folk.zone is Live: What's Online and What's Next

#announcement #launch #infrastructure

folk.zone is now live. This is what we've built so far, what's online, and what this project is about.

What folk.zone Is

folk.zone is an IndieWeb commons, a collection of free and open-source internet services running on real hardware in Calgary, Alberta. No company and no business model beyond "I think this is worth doing." It's infrastructure for the common folk, by one of them.

The name comes from 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.

What's Online Right Now

Social & Community

social.folk.zone: A Mastodon instance running glitch-soc. Federated social media for the common folk. Invite-only at launch to build the community intentionally.

lemmy.folk.zone: A Lemmy instance for federated link aggregation and discussion. Communities for whatever you want to build together.

irc.folk.zone: An IRC server running Ergo with The Lounge web client. Real-time chat, old school but still excellent. Join #general and say hello.

Writing & Publishing

write.folk.zone: A WriteFreely instance for longform writing and blogging. Federated via ActivityPub, minimalist by design.

Code

git.folk.zone: A Forgejo instance for git hosting. Open registration, anonymous git clone permitted. Low risk, no federation, just code.

Reading & Research

rss.folk.zone: FreshRSS for self-hosted RSS reading. Invite-only accounts.

bridge.folk.zone: RSS Bridge for generating RSS feeds from sites that don't have them. Open, no accounts required.

links.folk.zone: Linkding for bookmark management. Private initially.

Utilities & Collaboration

paste.folk.zone: PrivateBin for encrypted, ephemeral pastes. Open, anonymous allowed. No account required.

wiki.folk.zone: DokuWiki for documentation and knowledge sharing. Open read, logged-in edit.

go.folk.zone: Kutt for URL shortening. Private initially, operator-curated links may open later.

Infrastructure

status.folk.zone: A custom status page built with Python and Flask. It monitors all the containers, shows real-time health, and displays system metrics. It's styled to match the folk.zone aesthetic and is fully open source.

The Hardware

Everything runs on four physical machines in Calgary:

All of this runs in my living space on a residential internet connection. I make no SLA guarantees.

The Folk Pledge

We've published the folk pledge, a commitment to put marginalized communities first in all decisions about folk.zone. This isn't just words, it's a commitment to action.

The Homepage

The homepage has been migrated from handwritten static HTML to Eleventy, a static site generator. This makes it easier to maintain, allows for the blog you're reading now, and provides a foundation for future improvements. Service cards are now data-driven from a JSON file, making updates simpler.

What's Next

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. 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.

Registration is invite-only or application-based at launch. Find me at @brennan@social.lol to get on the list. Read the about page for more details, or browse the wiki for documentation.

The IndieWeb can only survive if people contribute to the infrastructure and not just the conversation. folk.zone is my attempt to do that.