about folk.zone
what this is
folk.zone is a collection of free, open-source internet services, federated social media, a writing platform, a git forge, a wiki, IRC, and more. Everything runs on four physical machines in Calgary, Alberta, on hardware I bought and assembled myself. There is no company behind this. No investors. No business model beyond "I think this is worth doing."
The name comes from two things: the folk in folk music and folk art, community-made things that persist because people care about them, and the folk as in regular people, not institutions, not platforms, not corporations. This is infrastructure for the common folk, by one of them.
why it exists
I got tired of just talking about the IndieWeb and decided to actually do something about it. I've been running fanfiction.lol for a while, a fanfiction community with 200+ users running on a 2012-era CPU alongside a dozen other services, and it works. Really well. That taught me I had more capacity than I thought. And more responsibility to use it.
The IndieWeb can only survive if people contribute to the infrastructure and not just the conversation. Writing blog posts and giving talks about the open web is valuable. But at some point you have to help weave the strands of web gossamer yourself. folk.zone is my attempt to do that.
I'm taking a lot of inspiration from omg.lol: the idea that independent operators can build something personal, opinionated, and genuinely useful. The difference here is the focus on commons, tools that matter to people who want to write, share, discuss, and build community together without handing that data to a company.
why so many services
Some of these services might seem redundant, but there is a reason. I believe in giving people choice. Some people prefer IRC. Some like forums. Some want something that feels like Twitter. Others want longform. All of those preferences are valid, and I'd rather offer the options than pick one for everyone.
The longform is what I care most about. I'd eventually like to build something like Archive of Our Own for original creative work, a real commons for fiction writers that isn't dependent on any single platform. WriteFreely is the closest thing we have right now. Stay tuned.
the hardware
Four machines, all named:
- nitro, the main workhorse. Mastodon, Forgejo, Lemmy live here. Most CPU and storage.
- cafe, the front door. Caddy reverse proxy, homepage, paste, IRC, short links.
- click, utilities. FreshRSS, Etherpad, Umami, DokuWiki, RSS-Bridge.
- casa, writing. WriteFreely. Future home of BookWyrm.
All of this runs in my living space in Calgary. It shares a residential internet connection. I make no SLA guarantees. It might fall over. I'll fix it when I can.
who runs it
Me. Brennan Brown. Web developer, community builder, person who thinks the web should belong to people rather than platforms. I'm on the fediverse at @brennan@social.lol. You can email me at mail@brennanbrown.ca.
I'm based in Calgary, Alberta, on Treaty 7 territory, the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Tsuut'ina Nation, and the Stoney Nakoda First Nations.
this is an experiment
I don't know if people will actually use this. I don't know if there will be cyberattacks or DDoS or quiet years of steady use. I have no idea, but I have to try anyway, because it's the next logical step for someone who cares about building the web, not just using it.
If you want to be part of it, find me at @brennan@social.lol, I'll announce invite waves there. You can also read how to contribute or browse the wiki for more detail on everything.