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Hosting for a public interest Fediverse PeerTube project
The rules deprecate deletion of a post. I trust that I'll be forgiven for doing so under the circumstances.
I received two comments shortly after posting. As I explained in the post, this was my attempt to delurk in a community where I'd lurked for years. More than 5 years, actually. I introduced myself, explained that I was autistic and therefore detailed, offered a story related to a host, Zynoo, that might have helped others here, listed some specs, and asked for help in finding a host. Further, the post wasn't anonymous. That is supposed to be positive.
All of that is good here, right?
It didn't help that the first response was that people here needed to be, quote, "saved" from a tidal wave of details. Or that the second person offered greetings to his new, quote, "insane", friend. Yes, he said "slightly" and it was a joke. But consider that when you do that to people, sometimes they've had to listen to it for 60 to 70 years. I suppose that that wouldn't occur to people in their 20s.
I gather that posts can't be edited after one hour. So, I need to delete mine or it'll stay here and there will be more of the same.
I think that I could have contributed here. I have been online since 1973. I was here before Usenet. I was a senior developer since before 95% of you were even born. I have more experience as well with Linux, assemblage of custom OSes, getting non-standard setups to boot on dedis and VPSes, actual anonymity, what to look for in hosts, what the government actually does to track you, and other LEB topics than most of you do, regardless of age.
It isn't a boast. I'm not likely to live that long and I wanted to pass some it on. But I need a community of adults. I think, for me, that now means the over-40s. The ones who are starting to feel old.
I'll be exiting, now. I don't think that I'll send any more people here. One suggestion for the rules is that civility is optional, but perhaps don't jump on new people right in their first thread.


Comments
AI, save us!
Well, i actually skim-read most of it.
@OP: Welcome my new marginally insane friend!
Edit: Maybe something in the direction of https://1984.hosting/ would be a good match for your project. It's pretty expensive though. Maybe if you contact them they could get you some kind of custom deal?
The rules deprecate deleting posts. The edited OP will explain why I've blanked this one.
The rules deprecate deleting posts. The edited OP will explain why I've blanked this one.
If you got the money https://orangewebsite.com/hosting/green-dedicated-servers might have some free speech dedi right out of the box. Unlike 1984 i haven't seen any documentation of them actually going to court for their clients content though.
Yeah, providers willing to fight usually let their clients pay for it. That's the catch with budget offers. Their margins are so thin that a the moment they'll be forced to do much of anything out of the ordinary they'll start losing money. That's where funky stuff like disallowing sensitive material comes from. It's the providers exit plan if the client isn't being lucrative for them.
Chances are it's going to be like that but asking doesn't cost anything and who knows maybe they like your project? There's a bit of dedication behind the company after all.
It sounds like you banned yourself from Zynoo. Just be normal and don't move until you actually run into issues.
@mwt : I haven't been banned. Either by the host or by ragequit. It's possible that they won't even shut down the dedi. So, yes, I'll leave it up temporarily. However, they'll evict me on the first peep from any company or billionaire. A move in the short term is obviously needed.
Thank you for the only response I received that didn't suggest people here needed to be "saved" from the level of details in my post or that I was "insane" due to being detailed. It was appreciated.
I'll be leaving, now. If there are other older people here, you'll be happier in the Fediverse.
Hey @OldCoder
Looks like Zynoo are based in the UAE - their stance on what they deem as sensitive seems to be aligned on that.
Your logic seems sound, and from looking at the content your needs aren't really that complex. Not sure you're quite at the point of looking for safehaven hosts - most mainstream providers should be alright.
Do you need 500GB/1TB storage now, or is it a theoretical need in the future?
Servarica might do you well (although both the company and servers are based in Montreal, Canada), or a bog standard OVH/Kimsufi kinda box.
The rules deprecate deleting posts.
@void : Yes, I commented on that. In fact, you're just quoting me. @ElliotJ : I'll respond to you shortly.
Dude, that was more of a compliment than anything. Average is boring. I probably wouldn't read multiple posts of that length though. My attention span isn't sufficient for that, sorry
@ElliotJ :
N1. A substantive response. Thank you.
N2. Zynoo is supposed to be based in Bulgaria with a presence in The Netherlands. I'm not saying that you're incorrect. It's what they seemed to be saying. It's a moot point now, but thank you.
N3. I checked Servarica at the start. I'll look again, but I seem to recall that they didn't match the specs.
N4. Yes, most mainstream hosts won't be concerned initially. But most will honor a DMCA even if they're in the E.U. I thought that I was an expert on this, but that part came as a surprise. It harks back to the fact that I'm slightly naive as I explained in the original OP.
Yes, I don't think that even the movies will be an issue initially. Note that some of them, such as "Ink" (2009) are formally redistributable. But we do think that the Trump administration is going to go after protest videos and especially after Epstein content. (I don't have Epstein material yet, but I expect that some will turn up.)
This isn't that far off. I need to proceed accordingly.
N5. I probably only need 250 GB of disk for the present.
The response is much appreciated.
