epicyon/manual/manual.html

<h1 id="table-of-contents">Table of Contents</h1>
<ol type="1">
<li><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li>
<li><a href="#installation">Installation</a></li>
<li><a href="#upgrading">Upgrading</a></li>
<li><a href="#housekeeping">Housekeeping</a></li>
<li><a href="#registering-accounts">Registering accounts</a></li>
<li><a href="#the-importance-of-good-defaults">The importance of good
defaults</a></li>
<li><a href="#logging-in">Logging in</a></li>
<li><a href="#account-profiles">Account Profiles</a></li>
<li><a href="#following">Following</a></li>
<li><a href="#creating-posts">Creating posts</a></li>
<li><a href="#the-timeline">The Timeline</a></li>
<li><a href="#calendar">Calendar</a></li>
<li><a href="#side-columns">Side columns</a></li>
<li><a href="#media-timeline">Media timeline</a></li>
<li><a href="#moderation">Moderation</a></li>
<li><a href="#themes">Themes</a></li>
<li><a href="#buying-and-selling">Buying and selling</a></li>
<li><a href="#sharing-economy">Sharing economy</a></li>
<li><a href="#search">Search</a></li>
<li><a href="#browsing-in-a-command-shell">Browsing in a command
shell</a></li>
<li><a href="#building-fediverse-communities">Building fediverse
communities</a></li>
</ol>
<h1 id="introduction">Introduction</h1>
<p><em>“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s
end.”</em></p>
<p>– Seneca</p>
<p><em>The fediverse</em> is a set of federated servers, typically using
a communication protocol called <a
href="https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub">ActivityPub</a> which was
devised by the <a href="https://www.w3.org/wiki/Socialwg">social working
group</a> within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). At present it is
mostly used for <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging">microblogging</a>,
although ActivityPub is sufficiently general that it can also be used
for a variety of other purposes.</p>
<p>The word <em>fediverse</em> (federated universe) appears to have
originated around 2012 as the first <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identi.ca">identi.ca</a> website was
ending and the <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump.io">pump.io</a> project was
beginning. The ActivityPub protocol was initially called
<em>ActivityPump</em>, due to the influence which pump.io had upon its
creation. Fediverse servers are typically referred to as “instances”,
but they are really just websites which can speak with each other using
the vocabulary of ActivityPub. Choosing an instance is the same as
choosing a website that you trust to handle your data. This is <em>the
social web</em>.</p>
<p>Servers such as <a
href="https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon">Mastodon</a> are well known,
but these are aimed at large scale deployments on powerful hardware
running within data centers, making use of content distribution networks
(CDN) and due to their large number of dependencies requiring someone
with a high level of systems administration skill to maintain. Epicyon
is designed for the opposite situation where it is only intended to have
a single user or a small number of users (less than ten) running from
your home location or on a modest VPS and where maintenance is extremely
trivial such that it’s possible to keep an instance running for long
durations with minimal intervention.</p>
<p>Epicyon is part of the <a
href="https://neustadt.fr/essays/the-small-web">small web</a> category
of internet software, in that it is intended to scale via federation
rather than to scale vertically via resource intensive and expensive
hardware. Think many small communicating nodes rather than a small
number of large servers. Also, in spite of the prevailing great
obsession with scale, not everything needs to. You can federate with a
small number of servers for a particular purpose - such as running a
club or hackspace - and that’s ok. It supports both the server-to-server
(S2S) and client-to-server (C2S) versions of the ActivityPub protocol,
with <a
href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Authentication">basic
auth</a> for C2S authentication.</p>
<p><a
href="https://uxdesign.cc/mastodon-is-antiviral-design-42f090ab8d51?gi=9baf6195c60b">Anti-virality</a>
is a common design approach in the fediverse, and Epicyon also follows
this convention by having chronological timelines and avoiding lists of
trending things or ranking profiles by numbers of followers. Recent
hashtags are presented <em>in alphabetical order</em> to avoid any
frequency bias. Typically if a post gets more than ten likes then its
count will only show as <em>“10+”</em>, to try to avoid getting fixated
upon making numbers go up at the expense of more considered forms of
interaction.</p>
<p>It is hardly possible to visit many sites on the web without your
browser loading and running a large amount of javascript. Epicyon takes
a minimalist approach where its web interface only uses <a
href="https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage">HTML</a> and <a
href="https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Overview.en.html">CSS</a>. You can
disable javascript, or use a browser which doesn’t have javascript
capability, and the user experience is unchanged. Lack of javascript
also rules out a large area of potential attack surface.</p>
<p>Another common concern is being able to keep instances running.
Instance abandonment creates a lot of disruption, and it’s often related
to the amount of effort that it takes to keep things going. To avoid the
maintenance burden becoming prohibitive, Epicyon is implemented in a
simple manner with very few dependencies and no database. All data is
just files in a directory, and upgrades are also straightforward. This
degree of simplicity runs counter to the current trend within the
software industry towards complex frameworks and large scale databases
with elaborate and rapidly evolving dependencies.</p>
<p>Epicyon also includes some lightweight organizing features, such as
calendar, events and sharing economy features.</p>
<p>It’s time to make the web a social space once more, to reject
centralized systems and prioritize people rather than business
models.</p>
<h1 id="installation">Installation</h1>
<h2 id="prerequisites">Prerequisites</h2>
<p>You will need python version 3.7 or later.</p>
<p>On a Debian based system:</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb1"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb1-1"><a href="#cb1-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">sudo</span> apt install <span class="at">-y</span> tor python3-socks imagemagick python3-setuptools python3-cryptography python3-dateutil python3-idna python3-requests python3-flake8 python3-django-timezone-field python3-pyqrcode python3-png python3-bandit libimage-exiftool-perl certbot nginx wget</span></code></pre></div>
<h2 id="source-code">Source code</h2>
<p>The following instructions install Epicyon to the
<strong>/opt</strong> directory. It’s not essential that it be installed
there, and it could be in any other preferred directory.</p>
<p>Clone the repo, or if you downloaded the tarball then extract it into
the <strong>/opt</strong> directory.</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb2"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb2-1"><a href="#cb2-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="bu">cd</span> /opt</span>
<span id="cb2-2"><a href="#cb2-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">git</span> clone https://gitlab.com/bashrc2/epicyon</span></code></pre></div>
<h2 id="set-permissions">Set permissions</h2>
<p>Create a user for the server to run as:</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb3"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb3-1"><a href="#cb3-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">sudo</span> su</span>
<span id="cb3-2"><a href="#cb3-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="ex">adduser</span> <span class="at">--system</span> <span class="at">--home</span><span class="op">=</span>/opt/epicyon <span class="at">--group</span> epicyon</span>
<span id="cb3-3"><a href="#cb3-3" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">chown</span> <span class="at">-R</span> epicyon:epicyon /opt/epicyon</span></code></pre></div>
