You can track the main post on our community while it is still up (https://forum.unfinishedprojects.net/topic/46/unfinishedprojects-will-be-closing-down.)
But essentially our community that was started not too long ago was an experiment by myself and two others who were hoping to create a space on the fediverse that acted as a sort of Commons for people to iterate and work on various Openly licensed projects together (of all types, to include not only software but all various disciplines). See here for more on what our community hoped to become: [ https://unfinishedprojects.net/wiki/About/Vision ]
In short, it is a combination of a federated forum and a public Wiki, where individuals can collaborate and contribute to a wide array of projects - using their diverse skills, knowledge and experience - to create a hub of open projects… and allowing individuals to make small contributions without needing to commit long term to any one project.
The reason I am posting this is not to promote the platform (because I have already tried and mostly failed), but because I truly still believe in the ideas and vision that we had for it. Ultimately, I just realized that I am not able to be the one to bring this vision to life.
Although I know it’s unlikely, it would be nice if someone else saw the same potential for this platform to create a space on the internet that fights against the internet that “big tech” has been pushing for it to become.
So all that to say, I hope that this short lived experiment can either inspire someone else to iterate and improve on our failed attempt, or maybe even “take over” the already existing platform.
Either way, it was a short lived experiment, but I enjoyed the journey and the few connections I made along the way! If nothing else, it helped me reflect on our current standing of internet spaces, and what they might someday be able to evolve into given we have enough buy-in from like minded individuals.
I know most of you have probably never heard of our platform, but for those of you that have and engaged with it in any way, I appreciate your time and I apologize for any wasted time or effort in our shutting down after only launching recently.
- Anthony and the Unfinished Projects Team
Currently its hosted on a very small and cheap VPS (although I think potentially due to the small size of the VPS, scrapers and bots would overload the site as they navigated the wiki pages and crash it, leading me to turn on Cloudfare “under attack mode”…which could potentially cause other issues? Obviously I am a bit over my head with this sysadmin stuff, and is one of many reasons why I am a bit overwhelmed and closing)
The VPS is running Cloudron, which allows 2 apps to be run for free, which is running the wiki (mediawiki) and the forum (nodeBB). The great thing about Cloudron is that I can just save a backup and you can load the backups into your cloudron server and pretty much be instantly up and running (In theory, I haven’t done it before).
As for actual maintenance of the apps themselves, nodeBB is pretty easy to navigate and configure - just running through the admin page and changing settings as you need (and they have a good forum to ask questions of their responsive staff). The Wiki is where it gets more complicated, as I have a bunch of addons and javascript scripts that are being used to create the structure of the wiki. It should all be working, but with time obviously bugs will appear and will need fixes and such.
I know that I am not good at sticking with things and my motivation and effort I put on projects starts at lik 500% and then after I burn out it quickly fizzes away and I often move to another project (or at least take a long break) - and I knew this would be an issue in the long run to maintain this platform, so I set it up with the hopes that the wiki and community could essentially self regulate and build the platform together (sort of similar to wikipedia, in a small sense). Of course, this requires actually building up a community of active members first, which was neither mine or the other staff members strong suites. But all that to say, if the community actually becomes the vision I had saw, you will hopefully have a community to help you manage the wiki and forum.
Anyways, that’s the quick and dirty rundown - but obviously if it’s something you or anybody else is genuinely interested in, then I would be glad to elaborate more if needed. Regardless, I appreciate the interest. Thank you!