On Fri, 26 May 2023 23:12:10 +0000
Anonymous@rocksolidbbs.com (Anonymous) wrote:

> Anonymous wrote:
>
> > I was wondering if anyone here knows anything about the Tildeverse.

Perhaps comp.infosystems.gemini readers would know more.

> > Has anyone tried any of their services?

They have a public NNTP server that allows reader access.
Authentication is required to post. I run a suck feed of their NNTP
groups off their open NNTP service. I don't post there, since I have
signed up for an account but I haven't gotten a response yet.

A mastodon instance for the Tildeverse lives here:

https://tilde.zone

> > What kind of people are running the Tildeverse sites?

Probably text geeks, such as some of us.
> > Are they legit?

Not illegal, if that's what 'legit' means.
> > Are they open / closed / tribal minded?

I don't see enough activity to deduce any common mentality. It seems
they are basically computer hobbyists having fun.
> > What is the Tildeverse culture like?

Quiet, mostly.
> > How does Tildeverse compare to the Rocksolid community?

Flame war bait. ;)
> sybershock hosts some tilde groups here
> https://sybershock.com/forum/tilde/?

You may also view the news feed via gopher:

gopher://sybershock.com/1/tilde/

You may use lynx to view gopher sites:

$ sudo apt-get install lynx

Then from the command line type:

$ lynx gopher://sybershock.com/1/tilde/
> Other than that I don't know much about it.

Tildeverse appears to be a low-traffic operation. I pull down and
maintain a archive of their local NNTP feed and when I check it not
much is happening. I also serve the feed via gopher.

Note to everyone: if you know of any other obscure, publicly-accessible
NNTP servers please inform me so I can mirror them. I also encourage
other people to run mirror archives of NNTP feeds since they can
disappear quickly as did AIOE.

I suspect there are some youngsters who signed up to play with
the command line and got bored with it. They have a 'smol net' mystique
and they promote plain text such as gopher, gemini, and spartan.

It appears someone from their community got the Big8 to create the
newsgroup comp.infosystems.gemini. I am going to cross-post this
message to that group so hopefully someone with more knowledge of
Tildeverse might see it and respond.

It seems like they can be inactive for long periods, which
I don't consider a bad thing. Less noise usually translates to more
worth thinking about when someone does chime in.

I don't know anything about the admins. So I can't opine on that. As
for the culture I can't really say since not a lot happens in the news
feed. As for them being 'legit' I don't see how they wouldn't be. It's
not like a darknet honeypot would be running there. What they offer is
really transparent and as advertised.

--

SugarBug | https://sybershock.com