Pinetta

There's been plenty of buzz lately surrounding #Meta connecting to the #Fediverse through #ActivityPub. As a #FOSS project that hasn't yet shipped software that federates, we don't have too much to say yet. However, it's worth saying a few things about how #Pinetta will federate, in general.

Briefly, Pinetta is a creative tool with social characteristics. Server admins will be able to operate in both "allow mode" and "deny mode"; they can choose to federate with everyone, a select few, or even no one. This means, for example, that you'll be able to use Pinetta as a fully functional Fediverse server open to large communities, or as a private server—for instance, in the context of a school where students might produce and share work with only the school's community of learners, staff, and selected guests. Even if you choose to federate with other servers, users will have fine-grained control over the reach and visibility of their posts, similar to the way #Hometown and #Calckey users do. Essentially, we're aiming to make community safety as configurable as possible to meet the widest possible set of needs—including those of the most vulnerable people and communities.

As a project, we don't plan on hosting a central instance for very large numbers of users to use; for the time being, our goal is to gradually refine the software to allow it to respond to the needs of communities, and to foster the development of united, diverse and healthy communities based on respect and trust. Our aspiration is to serve humanity, whether it's by making a nice app or by creating human connections that allow good people to do good things together. We will amplify the voices of those who share these values and aspirations, and will work actively with collaborators everywhere to prevent harm.

This week, the #Pinetta team has been busy on multiple fronts! Our #Codeberg repos have been popping, with one feature branch (user model) closed and a new one (user avatars) opened, and progress made on a number of issues. We've also gathered feedback from #askFedi to help us learn about people's experience with #Pinterest, which will help us set goals properly. Finally, our #Matrix channels have been busy as we collaborate both on the technical and community frameworks—and as we prepare to produce the first of several documents to express our collective vision and principles for the project.

There's lots of talk right now about how #Reddit alternatives such as #Lemmy, #kbin and #Lotide fit into the overall picture of the #Fediverse, with some calling these link-aggregation sites collectively the "Threadiverse". But how does #Pinetta fit into the mix?

Much like a link aggregator, Pinetta allows users to collect and comment on various things like links, text, images, video, and so on. In that sense, it will interact almost seamlessly with federated link aggregators. The main difference, of course, is in the user interface. Pinetta will have a number of modes that users can choose to display content:

- As a "feed" chronologically or ranked based on most engaging posts (based on favourites and boosts);
- As a "grid" similar to how #Pixelfed displays images in profiles;
- As a "masonry" layout - much like how #Pinterest displays pins by default;
- As a "mood board", which will allow users to arrange pins visually to their liking in a freeform 2D layout.

Like what you're reading? So do we. Give us a follow and star our repos on Codeberg to keep up with development!

Going through #Codeberg issues to clear up next steps for #Pinetta's technical framework. Much of the work on this side has been hashing out the database schema and setting up a #Django prototype with a custom user model. @[email protected] worked hard on this and we now have a codebase that runs a very basic site that implements new account creation, log in and log out.

Feel like checking it out? Pull the feature/user-model branch of the prototype repo and follow the steps in the README! (Make sure you have #Python 3.11 installed.)

https://codeberg.org/pinetta/proto-pinetta/src/branch/feature/user-model

What's the best way to get feedback from—and have discussions with—#Pinetta's community of interest?

https://codeberg.org/pinetta/pinetta/issues/3

#AskFedi #CommunityBuilding cc @[email protected]

Help #Pinetta elaborate its vision, common goals and principles! A new @[email protected] issue has been created for discussion.

https://codeberg.org/pinetta/pinetta/issues/2

And as always, feel free to join us on @[email protected] for more-or-less live discussion:

https://matrix.to/#/#pinetta-space:matrix.org

#CommunityBuilding

Welcome to #Pinetta's new home on fedi.software! @[email protected] (maintainer of #Calckey) was kind enough to create a new instance specifically for #Fediverse software projects, so here we are. ​:pinetta:​

What's new for us? Well, we're currently planning a new round of community-building and development after an extended bout of IRL business. Goals for this summer: Establish a Trust & Safety team, finish writing up our statement of principles and code of conduct, continue building our team's capacity for #CommunityBuilding, strengthen ties with other Fedi projects... oh, and keep poking at this Django app. 👆

Like what we're planning? Don't forget to join us on #Matrix (https://matrix.to/#/#pinetta:matrix.org) and star our #Codeberg repo (https://codeberg.org/pinetta/proto-pinetta)!

Are you a #WomanInTech with an interest in #FOSS? The #Pinetta project is looking for devs, designers, and community builders who are interested in contributing to a FOSS #ActivityPub project and shaping both community and technical frameworks. Give us a follow and a shout!

#WomenInTech #WomenInSTEM #WomenWhoCode #WomenArtists