Week number 2! Sorry, this is a big one....

Users!!

Only 2 weeks in, and r1b.it already has it's first three local users (besides me, ofc)! This is an absolutely insane milestone, and I'm super pumped we've hit it so soon. Like I said in the last Weekly Croak, I didn't expect to have any active users for the first few weeks, but we have 3 already?? Insane.

In particular, I just wanted to shout out @[email protected]. They have been very active and have constantly maintained an positive, happy attitude -- exactly the type of userbase I want to cultivate :) I'm super grateful that complete strangers are as pumped about my little instance as I am. It's super validating, so I just wanted to publicly show my appreciation.

However, that's not to say we shouldn't keep growing ;) The best, most tight-knit communities grow almost exclusively by word of mouth. Like-minded individuals naturally interact with one another on the Fediverse, so normal conversation is the best way to build the type of userbase I want. So, if you have a r1b.it account, please use it! Even showing up in foreign threads here and there with the instance attached to your username does something (that's actually how I found my old home instance). If you don't have a r1b.it account or just prefer using a different instance, still post! That keeps the instance alive. What I have been doing is posting on r1b.it and then cross-posting to similar communities, which seems to work fairly well.

slrpnk.net is down :(

If you weren't aware slrpnk.net -- a very closely-related instance -- is currently down due to hardware issues, and they say they likely won't be back up until December/January. In the meantime, I'd be happy to house any interim communities or users until it gets back online. Just post a request in ![email protected], and I'll be happy to make it for you! Once slrpnk comes back up, I can remove them if you so desire.

Federation issues... fixed?

As I said in this post, r1b.it has been struggling to federate content due to it's small size. A handful of users just isn't enough to maintain healthy links to every subscribed community. So, I have been working on a little script to automatically poke subscribed communities every so often, hopefully pulling any new posts from them.

However, while I said the issue was fixed, it wasn't.... I got a bit too overzealous and posted right after successfully running the script for the first time without waiting to see if it was a permanent solution. That's entirely on me and is a lesson learned as a community administrator. I think I have gotten the script to a place where it works consistently, but again, I'll just need some time to see. Once I solve the issue for good, I'm hoping there will be less friction for new users to join and consistently use their r1b.it accounts.

My statement on AI

Like I said above, we currently have 3 r1b.it user accounts, but I've gotten almost 6 total applications. The reason for the low acceptance rate is simple: AI content.

Two of the applications were for completely AI-driven users, which is absolutely insane to me. The Dead Internet Theory is quickly becoming the Dead Internet Reality. The other denied application was a user that boasted their use of AI, and said they could quickly churn out content to keep r1b.it alive. While, yes, active users are great, that misses the whole point. I don't run this instance for the satisfaction of having a bigger number on the stats page; I run it as a service to people. It is a place to listen and to be heard. If I allow AI-generated content on my instance, living people won't be impacted, and we'll be speaking into the void.

On top of that, I just can't justify the intense compute required to produce generated content. r1b.it is an instance dedicated to nature and actively supports conservation communities like slrpnk. Allowing AI-generated content that consumes immense quantities of power and water is a slap in the face to the very idea of this instance.

With all of that in mind, I am strictly banning all AI-generated content on r1b.it. If you suspect any, report it. Thank you for your help!