<h2 id="news-mirrors">News mirrors</h2>
<p>The content for RSS feed links can be downloaded and mirrored, so
that even if the original sources go offline the content remains
readable. Link the RSS/newswire mirrors with.</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb4"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb4-1"><a href="#cb4-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">mkdir</span> /var/www/YOUR_DOMAIN</span>
<span id="cb4-2"><a href="#cb4-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">mkdir</span> <span class="at">-p</span> /opt/epicyon/accounts/newsmirror</span>
<span id="cb4-3"><a href="#cb4-3" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">ln</span> <span class="at">-s</span> /opt/epicyon/accounts/newsmirror /var/www/YOUR_DOMAIN/newsmirror</span></code></pre></div>
<h2 id="create-daemon">Create daemon</h2>
<p>Typically the server will run from a <em>systemd</em> daemon. It can
be set up as follows:</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb5"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb5-1"><a href="#cb5-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">nano</span> /etc/systemd/system/epicyon.service</span></code></pre></div>
<p>Paste the following:</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb6"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb6-1"><a href="#cb6-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="ex">[Unit]</span></span>
<span id="cb6-2"><a href="#cb6-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">Description</span><span class="op">=</span>epicyon</span>
<span id="cb6-3"><a href="#cb6-3" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">After</span><span class="op">=</span>syslog.target</span>
<span id="cb6-4"><a href="#cb6-4" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">After</span><span class="op">=</span>network.target</span>
<span id="cb6-5"><a href="#cb6-5" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a></span>
<span id="cb6-6"><a href="#cb6-6" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="ex">[Service]</span></span>
<span id="cb6-7"><a href="#cb6-7" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">Type</span><span class="op">=</span>simple</span>
<span id="cb6-8"><a href="#cb6-8" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">User</span><span class="op">=</span>epicyon</span>
<span id="cb6-9"><a href="#cb6-9" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">Group</span><span class="op">=</span>epicyon</span>
<span id="cb6-10"><a href="#cb6-10" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">WorkingDirectory</span><span class="op">=</span>/opt/epicyon</span>
<span id="cb6-11"><a href="#cb6-11" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">ExecStart</span><span class="op">=</span>/usr/bin/python3 <span class="ex">/opt/epicyon/epicyon.py</span> <span class="at">--port</span> 443 <span class="at">--proxy</span> 7156 <span class="at">--domain</span> YOUR_DOMAIN <span class="at">--registration</span> open <span class="at">--log_login_failures</span></span>
<span id="cb6-12"><a href="#cb6-12" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">Environment</span><span class="op">=</span>USER=epicyon</span>
<span id="cb6-13"><a href="#cb6-13" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">Environment</span><span class="op">=</span>PYTHONUNBUFFERED=true</span>
<span id="cb6-14"><a href="#cb6-14" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">Environment</span><span class="op">=</span>PYTHONIOENCODING=utf-8</span>
<span id="cb6-15"><a href="#cb6-15" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">Restart</span><span class="op">=</span>always</span>
<span id="cb6-16"><a href="#cb6-16" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">StandardError</span><span class="op">=</span>syslog</span>
<span id="cb6-17"><a href="#cb6-17" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">CPUQuota</span><span class="op">=</span>80%</span>
<span id="cb6-18"><a href="#cb6-18" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">ProtectHome</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-19"><a href="#cb6-19" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">ProtectKernelTunables</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-20"><a href="#cb6-20" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">ProtectKernelModules</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-21"><a href="#cb6-21" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">ProtectControlGroups</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-22"><a href="#cb6-22" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">ProtectKernelLogs</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-23"><a href="#cb6-23" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">ProtectHostname</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-24"><a href="#cb6-24" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">ProtectClock</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-25"><a href="#cb6-25" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">ProtectProc</span><span class="op">=</span>invisible</span>
<span id="cb6-26"><a href="#cb6-26" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">ProcSubset</span><span class="op">=</span>pid</span>
<span id="cb6-27"><a href="#cb6-27" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">PrivateTmp</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-28"><a href="#cb6-28" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">PrivateUsers</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-29"><a href="#cb6-29" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">PrivateDevices</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-30"><a href="#cb6-30" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">PrivateIPC</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-31"><a href="#cb6-31" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">MemoryDenyWriteExecute</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-32"><a href="#cb6-32" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">NoNewPrivileges</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-33"><a href="#cb6-33" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">LockPersonality</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-34"><a href="#cb6-34" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">RestrictRealtime</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-35"><a href="#cb6-35" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">RestrictSUIDSGID</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-36"><a href="#cb6-36" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">RestrictNamespaces</span><span class="op">=</span>true</span>
<span id="cb6-37"><a href="#cb6-37" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">SystemCallArchitectures</span><span class="op">=</span>native</span>
<span id="cb6-38"><a href="#cb6-38" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a></span>
<span id="cb6-39"><a href="#cb6-39" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="ex">[Install]</span></span>
<span id="cb6-40"><a href="#cb6-40" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">WantedBy</span><span class="op">=</span>multi-user.target</span></code></pre></div>
<p>Activate the daemon:</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb7"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb7-1"><a href="#cb7-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="ex">systemctl</span> enable epicyon</span>
<span id="cb7-2"><a href="#cb7-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="ex">systemctl</span> start epicyon</span></code></pre></div>
<h2 id="web-server-setup">Web server setup</h2>
<p>Create a web server configuration.</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb8"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb8-1"><a href="#cb8-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">nano</span> /etc/nginx/sites-available/YOUR_DOMAIN</span></code></pre></div>
<p>And paste the following:</p>
<pre class="nginx"><code>server {
  listen 80;
  listen [::]:80;
  server_name YOUR_DOMAIN;
  access_log /dev/null;
  error_log /dev/null;
  client_max_body_size 31m;
  client_body_buffer_size 128k;

