I don't see that option? I am the mod of /f/onions, but I can't find the option there.

I came here from Voat... Not sure where all the other goats went. I'll give this a try.

Looks like they're gone already. I thought they were going to wait until Christmas.

In the toolbox, on the sidebar, select "Delete Forum"

Some great additions to the defaults as many of these communities are fun to look at and read, and has a broad spectrum of interests for people who register to the community.

Gotcha. Well, I can't blame him for turning the lights off it it's to protect the users. I know if that was the case he wouldn't be able to come out and say that is why, or at least, I don't think he'd be able to.

I'm not familiar enough with the history to really pass judgement either way. I just know a lot of people are going to miss a place they enjoyed for years. I always try to give the benefit of doubt to people, so hopefully it's for a good reason if it's not financially related. Or maybe it's for a horrible reason. We may never know.

I'm not sure if anything ever came of it, but I remember years back that there was some development effort put in to switch over to free software. Possibly related to https://preview.voat.co/ which is basically a test version.

There was a BTC address posted publicly and some goats over there did some digging providing conflicting information. I don't know much about bitcoin so I never ventured out to research deeper into this.

But it's fair to say money wasn't the issue. What I found most credible is that the admin was in a position of either shutting down or compromising the place and went for the shut down. Of course, since the canary died ages ago, lots of goats think the place was compromised anyway. If you subscribe to that the most credible thing becomes that the site served it's use.

I'm not especially unhappy, since it got kinda stale over the years, anyway. All the goats that thought the place was compromised went away so the remaining folks dispersing around poal, notabug and other similar places will likely stir things up in those places and maybe make things interesting again. At least I hope so.

The great thing about Voat wasn't that people called OP a niggerfaggot, but that bullshit got caught regularly and that sources to data was provided. Basically, people over there weren't sheep, but goats.

BTC isn't exactly anonymous. If he's ever posted a BTC address publicly, you can then just sort of follow the transactions around even though you may never know the true owner of one address to another.

Does he mention what his operating costs were or what sort of server setup he was rocking? Voat is/was a lot larger than I imagined, I've seen numbers stating hundreds of thousands of users. I'd imagine scaling (especially with whatever BS Microsoft licensing requirements would be) would get quite costly, but well within his ability if that rumor was true.

What was the end game with Voat anyhow? I see where they had previously had an angel investor and some tech money coming in, which isn't bad in it's own, but usually outside funding and investments isn't done based on charity because the guy with the money supports your platform. They usually seek a return of some sort...

I was on Voat for a while but the stuff that got them thrown out of Germany was explicitly vile. I support peoples right to express their feelings, even hateful, but not for monkey to sling digital poop online.

The reason I'm cautious about the US is as you point out, data collection. You have some excellent points, particularly for a public site that allows anonymous access. But those who access the site through clearnet will likely have their IP's logged by network taps and can have their RL ID's connected to their anonymous profiles through data analysis.

Understood. Although this site wasn't launched in response to accommodate a mass influx of users after a reddit ban wave (for example) I'm cool with organized areas of speech that others may find distasteful simply because I don't believe de-platforming changes hearts and minds. As I've said before, I'll tolerate things that even I disagree with because this isn't my personal blog or site. It's just a resource that's available to all. People will still be who they are at their core regardless if they have a place to talk or not, in my opinion, and they might as well have a safe place to do it.

With that said, as you can see, this place is more about privacy, technology, news related to those topics, alternative networks, etc. I would imagine we'll see some Voat refugees here, and they're welcome, but there are many other established places like Ruqqus with more features that the average Voat user may prefer. Perhaps some of the more privacy focused ones will come here, I guess time will tell. Either way, if they want to join in participate in good faith then I'm all for it.

Regarding the hosting, I do encourage and hope people will use whatever method of accessing the site that they feel most comfortable with. I have actually been eye-balling a second location that is technically outside of the whole 5/9/14 eyes realm but I'm not sure how well the network would hold up to DDOS attacks and it is a bit more expensive for a network that isn't "better" and in a country that may be less likely to cooperate with requests, but I'm still researching it. The idea however is that I personally can not share what I do not know, regardless of location, and that using the available methods of access that the users can determine their level of trust. Originally I wasn't going to have a clearnet website available but figured it would be a good idea to have one, if anything, to encourage those visitors to ditch the clearnet and use something like I2P or Tor (for example) to access the website and to support the networks that support their privacy.

Exactly the reasons I made this post. I checked out the system powering Ramble and eventually came across a list of other sites powered by Postmill. Didn't seem like people I'd want to share an online community with. After reading your thoughtful answer it is clear the way you want something different for Ramble.

