Quick breakdown of the first 48 hours of this site, as well as some "stats".

First off, thanks to all who have joined. Your support is much appreciated. In the first 48 hours we've gained 270 members, though about 70-80 were mass registered quickly in what I believe was a username squatting scheme. (Many common 3 and 4 letter words or acronyms), so we'll just say that we've got "about 200 members" so far.

Traffic (unique visitors, clicks, stuff like that) is hard to measure because of the various methods used to access the website. That information is really only good if you're trying to sell ads. BUT, I can say, that from our clearnet website (ramble.pw) that Cloudflare showed for 12/10 (yesterday) 1,235 unique visitors for that 24 hour period. I have no idea how many people specifically joined and browse through the alternative network of their choice, but I know many people are using the Onion Service, the I2P service and a handful using the Yggdrasil service to view the site which is great, encouraged, and recommended.

I've seen a small handful of comments here and elsewhere that they've never heard of I2P or Yggdrasil before, and decided to check them out. That is great. That's one of the reasons why I made this place, was to encourage the use of alternative networks. Try them all. Support them all. All of these networks will benefit from having use and good content to come back to, and they all respect your privacy.

Some housekeeping / whatever:

• I believe the issue with registering and posting through the onion service has been fixed.

• I have added the I2P-LOCATION header in the server configuration so those who browse the clearnet website while connected to the I2P network will receive a visual notification that there is an I2P anonymous mirror available when using the "I2P in Private Browsing" extension. Not many people use it, but it's worth noting. It's similar to browsing the clearnet site via the Tor Browser and being notified that a Onion Service is available for the website, same concept.

• Speaking of I2P, the developers behind I2P+ included a link to ramble.i2p in the console of their I2P router dashboard, so that is pretty rad. It's there with other network sites of interest and I had planned on asking them eventually if they'd feature the site there, but they did so without me asking (they asked me) so it's nice to have that support.

• Several community member made forums were made to be "featured forums", so they're shown to guests automatically. This includes /f/cryptography , and /f/opsec . Two topics that I believe this community as a whole will value. I also added /f/newforums to encourage people who make new forums to post about them there, instead of posting about them here in /f/ramble. If you make a cool forum, I may request that it become a feature one. You can tell me "no" though, it's okay. It's your forum.

• I made a big long list of working Yggdrasil sites that is stickied over at /f/yggdrasil . I believes it's likely the least used network out of the bunch but it's probably tied for my favorite. It's fast and has some great content on it, check out some of the music and streaming available on it, something you can't do reliably on some of the other networks. Most the websites are English speaking but the URL to the original list that I organized is included in the post, and there are many Russian only sites that I did not include (because I did not know what they were about).

Plans / To-Do

• I'm going to work on a large I2P site's of interest, similar to what I did for Yggdrasil. Broken down into common categories to make it easy to navigate. I2P has been around a long time so some previous directories are now inaccurate, and if you've never used I2P before, then you'll have a good point to start at.

• Adding some "crypto practice" content, where members can practice encryption with one another. Probably will be in /f/cryptography . Could be fun, and it's good practice. It's one of those things that is good to know how to do, even if you don't need to do it. It's like knowing how to get a campfire going with wet wood. Could come in handy some day...

• Adding general content to other forums of interest that need it.

• Working on a guide to show how to best navigate and use the site and expanding the wiki.

What you can do to help support the site

• Just post. Comment. Interact. Share a guide. Ask a question. This website's value to others will come from the amount of activity it receives from it's members. If you like the site, tell a friend! Come back tomorrow, see what's new. Read something cool? Share it.

• Some people have asked if they could donate. And while I don't want to ask for donations, I am unemployed and paying out of pocket to keep this site going. If you want to donate, you can find the info here: /w/donate , if not, no big deal.