I think the best strategy is to just change hosts as issues arise, popping back up if something goes wrong.
I basically wouldn't worry about who the host is. Just keep good backups that you know how to restore and keep them in more than one place.
@totally_not_banned : Yes, I figured. Don't be concerned about it.
The concern on my part is that the first two responses went straight to the details issue (humor or not).
I can't see spending years in a community where people are going to see details as different and strange. It's going to be every day.
Know what? Here's a story. I think that it's on-topic enough, considering the context.
6 years ago, 2020 to 2021, Covid meant that I couldn't find housing in California. So, I drove about 1,000 miles and moved in with a former student of mine. He was mid-20s, bi, and had a male lover and roommate. Both of their mothers moved in as well. This was 5 adults in a 1-bedroom apartment.
One mother left. The other mother remained. She was a meth addict. No drivers license, no birth certificate, nothing like that. She had a little MP3 player. That was all. This woman looked like 80 years old. But she was the same age as the kids I'd taught as a student teacher 50 years ago. Some drugs do mess people up badly.
She took 6 months to recover after detox. She couldn't go out. So, I'd buy her favorite ice cream and leave it where she'd find it. I talked to her when the others were out. I found out that she had a favorite rapper. I patched together a Linux driver for her MP3 player. Then I did my own early take on yt-dlp. I extracted the audio tracks from the singer's videos and snuck them onto the player.
After 6 months, she was better. So, I took her out on her first outing. I bought her a burger. Novels by her favorite author. We went to a little charm shop. It's a nice story. However, a few days later, she said, "You're different and strange. I don't like how you're detailed and the way you talk."
Just like that. Out of the blue. But that isn't the punchline. The punchline is that that has happened multiple times. I've really only found connections IRL among the different. The ones who know what this is like. Truck normals.
Online worlds vary. Twitter, for example, no. Run away. But the Fediverse has worked out. It's due to the fact that it takes more patience and intelligence to set up in the network. I think that I'll stay there.
Heh. A detailed post. Oh, well.
@mwt : Yes to all of those points. However, I think that there aren't that many hosts that are going to be a match for long. I'm hoping to find one that might be semi-stable.
I've researched hosts more than most people here have. Remember, I've been lurking for 5 or more years. I have a sense of things here. I can find hosts that technically are a match myself. I'd thought about sharing a related PDF or XLSX file here.
What I was doing when I delurked was more along the lines of, "I can look up hosts myself. But what has your own actual experience been?" Experience is gold.
Regarding backups, Lord, yes. I've got at least a dozen websites on the Zynoo dedi as well as my own patched version of PeerTube and videos that I wouldn't be able to upload again. If I'm not prepared when the box goes, that's all she wrote.
So, I do a few tricks to keep backup time down and then I back-up to two external cloud services. Not one service, but two, and I recommend that to everybody.
I haven't tested the backup tricks that I do yet, though. This is all new. Pray to the FSM that the tricks work when I go to unpack everything.
Well, your perspective is obviously your perspective but in the end we life in the age of the short message service and there's little that can be done about it. I mean, occasionally i can get pretty long winded too and like 80% of people just going "WTF? Wall of text... TLDR..." is something i'll have to accept, i guess. To be honest i'm perfectly fine with the remaining 20%. If people don't want to read what i'm writing that's on them and let's face it most of the resulting comments wouldn't exactly add value anyways
Also trying to stay concise can sometimes be a bit of a fun challenge to me. I think it's kind of like a skill to judge when drawing something out is important and when a couple words convey enough meaning to be sufficient.
Well, i get what you mean but i think the big question would be: Is there some truth to it? Not in relation to liking or disliking something - that's subjective and can't really be debated - but the general observation? It's obviously just my personal perspective but i think there's no point in losing a lot of sleep over observable facts. Sure, we all wish to be a little more this or that at various points in time but in the end we are just who we are.
I know quite well that i'm not what most people would consider normal and some will like me while others won't. I don't think there's anything overly special about that but yeah, finding people you click with gets exponentially harder over the years and i understand that this can be frustrating. I just wouldn't put too much weight on the amount of acceptance since in my opinion the actual quality is way more important.
Your call. In any case i doubt you'd stick out that much around here. There's way too many specialists for that. It sometimes needs a bit of a thick skin though, so you might want to proceed with caution (if you do).
Hehe.
@totally_not_banned : Nothing to add.
I was up all night trying to get Zynoo to explain what they meant by the word "sensitive". The sun came up here as their business day ended there. They'll probably shut down the dedi tonight, U.S. time, since it'll be their business day again.
So, I thought I'd get the ball rolling on a collection of people's experiences with hosts and get to bed. It wasn't the best decision. That was close to 3 hours ago. I've been in forums for literally 50 years. You'd think I'd know how unpredictable it can be.
I'll be asleep in roughly 5 minutes. I'll let my subconscious reflect on the hosting issue. I get a lot of work done that way. It doesn't always work out because I don't have a dreams printer or a dreams to SSD storage intertace.
Thank you for your time.