Yeah... To me, it read that discussion read almost like satire. Everything from being pre-mad and pre-offended by events that haven't occurred to silencing what I was thought was professional discourse. They're a caricature of themselves.. And although I disagree with that site on most aspects politically I have no problem with their existence and if there was a mass exodus of their users, for example, they'd be just as welcomed here. I don't have to agree with someone to understand that they have a voice and in this modern digital age, sometimes it's hard or difficult to have it heard. But I've forked the codebase, hopefully there will be enough use of this site to warrant some custom development for features that this community wants.

That's life though, I guess.

I've read somewhere that the BC address associated with Voat donations have over $100k. No source.

You're about to learn why I'm Rambler

I've not seen a single wasted sentence in your answer, it has been a joy to read.

Love it or hate it, the USA

Hate it. I'm not too bothered about free speech in the traditional sense, I was on Voat for a while but the stuff that got them thrown out of Germany was explicitly vile. I support peoples right to express their feelings, even hateful, but not for monkey to sling digital poop online.

The reason I'm cautious about the US is as you point out, data collection. You have some excellent points, particularly for a public site that allows anonymous access. But those who access the site through clearnet will likely have their IP's logged by network taps and can have their RL ID's connected to their anonymous profiles through data analysis.

There's also the remote possibility that there could be more direct clowning around by the US government, national security letters I think it was called. Not Ramble nor your host, but further upstream. It's sad to say but I look at US servers today the same way I used to look at .ru-servers in the late 90's.

Private undertaking. I started it out of frustration towards big-tech.

Respect. I have something similar but more geared toward social networking as a private alternative for friends (federerated, no walled gardens).

I got banned from the support forum and lost product support for the open source software powering this site because it's main coder does not support freedom of speech. She is a far far leftist---

Exactly the reasons I made this post. I checked out the system powering Ramble and eventually came across a list of other sites powered by Postmill. Didn't seem like people I'd want to share an online community with. After reading your thoughtful answer it is clear the way you want something different for Ramble.

Thank you for your thoughful and thurough answer.

It's possible. It had been canned once before when it was hosted in Germany.

I don't know much about the guy or the site outside of being a casual lurker since it started, but I wish him luck.

I'd say we're classy (sticks pinky out when slamming this Bang) , but the community dictates what they want to see and will vote on comments accordingly.

I guess just know your audience. In a /f/privacy thread? May not go over as well there as it would in /f/DarkMemes or a forum you or another user create for a topic of your choice.

I don't care though. Just know that every forum has their own mods so try to respect their wishes.

I wasn't planning on becoming a Voat refugee, since I came to this place before Voat decided to shut down, but I guess now, I am. Can I call people niggerfaggots around here, too, or are people all classy over here?

Yeah, I was a bit surprised when I learned they went the Microsoft route.

Welcome to the site. It's still very new and I'm hoping to get the wiki finalized today to push some of these questions that I anticipate will be common over time.

You're about to learn why I'm Rambler:

Where are the server/s hosted?

Love it or hate it, the USA still has the highest ranking freedom of expression anywhere in the world and great organizations that will fight tooth and nails to ensure that right continues to exists.

The concern most people have with the US is their data collecting, and it's a rightful and legitimate concern. When you consider options that fall outside of the 5/9/14 eyes of intelligence sharing you're severely limited to nations with weaker network infrastructures. But as I've mentioned before: What is even collected? You provide a (probably) random username upon sign up, a unique password to this site as you should for all sites. You do not need an email address.

What's interesting about being integrated in the various networks that we are on is that all Tor Onion Service traffic looks internal (EX: 172.0.0.1) so it's impossible to determine the difference between Tor_UserA and Tor_UserB. All LokiNet traffic looks internal as well (EX: 172.0.0.2) so all users on that network share the same IP and no way to tell the difference between Loki_UserA and Loki_UserB. The same can be said for I2P too, though that isn't running internally but all I2P network users will appear to be stemming from the IP of the I2P router, and from the router, I can't tell what's coming here and what's going elsewhere since it's pushing constant traffic through/around the I2P network. A bit more on a thread about our warrant cannary here

So in short: The USA. You can stay stuff in the USA that you can not say elsewhere. Even voat learned this lesson the hard way when their German host kicked them to the curb years ago. Don't confuse press index freedom with free speech. One is for the media, one is for you and me.

I have a very good relationship with my provider and know the owner personally and have for years. When this site launched I reached out to him and wanted to double, double check it was within their AUP considering we had someone wanting to list links to some Darknet Markets. His response was:

Dude,

If freedom of speech is your concern (which it sounds like), then you want to be in the States.

If you raise your arm the wrong way in Europe you'll get arrested.

Your site is perfectly fine and we have no problem defending freedom of speech.

