural references that did her no favors. I shit you not - just last week I had someone email me asking if I still had a copy of those files. Some in-jokes are so horrifyingly epic that they last 20 years.
I'm quite sure there were other incidents that I didn't hear about. I know there was a truckload of piracy trading going on, and nobody ever bothered to stop that or do anything about it. I sent some people the full 80 minute babylon five bloopers reel through there, and nobody is supposed to have that.
Do we want to spend time dealing with these sorts of shenanigans, or building Tildes?
Haha yup, exactly what I was thinking about. With a bit of anonymity and a lot of spare time, people can make huge messes, messes that someone else has to clean up. My fear, @clone1, is that people would use it more for making those messes than acting like a community.
Edit: see also the recent topic about piracy: https://tildes.net/~tildes/4it
We could do fun things that are less... dangerous. Anyone here remember muds/mushes/muxes? Seems to me that's a vastly superior option to 'reddit user chat'.
Ah, that's a neat idea. I never was really into the few muds that I tried, but I really should give them another shot. Sounds like a discussion for ~games.
I know it isn't really the same, but believe it or not there's also a public access Multics installation at ban.ai.
I'd be up for it. However, as others have pointed out, problems of moderation, cost and taking away traffic from the main page would have to be dealt with.
I love the idea of public access Unix installations, but I missed out on their heyday and while it would be easy enough for me to get a shell account I'm so used to having my own personal Unix machine that I doubt I'd ever use it.
Nice to know that PANIX is still in business, and that if I had to I could buy a USB modem and get a dialup account with shell access.
The thing is, they aren't for general purpose computing. They are a social space for nerds to socialize and collaborate.
I'd recommend checking out tilde.team. It's one of the newer ones, and it has a great community.