  limit_conn conn_limit_per_ip 10;
  limit_req zone=req_limit_per_ip burst=10 nodelay;

  index index.html;
  rewrite ^ https://$server_name$request_uri? permanent;
}

server {
  listen 443 ssl http2;
  server_name YOUR_DOMAIN;

  gzip on;
  gzip_disable &quot;msie6&quot;;
  gzip_vary on;
  gzip_proxied any;
  gzip_min_length 1024;
  gzip_comp_level 6;
  gzip_buffers 16 8k;
  gzip_http_version 1.1;
  gzip_types text/plain text/css text/vcard text/vcard+xml application/json application/ld+json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/rdf+xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

  ssl_stapling off;
  ssl_stapling_verify off;
  ssl on;
  ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/YOUR_DOMAIN/fullchain.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/YOUR_DOMAIN/privkey.pem;
  #ssl_dhparam /etc/ssl/certs/YOUR_DOMAIN.dhparam;

  ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
  ssl_ciphers HIGH:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!aNULL:!NULL:!SHA;
  ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
  ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
  ssl_session_tickets off;

  add_header Content-Security-Policy &quot;default-src https:; script-src https: &#39;unsafe-inline&#39;; style-src https: &#39;unsafe-inline&#39;&quot;;
  add_header X-Frame-Options DENY;
  add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
  add_header X-XSS-Protection &quot;1; mode=block&quot;;
  add_header X-Download-Options noopen;
  add_header X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies none;
  add_header Strict-Transport-Security &quot;max-age=15768000; includeSubDomains; preload&quot; always;

  access_log /dev/null;
  error_log /dev/null;

  index index.html;

  location /newsmirror {
    root /var/www/YOUR_DOMAIN;
    try_files $uri =404;
  }

  keepalive_timeout 70;
  sendfile on;

