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So many great posts containing Lemmy resources (ex. apps, communities) are now out of date. Instead, how about we make a repository to pull from? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by otter@lemmy.ca to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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EDIT: Might be able to get this set up. Hang tight!

There was a little bump in users, and the LemmyWorld admins posted this, but the included apps guide was out of date. I went to ask about it and saw the account that made the post is no longer active (moved instances). I then tried to update it myself and made progress, but got overwhelmed.

Two parts of my suggestion:

Part 1) Have a repository to pull from

Users don't like to go off site, which is why a pinned post with the resources works well. However, pinned posts go out of date, and it's a lot of ask for one person to manually edit it and keep it updated.

Instead, why not make a repository with a collection of markdown files containing the post body contents. Then there would be one source of truth that everyone can update.

The post contents would also include:

Link to the contribution page, so it's easy to suggest changes
Last updated date, so that if a post goes out of date the users can ask it to be updated or just go to the source.

Whenever the post needs to be updated, the OP can paste in the newest contents.

Part 2) A nicer list of resources

I guess this is more of a 'nice to have' feature, but it would be nice if we had a site that was easier to navigate, 'prettier', and more accessible to casual users. We have this for our community/Subreddit, and it's pretty easy to keep updated: https://ubcwiki.ca/index.html. It runs open source mdBook

Right now Lemmy has awesome-lemmy and [awesome-lemmy-instances](Owner avatar awesome-lemmy-instances). But they're not the nicest to look at, and it's a bit annoying to find content (especially awesome-lemmy) because of the format. There's a lot of text on one page, and little variation in spacing/text size.

The new site could have the same contents, a lot could be copy and pasted over, and it could be updated from the same repo. Only difference is that it would be nicer to use.

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[-] dameoutlaw@lemmy.ml 21 points 10 months ago

Not exactly what you were getting at and it’s not Lemmy specific but I did make a living list of Fediverse apps. https://lemmy.ml/post/5100592 I’m hoping this can help in the meantime

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 months ago

This is great! Would love to use that content later on if that would be ok :)

[-] dameoutlaw@lemmy.ml 7 points 10 months ago

I also made this list as well https://lemmy.ml/post/5198221

[-] dameoutlaw@lemmy.ml 6 points 10 months ago

Absolutely! Thanks for asking but that’s why I made it so it could be of service and make things easier for users.

[-] Pyroglyph@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Why not have the best of both worlds? Set up a repo with all the information, then run a bot that periodically updates a pinned post with the data from the repo.

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago

That would be the best, I'd need help with the bot side of things but I like it. :)

We could also then create a process to request a page / post type. But at some point we might as well just implement wikis on Lemmy

[-] dandroid@dandroid.app 2 points 10 months ago

It's more complicated than what you need, but you can look at my NHL game day thread bot if you need inspiration on how to make a bot that keeps a basic sqlite database of post IDs then after a sleep runs through a loop to update the posts in the database with new info.

It can already be run in docker. The repo even contains a script to build the docker container from source and run it and has a run configuration for it in pycharm. All you need to do is select the config and press the play button. Once running with docker, it will run forever until it receives the signal to shut down.

https://github.com/dandroid126/lemmy-nhl-gdt-bot

[-] PupBiru@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago

i’d suggest using the CI built into whatever git host you choose: commit a change and CI runs automatically and updates posts

less bot per se, but definitely easier than webhooks or scraping to sync

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

If this does work out, what should this repo / site be called?

LemmyWiki? LemmyGuides?

[-] eggymachus@sh.itjust.works 6 points 10 months ago

LemmySee? LemmyKnow? LemmyIn? 🙂

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago

I like LemmyKnow

LemmyKnow about ____

[-] Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 10 months ago

They both seem fine to be honest

[-] Coasting0942@reddthat.com 4 points 10 months ago

The Fediverse Divinitatus:

Rejoice for I bring glorious news,

Reddit walks among us…..

[-] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Easy there Lorgar

[-] Emperor@feddit.uk 3 points 10 months ago

LemmyGuide seems suitably beginner friendly and should do better in search engine results.

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

What do you think about LemmyKnow

I liked LemmyGuide, but I thought it might get lost in the search results. There are a few other tools, sites, and repos with similar names.

Alternatively, if we had the full name be "LemmyKnow - Guides for Lemmy", it might still show up in search results for "Lemmy guide"? Then searching "LemmyKnow" would only find the project the user wants.

Downside is that the name isn't as descriptive. "LemmyKnow Guides"?

[-] Emperor@feddit.uk 5 points 10 months ago

I like it:

"LemmyKnow: Your Guide to Lemmy and the Threadiverse'

[-] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

Reddit had a built-in wiki system. Could Lemmy have something similar?

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I think it's one of those things that just hasn't been implemented yet. It should definitely be possible, just a matter of someone getting it done.

[-] photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 10 months ago

Over on db0 we have a wiki which all instance members can edit. Maybe y'all can do something like that here?

