3w ago

A goodbye to kbin ...

Like many others, when the reddit APIcalypse happened, I moved to the fediverse. Like many, I wasn't sure what it really consisted of, how it worked, or what instance to move to. Eventually I decided to sign up with kbin.social. Ernest was welcoming, the instance was friendly with a nice mix of topics, the community was great, having access to both threadiverse and microblogs was great, and I loved it.

And then Ernest started having health issues and the instance became unstable. Eventually I moved to fedia/mbin, which I enjoy a lot, but I just haven't quite felt that same sense of belonging - I don't know, maybe the new job just kept me away a bit too much, or I'm getting old, or just been through too many changes. But I've kept kbin on my launch page, and sometimes I find myself a bit wistful for it.

I poked at the internet, and the kbin.social domain expires in a few days, on 10 September, which I suppose will be a formal end to the project. In memory of kbin, I'd like thank Ernest: wherever you are, I hope you are well and enjoying your life. Thank you for the concepts behind and your work on kbin; I love the bridging of the microblogs and threadiverse. And thank you for making the transition to the fediverse less confusing to this old redditor. I wish you the best in life, and thank you again.

46 comments

Same sentiments here. Started off on kbin.social, had to move shop to lemmy.zip which is where I still am but I've kept checking the bookmark every couple months to see if was still resolving.
- Thirding this, in the same boat!
- Same, moved to kbin then hopped around some after it went into limbo. Ended up on .zip and appreciate its kind of hand-off, user-deals with it, federation/blocking.
  RIP kbin you were a real one and I hope all your devs (Ernest) future projects go well.
  
  Yeah thats why I ended up on .zip
  I was running squaredcircle on kbin, so I wanted to find an instance with the least federation issues (outside of the obvious like csam and such) so users wouldn't have problems accessing us, .zip was pretty much perfect across the board with the userbase, still there today!

Ernest's website is still up, and he has a few recent posts: https://ernest.dev/
- Glad to hear he's doing well. I had worried maybe the worst might've happened.
  
  So had I!
- Yeah I think I've seen some recent commits on his GitHub profile as well. He seems to be "back", just not on kbin.
  I hosted my own kbin instance for a while as it seemed interesting, but admittedly I never really got into it. Still a cool approach, just not for me.

Same here. I started off on kbin.social after the APIcalypse, then to a small mbin instance (moist.catsweat), then created alts on lemmy.zip and piefed.zip. I think the .zip instances have a lot of the kbin.social community vibe. I think that eventually piefed.zip will be my main instance. I hope Ernest is well, wherever he is.
- Christ, that's a hell of an instance name.
  
  Actually one of the reasons I didn’t join it when I was looking for other instances.
- I fully moved to piefed.zip from lemmy.zip. It’s great! Prior to .zip, I was on lemm.ee. I specifically chose .zip when .ee closed down because they have similar policies.

Another kbin.social refugee here. I only moved when it was obvious that Ernest wasn't coming back. So instead, I decided to lean on Melroy, who's been an awesome admin and dev.
So, Ernest, I wish you nothing but the best. Thanks for kicking off a small revolution. And Melroy - thank you for taking up the torch.
- What makes Melroy so awesome?
  
  Ongoing development of mbin and attention to the platform as a whole. His lack of overt politics compared to the Lemmy devs also makes me happier. Plus, as an admin, he's mostly hands-off in my n experience, certainly not a micromanaging mod.

It was a great website. You could feel the fun of exploring everything together with hundreds of new users, from Lemmy communities to Mastodon toots with great threading of discussions. From custom magazine CSS to Collections (remade by PieFed as Feeds). A new, emergent website culture and the promise of later progress (we were meant later to have e.g. flairs (as Badges), and federation with Mobilizon).
You are seeing /kbin software as a Reddit alternative, but it could be more than that. I am aware of attempts of making, based on /kbin, a newsletter/blog platform (instead of Substack?) or a local social media website, as an alternative to Facebook local groups.
Mbin should still be able to view any post from subscribed blogs (be it from WriteFreely, WordPress, openwrite or Ghost), as a full article and the view of it should be very clean.
- mbin really is underrated.

Made the move from kbin to fedia as well. Hope he's doing well!
- There are dozens of us.

Wishing you well @ernest@kbin.social

Same! I was one of the early migrants just before the mass migration, having seen the writing on the wall and having already joined Mastodon. It was a great time initially, a bit of "you're new? okay, I've figured a few things out, try this". We caught Ernest by surprise because he was only making a proof of concept to offer an alternative to Lemmy. And then we showed up in droves. But he did his best, and while it was bumpy, it was still an overall great experience, much like the early days of Reddit, pre-Digg.
I still like the kbin-style instances over Lemmy, but yeah, it's not quite the same any more. That said, still preferable to Reddit these days.
Thank you, Ernest. Hope you're recovering wherever you are.

I started on Kbin, thanks Ernest!

Good luck Ernest, thank you for Kbin!

kbin was a lot of fun. I do wish the best for Ernest

kbin was a great place to call home, while it lasted. #RIP

I, too, started out on kbin and ended up migrating to an mbin instance. I sent Ernest some money via that Koffi thing he had and I don't regret it - I hope he found the funds useful, whatever it is that happened to him in the end. He kicked off an alternative to Lemmy and that's super important for a distributed decentralized system like the Fediverse, you can't have just one client for it.

id love to get that domain and rebuild it with mbin

I also started on kbin.social, but am now on several other instances.

Started on kbin too, chose Kbin cause I thought it could do both lemmy and Mastodon... was good while it lasted.

Nothing lasts forever, especially on the Internet, but I'm happy to say I enjoyed kbin.social for as long as I used it.
Thanks Ernest! Good luck on your recovery and next projects!

I loved kbin.social. it was my first instance and it was great. Thank you earnest!??

That was a kind message. I never visited (wish I could have) but can appreciate good spaces on the Internet when you find them. Hope you all find new, bright spots.

That's where I got my start, too. Shifted to lemmy.world when it so sadly went away.

I just hope he's doing well. I would also like to say thank you for developing Kbin, and for maintaining kbin.social for as long as you could.

Left reddit for kbin, it was amazing

I dunno, for me it's painfully obvious what the correct social media successors are.
Lemmy for reddit.
Friendica for facebook.
Pixelfed for instagram.
Mastodon for twitter.
Matrix for discord.
Peertube for youtube.
- How about Loops?
- *Mumble for discord.
- I wouldn't say "correct" as this implies all alternatives should be discarded. As we have the commo, decentralized protocol everyone can use the software which fits their needs / subjective preferences.
  For example Misskey / Sarkey are intersting alternatives to Mastodon as they offer neat features. And Piefed is currently gaining a lot of users (also from Lemmy).
- Mbin = Kbin

kbin was my first too. RIP.

The CSS isn't even loading properly.
- Try Mbin instead

It was a good place that gave us hope after the Reddit APIcalypse. The problem quickly became apparent tho that he couldn't do it all by himself and didn't manage to get a team around him to continue the work. The bus factor caught up with kbin and initiated its demise.

the kbin.social domain expires in a few days, on 10 September
Looks like someone might've bought the domain?

46 comments