  location / {
  proxy_http_version 1.1;
  client_max_body_size 31M;
  proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
  proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
  proxy_set_header X-Forward-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
  proxy_set_header X-Forward-Proto http;
  proxy_set_header X-Nginx-Proxy true;
  proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k;
  proxy_connect_timeout 10080s;
  proxy_send_timeout 10080;
  proxy_read_timeout 10080;
  proxy_buffer_size 64k;
  proxy_buffers 16 32k;
  proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k;
  proxy_redirect off;
  proxy_request_buffering off;
  proxy_buffering off;
  proxy_pass http://localhost:7156;
  tcp_nodelay on;
  }
}</code></pre>
<p>Enable the site:</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb10"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb10-1"><a href="#cb10-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">ln</span> <span class="at">-s</span> /etc/nginx/sites-available/YOUR_DOMAIN /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/</span></code></pre></div>
<h2 id="on-your-internet-router">On your internet router</h2>
<p>Forward port 443 from your internet router to your server. If you
have dynamic DNS make sure its configured.</p>
<h2 id="obtain-a-tls-certificate">Obtain a TLS certificate</h2>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb11"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb11-1"><a href="#cb11-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="ex">systemctl</span> stop nginx</span>
<span id="cb11-2"><a href="#cb11-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="ex">certbot</span> certonly <span class="at">-n</span> <span class="at">--server</span> https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory <span class="at">--standalone</span> <span class="at">-d</span> YOUR_DOMAIN <span class="at">--renew-by-default</span> <span class="at">--agree-tos</span> <span class="at">--email</span> YOUR_EMAIL</span>
<span id="cb11-3"><a href="#cb11-3" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="ex">systemctl</span> start nginx</span></code></pre></div>
<h2 id="restart-the-web-server">Restart the web server</h2>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb12"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb12-1"><a href="#cb12-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="ex">systemctl</span> restart nginx</span></code></pre></div>
<p>If you need to use <a href="https://www.fail2ban.org">fail2ban</a>
then failed login attempts can be found in
<strong>accounts/loginfailures.log</strong>.</p>
<p>If you are using the <a href="https://caddyserver.com">Caddy web
server</a> then see <a
href="https://code.libreserver.org/bashrc/epicyon/raw/main/caddy.example.conf">caddy.example.conf</a>.</p>
<p>Now you can navigate to your domain and register an account. The
first account becomes the administrator.</p>
<h2 id="configuring-notifications">Configuring notifications</h2>
<p>Since Epicyon does not use javascript there are no notifications in
the browser. However, you can receive notifications via email, XMPP, <a
href="https://matrix.org">Matrix</a> or <a
href="https://ntfy.sh">ntfy</a>.</p>
<p>Copy the notifications script:</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb13"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb13-1"><a href="#cb13-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">cp</span> /opt/epicyon/scripts/epicyon-notification /usr/local/bin/epicyon-notification</span>
<span id="cb13-2"><a href="#cb13-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">chmod</span> +x /usr/local/bin/epicyon-notification</span></code></pre></div>
<p>If you are using email for notifications and it is a single user
instance then you might want to edit <em>MY_EMAIL_ADDRESS</em> within
<em>/usr/local/bin/epicyon-notification</em>.</p>
<p>Then add the following to <em>/etc/crontab</em>.</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb14"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb14-1"><a href="#cb14-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="co"># */1 * * * * root /usr/local/bin/epicyon-notification</span></span></code></pre></div>
<h2 id="installing-on-onion-or-i2p-domains">Installing on Onion or i2p
domains</h2>
<p>If you don’t have access to the clearnet, or prefer to avoid it, then
it’s possible to run an Epicyon instance easily from your laptop. There
are scripts within the <em>deploy</em> directory which can be used to
install an instance on a Debian or Arch/Parabola operating system. With
some modification of package names they could be also used with other
distros.</p>
<p>Please be aware that such installations will not federate with
ordinary fediverse instances on the clearnet, unless those instances
have been specially modified to do so. But onion instances will federate
with other onion instances and i2p instances with other i2p
instances.</p>
<h1 id="upgrading">Upgrading</h1>
<p>Unlike some other instance types, Epicyon is really easy to upgrade.
It only requires a git pull to obtain the changes from the upstream
repo, then set permissions and restart the daemon.</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb15"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb15-1"><a href="#cb15-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="bu">cd</span> /opt/epicyon</span>
<span id="cb15-2"><a href="#cb15-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">git</span> pull</span>
<span id="cb15-3"><a href="#cb15-3" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">chown</span> <span class="at">-R</span> epicyon:epicyon <span class="pp">*</span></span>
<span id="cb15-4"><a href="#cb15-4" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="ex">systemctl</span> restart epicyon</span></code></pre></div>
<h1 id="housekeeping">Housekeeping</h1>
<p>To avoid running out of disk space you will want to clear down old
inbox posts. Posts from your instance outboxes will be unaffected.</p>
<p>Create an archive script
<strong>/usr/bin/epicyon-archive</strong>:</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb16"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb16-1"><a href="#cb16-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="co">#!/bin/bash</span></span>
<span id="cb16-2"><a href="#cb16-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="bu">cd</span> /opt/epicyon <span class="kw">||</span> <span class="bu">exit</span> 0</span>
<span id="cb16-3"><a href="#cb16-3" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="ex">/usr/bin/python3</span> epicyon.py <span class="at">--archive</span> none <span class="at">--archiveweeks</span> 4 <span class="at">--maxposts</span> 32000</span></code></pre></div>
<p>You can adjust the maximum number of weeks and the maximum number of