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

That would be cool. Is it on https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/, I don't think I see it. Can you use your Lemmy accounts to make edits?

[-] photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 months ago

wiki.dbzer0.com

[-] nix@merv.news 1 points 10 months ago

I really wish the domain wasnt so difficult to remember wow

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You (or somebody) could host a wiki that uses markdown or has a rich text editor at https://fedi.wiki as the domain isn't taken yet.

Edit: looks like the domain is squatted, but maybe something similar is free

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 months ago

That could also work great, I think I remember seeing a fediverse wiki somewhere which could work. I don't have much experience hosting an actual wiki.

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 months ago

As luck would have it, I just finished deploying a wiki where only my lemmy users can edit https://wiki.dbzer0.com/

[-] Spzi@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

I'm all for collecting information, keeping it up to date, making it accessible and sharing the workload to many people.

For me, that screams WIKI!

There is a Wiki which could very well use more contribution and updates: https://joinfediverse.wiki/What_is_Lemmy%3F

I think a proper Wiki is the correct place for these things. Compared to a repository, a Wiki is more accessible for more kinds of people. It also allows better cross-referencing of information along with other relevant functionality.

That being said, let's not argue too much about where the best place might be. Getting things done is more important, so go ahead! It should be easy to copy the content to a Wiki at a later point.

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Getting things done is more important, so go ahead! It should be easy to copy the content to a Wiki at a later point.

Appreciate this, we should hopefully have something up by the end of the week!

Linking to all the other resources, such as https://joinfediverse.wiki/What_is_Lemmy%3F would be a part of the process while starting up, so the comments on this post have been extra helpful

[-] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 1 points 10 months ago

This seems anti-decentralized. You'll get one person or one group of opinions. A poll/post with commentary? Hard to do this without some form of administration, and politics be politics.

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago

The hope is that the repo would be open so anyone could clone it if the original project was being unethical. Similarly, users are free to modify the lists when posting, or maintaining their own forks so they can benefit from updates but keep their own structure.

We would need some rules about how the list should be ordered, and what content wouldn't be allowed. For apps/extensions that's simpler, you can order by installs and have a threshold (ex. Top 5 are listed prominently, rest are listed in a section below, ordered alphabetically). For instances/communities this is a little harder, and I don't know what the best way to handle it would be.

For the second point, right now the alternatives are also single repos, so it wouldn't change much past the structure.

[-] wiki_me@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago

You could use github pages and have awesome-lemmy deploy to it and have html web page without all the extra github stuff , it should be relatively easy to do.

I suggest against creating another project, i see this type of duplication and it really can be confusing (which source do i use?) plus it is a duplication of effort and the fediverse does not really have a lot of contributors unlike companies such as google and facebook.

On the other hand i am the second most frequent contributor to awesome lemmy and might not be entirely objective.

If you want a github organisation could be set up for awesome-lemmy and after a while you could become an owner and it won't have the bus factor of 1, maybe we can even set up a "lemmy community" github organisation (something like nix-community) and that could make it easier to discover some projects and if for some project and contributor loses interest another one could be assigned (without all the links and it's name recognition going to waste)

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

I was silly and posted the comment before I was done writing it. I'm done writing it now, sorry about that

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

That's a very fair point, and it does carry weight since you've been contributing for so long (thank you for doing all that!). Reducing duplication of effort is a big part of the goal. I was talking to @cynber@lemmy.ca about the repo/project and nothing has been set up yet. Part of why I was thinking a new project was after reading about awesome-lemmy (and the requirements for 'awesome' guides) I got a bit lost. How does it usually work for those, and what is the advantage of keeping that format opposed to website?

I think a Lemmy organization (or threadiverse organization) could work well, and it would definitely make it easier to keep track of the projects. I don't have as much experience in that area, so I'll probably defer to others who know more about it.

If I have the right idea, it would be something like

threadiverse-community (organization)
  |-> awesome-lemmy (repo): structured the same way as it is now
  |-> LemmyKnow (repo): to run the website &amp; the post pages
  |      |-> website has pages with resources
  |      |-> repo has MD files for posts that users can copy from
  |-> other Lemmy related projects

Ultimately, if it works out, we could shift over sections from awesome-lemmy to the website, so it's more accessible. For the site, @cynber@lemmy.ca can confirm, but I think the plan was md-book running on GitHub pages.

In the meantime, it might be worth it to give the site a try and just not advertise it. If the site doesn't work out, then the whole thing is kinda moot anyway

[-] wiki_me@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago

I got a bit lost. How does it usually work for those, and what is the advantage of keeping that format opposed to website?

What would you like to know?, you basically just edit the file and submit a pull request, you can even do it using only github GUI.

I makes it very easy to contribute (you don't need to know HTML/react whatever) and read it if you are using github, and github makes discovering repositories easy using topics (see for the example the "lemmy" topic).