There's a frickin' [redacted] article about us because we wouldn't shut some sites down.

They've been in business a very long time, own their own hardware and I've been a longtime customer of them for about 8 years now. Although I have a small list of go-to providers, they've always been my 'production quality' one.

Are there any kind of protection in place for disruption of service-attacks (primarily DDOS)

Absolutely. That's one of the reasons why I chose the company I did. They have a very strong network that can sustain multi-100Gbps DDoS attacks as I've experienced in the past when running a site that did not make some people happy. It hummed along (though albeit noticeable slower) while getting fucking hammered.

Is ramble a private undertaking or is it run by a company?

Private undertaking. I started it out of frustration towards big-tech. I started it because I'm unemployed and it's giving me something to do other than dwell on life. Although I am actively seeking work in my local area, the site will obviously remain online even if I'm not home within arms reach of a device to check it all day. There is no Ramble Incorporated. I don't want to sell ads. I want this site to remain as free as possible with no outside influence that isn't the community itself. (Ex: listening to the community) The servers are paid for until February, and when the time comes to renew I will renew again, out of pocket. If it ever comes to a point where I can no longer financially sustain the website out of pocket, I will probably ask for donations but we're not there yet. (With that said there is a donate link in the wik)

Although I am working on a side project / start up, it'll be Spring at the earliest (if lucky) that I could ever launch and it's not something that would interfere with this website and I'd prefer to keep the two things separate. Think of this more as my personal project where I want to remain relatively anonymous versus a professional project that'll have my name on it.

What are the short- and long term plans for Ramble?

Short term: Simply continue what we're doing. Be available through various networks, share content related to privacy, technology, and alterantive networks.

Long term: Hopefully wake some people up that big-tech is cancer and that their privacy is being invaded at almost every avenue online. Hopefully more people will start using and supporting the various anonymity networks as well as a means of preserving their privacy and helping these various networks grow. By just using this site, you and everyone else is helping push quality content to these networks that hopefully people will return to view and interact with.

Free speech and good opsec practices are just tools, just like using an anonymity network like Tor or I2P is a tool. Combined, you can stay pretty private online.

How do you plan to implement additional rules to the site? (Arbitrary admin decisions, community discussion etc).

I've been going back and forth on this as you don't want to start off with a bunch of rules but you also don't want to add rules later in response. It's hard to predict the future and what issues I may encounter, but let me say this:

• I've not banned a single user for anything they've posted. Shortly after this site opened someone decided to troll and post some gore and some out of context terms to replies. I PM'ed him and more or less told him that I removed his posts, he's not banned, and if he wanted to share images of gaping assholes and stab wounds and just say the N-word a bunch, be my guest, but please create the appropriate forums to do so.

So, I wouldn't really consider that heavy handed moderation or an attack on free speech. All mod logs are public on their respective forum via the sidebar and you can see why something was removed.

To put my philosophy in perspective: I got banned from the support forum and lost product support for the open source software powering this site because it's main coder does not support freedom of speech. She is a far far leftist and when grilling me on my stance on free speech I finally told her: I'd welcome a proud boy's forum just as much as I'd welcome an antifa forum. I don't have to agree with either personally, but as long as other people do, they deserve a place to discuss. Then I was banned for 'giving nazis a platform' or something and told the answer to any question I have via email will be, "No". Look, it's not illegal to be ignorant or hateful and talking about it. Funny, because even though I don't agree with her at all politically I had inquired about her thoughts on doing paid development for feature requests the community had made. I guess I'm the bad guy for tolerating people who aren't like me though, even if I don't like them. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

Voat was doomed the second their Azure cheapo licence ran out. Run a absolute free speech site on a super expensive system without long term funding plans?

Failure to plan is planning to fail, and here we are.

It's still very new, just over a week old now.

Looks like I got here just in time! Well done with spreading the word though, I came here throug a ZeroNet post.

At least notabug and dread are still alive. And ramble, but i don't think it's the same as the others. It's not as bad as reddit though.

Tor, Yggdrasil, Loki and clearnet all play well together. The I2P service is off-server but could be on it, I suppose. But I just run a separate I2P router with the HTTP tunnel to the server that serves the clearnet, TOR, Loki and Yggdrasil sites.

Then it's just creating a config file for the webserver for each specific domain the site is accessible from and having it use the same document root.

I touched base on this briefly yesterday when answering a question about the warrant canary.

More people should do it. To push more content to any/all networks that they can in an effort to preserve privacy and to give big-tech the middle finger.

Do it!

I like the idea. Maybe it could bring some people back to IRC, since it seems to be dying a slow death of continued irrelevancy.

Same as normal, like browsing this site, you just choose which network you want to interact with when configuring your IRC client.

depends how it would work