inbox posts as needed. Then add it as a cron entry.</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb17"><pre
class="sourceCode bash"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb17-1"><a href="#cb17-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="bu">echo</span> <span class="st">&quot;*/60 * * * * root /usr/bin/epicyon-archive&quot;</span> <span class="op">&gt;&gt;</span> /etc/crontab</span></code></pre></div>
<h1 id="registering-accounts">Registering accounts</h1>
<p>You will notice that within the systemd daemon the
<em>registration</em> option is set to <em>open</em>. In a browser if
you navigate to the URL of your instance then you should see a
<em>Register</em> button. The first account to register becomes the
administrator.</p>
<p>To avoid spam signups, or overloading the system, there is a maximum
number of accounts for the instance which by default is set to 10.</p>
<h1 id="the-importance-of-good-defaults">The importance of good
defaults</h1>
<p>Many social network systems have bad defaults, and that is for the
purpose of maximizing the number of users and their level of engagement.
Bad defaults usually create a combination of <em>addiction patterns</em>
and <em>involuntary oversharing</em> and hence a viral network effect of
escalating outrage and dependency. On small fediverse servers we can
avoid having bad defaults, because there is no profit motive or drive
for massive notoriety.</p>
<p>Good defaults tend to be a little more private and avoid the
addiction to making numbers go up or achieving <em>notoriety at any
social cost</em>. This puts fediverse instances like Epicyon at a slight
disadvantage compared to ruthlessly commercial systems, but it’s an
explicit trade-off in order to minimize the harms which can arise within
social networks. So you won’t find any high scores tables or trending
items.</p>
<h1 id="logging-in">Logging in</h1>
<p>In a browser if you navigate to the URL of your instance and enter
the username and password that you previously registered. The first time
that you log in it will show a series of introduction screens which
prompt you to add a profile picture, name and bio description.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-login.png" alt="Login screen" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Login screen</figcaption>
</figure>
<h1 id="account-profiles">Account Profiles</h1>
<h2 id="initial-setup">Initial setup</h2>
<p>When you first register an account on the instance the first thing
that you may want to do is to add more profile details and change your
preferences. From the main timeline screen select the top banner to move
to your profile and then select the edit button, which usually looks
like a pen and is adjacent to the logout icon.</p>
<p><img src="manual-profile.jpg" alt="Profile screen" /> <img
src="manual-edit-button.png" alt="Profile edit button" /></p>
<h2 id="basic-details">Basic details</h2>
<figure>
<img src="manual-basic-details.png" alt="Profile basic details" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Profile basic details</figcaption>
</figure>
<h3 id="describe-yourself">Describe yourself</h3>
<p>Add an appropriate description of youself, which doesn’t resemble the
type of thing which would appear on a spam account. When other fediverse
users are judging a follow request from you they will want to know that
you are a real person and not a spammer or troll.</p>
<h3 id="premium-account">Premium Account</h3>
<p>There is an option to set your account as “premium”. This is intended
for an <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnlyFans">OnlyFans</a>-like
situation in which followers need to subscribe with some payment before
making a follow request to receive your posts. If this option is
selected then recent posts on your profile won’t be shown to
unauthorized viewers and the terminology of donations is switched to
subscriptions. You will need to set a link where followers can register,
and ask fans to specify their fediverse handle so that you can approve
it.</p>
<p>A difference with corporate content subscription services is that the
federated nature of instances means that once a post has been sent out
to fans/followers then you won’t have any control over what they
subsequently do with your content. So they could boost/announce posts to
non-subscribers, for example.</p>
<h3 id="other-fediverse-accounts">Other fediverse accounts</h3>
<p>If you have any other fediverse accounts on different instances then
you might want to add URLs for those. You can set the languages which
you can read, as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639-1">two
letter abbreviations</a>. This helps to avoid having posts from other
people within your timeline which you can’t read.</p>
<h3 id="expiring-posts">Expiring posts</h3>
<p>You can set your posts to expire after a number of days. If this
value is zero then the instance will keep your posts indefinitely.</p>
<h3 id="quitting-twitter">Quitting Twitter</h3>
<p>If you are coming to the fediverse as an exile from the website
formerly known as Twitter then you may want to select the option to
remove any Twitter posts from your timeline. Sometimes people want to
make a clean break from Twitter and have no further involvement with
it.</p>
<h3 id="alternative-contact-details">Alternative contact details</h3>
<p>You can set additional contact details, such as email, XMPP and
Matrix addresses. So if people want to contact you for private <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_encryption">end-to-end
secure</a> chat then they can do so. The fediverse was never designed
for end-to-end security - it is primarily for public communications -
and so it’s better to leave secure private chat to the apps which are
specialized for that purpose.</p>
<h3 id="filtering-and-blocking">Filtering and blocking</h3>
<p>If you want to block particular fediverse accounts or instances then
you can enter those in the <em>blocked account</em> section. There
should be one account per line.</p>
<h3 id="geolocation-spoofing">Geolocation spoofing</h3>
<p>Within the <em>filtering and blocking</em> section you can also set a
city which will be used for geolocation spoofing. When you post a photo,
instead of removing all metadata spoofed metadata will be added in order
to consistently fool the machine learning systems behind web crawlers or
scrapers, and create a <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias">confirmation
bias</a> effect where the surveillance systems become increasingly
confident in an erroneous conclusion. Setting a city somewhere near to
your <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone">time zone</a> is
preferable, so that it matches your typical pattern of daily posting
activity without giving away your real location.</p>
<h3 id="verifying-your-website-or-blog">Verifying your website or
blog</h3>
<p>It is possible to indicate that a website or blog belongs to you by
linking it to your profile screen. Within the <em>head</em> html section
of your website or blog index page include a line similar to:</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb18"><pre
class="sourceCode html"><code class="sourceCode html"><span id="cb18-1"><a href="#cb18-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="kw">&lt;link</span> <span class="er">rel</span><span class="ot">=</span><span class="st">&quot;me&quot;</span> <span class="er">href</span><span class="ot">=</span><span class="st">&quot;https://YourEpicyonDomain/@YourNickname&quot;</span> <span class="kw">/&gt;</span></span></code></pre></div>
<p>If you edit and then publish your profile, with the <em>website</em>
and/or <em>blog</em> fields completed then if the above link is found
your sites will be indicated to be verified on your profile screen. When
verified they will appear in green with a tick.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-verified-website.jpg"
alt="Profile screen showing verified website" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Profile screen showing verified
website</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2 id="roles">Roles</h2>
<p>If you are the administrator then within your profile settings you
can also specify roles for other accounts on the instance. A small
instance is like a ship with the roles being crew positions, and all
members of the crew need to work together to keep the ship afloat. The
current roles are:</p>
<h3 id="moderator">Moderator</h3>
<p>Is allowed to remove posts and deal with moderation reports.</p>
<h3 id="editor">Editor</h3>
<p>Editors can change the links in the left column and the RSS feeds
within the right newswire column.</p>
<h3 id="artist">Artist</h3>
<p>Artists can change the colors and style of the web interface, using
the <em>theme designer</em>.</p>
<h3 id="counselor">Counselor</h3>
<p>A <em>counselor</em> is someone tasked with resolving disputes
between users of the instance. They are permitted to send DMs to any
user account on the instance. Obviously, this type of power can be
abused and so the administrator should choose counselors with care.</p>
<h3 id="devop">Devop</h3>
<p>Devops are permitted to perform some routine administration
functions, such as monitoring instance performance graphs.</p>
<h1 id="following">Following</h1>
<p><em>“I am not a beginning. I am not an end. I am a link in a
chain.”</em></p>
<p>– Keith Haring</p>
<p>On the main timeline screen at the top right of the centre column
there is a search icon which looks like a magnifying glass. By
convention within the fediverse the search function is also the way to
look up and follow other people. Enter the handle (<span
class="citation" data-cites="name">@name</span><span class="citation"
data-cites="domain">@domain</span>) or URL of the profile page for the
person that you want to follow and select <em>search</em>. If the
account is found then its details will appear and you can choose to
follow or not.</p>
<p><img src="manual-search-following.jpg"
alt="Following people via search" /> <img src="manual-following.jpg"
alt="Following search result" /></p>
<p>Once you are following someone then selecting their profile picture
and then the <em>unfollow</em> button will remove the follow.</p>
<h1 id="creating-posts">Creating posts</h1>
<p>To make a new post from the main timeline screen select the <em>new
post</em> icon at the top right of the centre column.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-new-post.png" alt="New post screen" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">New post screen</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The format of the post should be plain text, without any html markup.
Any URLs will be automatically linked, and you can use hashtags and
emoji. Emojis can be added via their name with colon characters before
and after.</p>
<h2 id="post-scopes">Post scopes</h2>
<p>Posts can have different scopes which provide some amount of privacy,
or particular functions. To change the scope select the current one and
a dropdown list will appear.</p>
<h3 id="public">Public</h3>
<p>Is visible to anyone in the fediverse. May also be visible outside of
the fediverse to anyone with an appropriate link.</p>
<h3 id="blog">Blog</h3>
<p>Used to create a blog post. Blog posts are typically longer than
other types of post, and are also publicly visible to anyone on the
web.</p>
<p>At the top of the <em>links</em> column on the main timeline screen
there is an icon to show an RSS feed for your blog entries.</p>
<h3 id="unlisted">Unlisted</h3>
<p>Similar to a public post, but will not appear as a recent post within
your profile. Unlisted posts can add a little more privacy to a
conversation in that it will not be immediately obvious to casual
observers. Often in practice this is all that’s needed to avoid trolls
or unwanted attention.</p>
<h3 id="followers">Followers</h3>
<p>A <em>followers only</em> post will only be visible to people who are
following you. They will not be visible to people who are not your
followers, or to other observers on the web.</p>
<p>A subtlety of this type of post is that people have different
followers, so if you send to your followers and they send a reply to
their followers then your post or references to it may end up with
people who are not your followers.</p>
<h3 id="dm">DM</h3>
<p>Direct messages are only send to specific people, designated by their
fediverse handles (<span class="citation"
data-cites="name">@name</span><span class="citation"
data-cites="domain">@domain</span>).</p>
<h3 id="reminder">Reminder</h3>
<p>A reminder is a direct message to yourself at some time in the
future. It will appear on your calendar.</p>
<h3 id="report">Report</h3>
<p>A report is a type of post which is sent to moderators on your
instance, to alert them about some problem. It is not sent to any other
instance.</p>
<h3 id="shares">Shares</h3>
<p>A <em>shared item</em> post describes a physical object or service
which may be shared by people on your instance. Shared items may also be
visible to people on specific named instances if that has been set up by
the administrator.</p>
<h3 id="wanted">Wanted</h3>
<p>A <em>wanted item</em> is a physical object or service which you
want. These posts will be visible to other people on your instance and
also to people on specific named instances if that has been set up by
the administrator.</p>
<h2 id="subject-or-content-warning">Subject or Content Warning</h2>
<p>Content warnings are not “censorship” or “hiding important things”.
It’s like the subject line of an email: the reader knows what’s coming
so they may choose when to see it. In a timeline which is strictly
chronological, content warnings can also help you to skip over posts
which obviously are not going to be of interest to you, rather than
depending on a fallible or gameable algorithm to select what is
relevant.</p>
<h2 id="attachments">Attachments</h2>
<p>Attachments can use a variety of formats.</p>
<ul>
<li>Images: <em>jpg, jpeg, gif, webp, avif, svg, ico, jxl, png</em></li>
<li>Audio: <em>mp3, ogg, flac, opus, speex, wav</em></li>
<li>Video: <em>mp4, webm, ogv</em></li>
</ul>
<figure>
<img src="manual-attachments.png" alt="New post attachments" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">New post attachments</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Attachments should be as small as possible in terms of file size.
Videos should be no more than 20 seconds in length. Epicyon is not
suitable for hosting lengthy or high resolution videos, although
podcasts might be feasible.</p>
<h2 id="events">Events</h2>
<p>You can specify a date, time and location for the post. If a date is
set then the post will appear as an event on the calendar of recipients.
This makes it easy for people to organize events without needing to
explicitly manage calendars. <img src="manual-date-time.png"
alt="New post event" /></p>
<h2 id="maps">Maps</h2>
<p>The location field on a post can be a description, but it can also be
a map geolocation. To add a geolocation go to <a
href="https://www.openstreetmap.org">openstreetmap.org</a>, find your
location and copy and paste the URL into the location field of your new
post.</p>
<p>Selecting the <em>location</em> header will open the last known
geolocation, so if your current location is near this makes it quicker
to find.</p>
<h2 id="scientific-references">Scientific references</h2>
<p>It is possible to have references to scientific papers linked
automatically, such that they are readable with one click/press.
Supported references are <a href="https://arxiv.org">arXiv</a> and <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier">Digital
object identifier (DOI)</a>. For example:</p>
<pre class="text"><code>This is a reference to a paper: arxiv:2203.15752</code></pre>
<h1 id="the-timeline">The Timeline</h1>
<h2 id="layout">Layout</h2>
<figure>
<img src="manual-layout.png" alt="Layout" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Layout</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On a desktop system the main timeline screen has a multi-column
layout. The main content containing posts is in the centre. To the left
is a column containing useful web links. To the right is the newswire
containing links from RSS feeds.</p>
<p>At the top right of the centre column there are a few icons known as
<em>action buttons</em>, for show/hide, calendar, search and creating a
new post.</p>
<p>On mobile screens there is a single column layout, and the
<em>links</em> and <em>newswire</em> column content is available via
action buttons.</p>
<p>Different timelines are listed at the top - inbox, DM, replies,
outbox, etc - and more can be shown by selecting the <em>show/hide</em>
icon.</p>
<h2 id="navigation">Navigation</h2>
<p>As a general principle of navigation selecting the top banner always
takes you back to the previous screen, or if you are on the main
timeline screen then it will alternate with your profile.</p>
<p>At the bottom of the timeline there will usually be an arrow icon to
go to the next page, and a list of page numbers. You can also move
between pages using key shortcuts <strong>ALT+SHIFT+&gt;</strong> and
<strong>ALT+SHIFT+&lt;</strong>. Key shortcuts exist for most navigation
events, and you can customise them by selecting the <em>key
shortcuts</em> link at the bottom of the left column.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-shortcuts.png" alt="Keyboard shortcuts screen" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Keyboard shortcuts screen</figcaption>
</figure>
<h1 id="calendar">Calendar</h1>
<p><em>“There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive
moment”</em></p>
<p>– Henri Cartier-Bresson</p>
<p>The calendar is not yet a standardized feature of the fediverse as a
whole, but has existed in Friendica and Zot instances for a long time.
Being able to attach a date and time to a post and then have it appear
on your calendar and perhaps also the calendars of your followers is
quite useful for organizing things with minimum effort. Until such time
as federated calendar functionality becomes more standardized this may
only work between Epicyon instances.</p>
<p>Calendar events are really just ordinary posts with a date, time and
perhaps also a location attached to them. Posts with <em>Public</em>
scope which have a date and time will appear on the calendars of your
followers, unless they have opted out of receiving calendar events from
you.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-calendar.png" alt="Calendar screen" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Calendar screen</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Reminder</em> is a special type of calendar post, which is really
just a direct message to yourself in the future.</p>
<p>To create a calendar post from the main timeline, select the
<strong>New post</strong> icon, then use the dropdown menu to select the
scope of your post. Give your event a description and add a date and
time. If you add a location this can either be a description or a
geolocation link, such as a link to <a
href="https://openstreetmap.org">openstreetmap</a>.</p>
<p>Selecting the calendar icon from the main timeline will display your
calendar events. It is possible to export them using the
<strong>iCalendar</strong> icon at the bottom right to the screen.
Calendar events are also available via <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV">CalDav</a> using the URL
https://yourdomain/calendars/yournickname</p>
<h1 id="side-columns">Side columns</h1>
<p><img src="manual-side-columns.png" alt="Timeline side columns" /> The
links within the side columns are global to the instance, and only users
having the <em>editor</em> role can change them. Since the number of
accounts on the instance is expected to be small these links provide a
common point of reference.</p>
<p>This multi-column layout is inspired by the appearance of early blogs
or the original <em>Indymedia</em>, which in turn was inspired by the
appearance of monastic texts in which you would see comments in the
margins in line with the main text. So you can be reading posts from
friends but also keeping an eye on the news from RSS/Atom feeds at the
same time.</p>
<h2 id="links">Links</h2>
<p>Web links within the left column are intended to be generally useful
or of interest to the users of the instance. They are similar to a
blogroll. If you have the <em>editor</em> role there is an edit button
at the top of the left column which can be used to add or remove links.
Headers can also be added to group links into logical sections. For
example:</p>
<pre class="text"><code>* Search

Code search https://beta.sayhello.so
Wiby https://wiby.me/

* Links

16colors https://16colo.rs
Dotshareit http://dotshare.it</code></pre>
<h2 id="newswire">Newswire</h2>
<p>The right column is the newswire column. It contains a list of links
generated from RSS/Atom feeds.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS">RSS</a> is a much
maligned protocol. It’s simple, and an excellent way to read news in a
manner that’s convenient for you. The main reason for its downfall is
that it’s difficult to implement <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism">targeted
advertising</a> - the dominant business model of the web - within RSS.
It’s hard to spy on anyone using an RSS feed. So if we want the web to
improve then supporting RSS ought to be a priority.</p>
<p>If you have the <em>editor</em> role then an edit icon will appear at
the top of the right column, and the edit screen then allows you to add
or remove feeds.</p>
<h3 id="moderated-feeds">Moderated feeds</h3>
<p>Feeds can be either <em>moderated</em> or not. Moderated feed items
must be approved by a moderator before then can appear in the newswire
column and be visible to other users on the instance. To indicate that a
feed should be moderated prefix its URL with a star character.</p>
<h3 id="mirrored-feeds">Mirrored feeds</h3>
<p>Newswire items can also be mirrored. This means that instead of
newswire items being links back to the original source article a copy
will be made of the article locally on your server. Mirroring can be
useful if the site of the RSS/Atom feed is unreliable or likely to go
offline (such as solar powered systems only online during daylight
hours). When deciding whether to mirror a feed you will also want to
consider the copyright status of the content being mirrored, and whether
legal problems could arise. To indicate that a feed should be mirrored
prefix its URL with an exclamation mark ! character.</p>
<h3 id="filters-and-warnings">Filters and warnings</h3>
<p>On this screen you can also set filtered words and dogwhistle content
warnings for the instance. Filtered words should be on separate lines,
and dogwhistle words can be added in the format:</p>
<pre class="text"><code>dogwhistleword -&gt; content warning to be added
dogwhistle phrase -&gt; content warning to be added
DogwhistleWordPrefix* -&gt; content warning to be added
*DogwhistleWordEnding -&gt; content warning to be added</code></pre>
<h3 id="newswire-tagging-rules">Newswire tagging rules</h3>
<p>As news arrives via RSS or Atom feeds it can be processed to add or
remove hashtags, in accordance to some rules which you can define.</p>
<p>On the newswire edit screen, available to accounts having the
<em>moderator</em> role, you can define the news processing rules. There
is one rule per line.</p>
<p><strong>Syntax:</strong> <em>if [conditions] then [action]</em></p>
<p><strong>Logical Operators:</strong> <em>not, and, or, xor, from,
contains</em></p>
<p>A simple example is:</p>
<pre class="test"><code>if moderated and not #oxfordimc then block</code></pre>
<p>For moderated feeds this will only allow items through if they have
the <strong>#oxfordimc</strong> hashtag.</p>
<p>If you want to add hashtags an example is:</p>
<pre class="test"><code>if contains &quot;garden&quot; or contains &quot;lawn&quot; then add #gardening</code></pre>
<p>So if incoming news contains the word “garden” either in its title or
description then it will automatically be assigned the hashtag
<strong>#gardening</strong>. You can also add hashtags based upon other
hashtags.</p>
<pre class="test"><code>if #garden or #lawn then add #gardening</code></pre>
<p>You can also remove hashtags.</p>
<pre class="test"><code>if #garden or #lawn then remove #gardening</code></pre>
<p>Which will remove <strong>#gardening</strong> if it exists as a
hashtag within the news post.</p>
<p>You can add tags based upon the RSS link, such as:</p>
<pre class="test"><code>if from &quot;mycatsite.com&quot; then add #cats</code></pre>
<h1 id="media-timeline">Media timeline</h1>
<p>Selecting the <em>show/hide</em> icon from the main timeline will
reveal an extra timeline called <strong>Media</strong>. The media
timeline shows posts which contain a picture, audio or video content. So
if you are primarily interested in photos then this timeline can be
useful.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-media.jpg" alt="Media timeline" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Media timeline</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If there is an description for the media then this also appears
within this timeline. Selecting a photo will enlarge it.</p>
<h1 id="moderation">Moderation</h1>
<p>The importance of moderation within social networks can’t be
over-stated. In the early history of the web in which communities tended
to be organized around forum software and mailing lists the typical
pattern went as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Founders initiate the forum</li>
<li>The forum gains popularity and a community grows around it</li>
<li>Trolls show up</li>
<li>The administrator is too nice, believes that all opinions are
equally valid, and refuses to remove trolls or promptly redact their
content</li>
<li>Within somewhere between a couple of days and a few weeks, trolls
set longstanding forum members against each other</li>
<li>Community fails and the forum closes abruptly, leaving only a
404</li>
</ul>
<p>The pattern has been repeated many times. Online communities can take
years to carefully build up and days to destroy. Having good moderation
in place, with clear terms of service and enforced boundaries, can help
to avoid failures or burnout. Being “nice” and accepting all content
tends not to work out well. Such an arrangement is easily hijacked by
people with bad intent.</p>
<h2 id="moderator-timeline">Moderator timeline</h2>
<p>If you have the <em>moderator</em> role then selecting the
<em>show/hide</em> icon from the main timeline will reveal an extra
timeline usually called <strong>Mod</strong>. Selecting this timeline
will take you to the instance moderator timeline, which contains any
moderation reports.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-moderator.png" alt="Moderator timeline" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Moderator timeline</figcaption>
</figure>
<h3 id="filtering">Filtering</h3>
<p>You can filter out posts containing particular words or phrases by
entering the offending text and then selecting the
<strong>Filter</strong> button. You can use the
<strong>Unfilter</strong> button to reverse the decision.</p>
<h3 id="removing-an-offending-post">Removing an offending post</h3>
<p>If a post made on your instance has been reported as violating the
terms of service you can remove it by entering its URL and then
selecting the <strong>Remove</strong> button.</p>
<h3 id="suspending-an-account">Suspending an account</h3>
<p>You can suspend an account on the instance by entering the nickname
and then selecting the <strong>Suspend</strong> button. Accounts are
usually suspended pending investigation into some terms of service
violation. You can use the <strong>Unsuspend</strong> button to
re-enable an account.</p>
<h3 id="instance-level-blocking-of-handles-or-domains">Instance level
blocking of handles or domains</h3>
<p>To block a fediverse handle (nickname@domain), hashtag or domain
enter the thing that you wish to block and then select the
<strong>Block</strong> button. You can do the same with the
<strong>Unblock</strong> button to reverse your decision.</p>
<p>When creating a block you can also add a space followed by any text
describing the reason for the block. Such as:</p>
<pre class="text"><code>annoyingdomain.com A spam instance</code></pre>
<p>If you want to see what is being blocked at the instance level then
select the <strong>Info</strong> button.</p>
<h3 id="web-crawlers-and-search-bots">Web crawlers and search bots</h3>
<p>Most fediverse posts have <em>Public</em> scope, and various web
crawlers routinely try to index them. These are mostly the usual
suspects, such as BigTech companies, but also include lesser known
crawlers such as the British Library. By default all web search bots are
blocked, but the administrator account can enable particular ones.</p>
<p>If you are the administrator of the instance then to see the
currently active web search crawlers edit your profile and select
<strong>Filtering and blocking</strong>, then <strong>Known Web Search
Bots</strong>. The most common ones will appear at the top. To enable
particular ones add their name to <strong>Web Search Bots
Allowed</strong> (one per line).</p>
<h3 id="clearing-the-actor-cache">Clearing the Actor Cache</h3>
<p>If you know that an instance has had a security incident and has
rotated their signing keys then you can clear the cache for that
instance so that their public keys will be refreshed. Enter the domain
name for the instance and then select <strong>Clear Cache</strong>
button.</p>
<h2 id="account-level-moderation">Account level moderation</h2>
<h3 id="filtering-1">Filtering</h3>
<p>From the main timeline select the top banner to go to your profile,
then select the <strong>edit</strong> icon. Open the <strong>Filtering
and blocking</strong> section and then you can specify filtered words or
phrases. Be sure to select <strong>Publish</strong> to finalize your
settings.</p>
<p>You can also filter words within the bio of users making follow
requests. This allows unwanted followers to be automatically rejected if
their bio contains particular words.</p>
<h3 id="blocking-accounts-or-domains">Blocking accounts or domains</h3>
<p>From the main timeline select the top banner to go to your profile,
then select the <strong>edit</strong> icon. Open the <strong>Filtering
and blocking</strong> section and then you can specify <strong>blocked
accounts</strong> or domains (one per line).</p>
<p>When creating a block you can also add a space followed by any text
describing the reason for the block. This can help as a reminder as to
why you blocked someone. Such as:</p>
<pre class="text"><code>chud@chuddydomain.com Slobbering. Ferocious. Carnivorous. Underground.
sealion@endlessreplies.net Another bad faith &quot;debater&quot;</code></pre>
<p>Be sure to select <strong>Publish</strong> to finalize your
settings.</p>
<h3 id="federated-blocklists">Federated blocklists</h3>
<p>If you have the admin or moderator role then there is a section
within <strong>Filtering and blocking</strong> called <strong>Blocking
API endpoints</strong>. This can be used to subscribe to remote
blocklist URLs, and may be useful in situations where for example you
have multiple instances set up for an organisation and want them to all
use the same blocklist.</p>
<p>Federated blocklists should be a json endpoint accessible via HTTP
GET, and can either be a simple list of strings, where the strings are
blocked account handles or domains:</p>
<pre class="text"><code>[
  &quot;@asshat@angrychuds.com&quot;,
  &quot;@replyguy@endlessly.replying.net&quot;,
  &quot;tedious.domain&quot;
]</code></pre>
<p>Or they can be a list of dictionaries:</p>
<pre class="text"><code>[
  {
    &#39;id&#39;: 123,
    &#39;username&#39;: &#39;@asshat@angrychuds.com&#39;,
    &#39;email&#39;: &#39;null&#39;,
    &#39;status&#39;: &#39;block&#39;,
    &#39;created_at&#39;: None,
    &#39;updated_at&#39;: None
  },
  {
    &#39;id&#39;: 124,
    &#39;username&#39;: &#39;@replyguy@endlessly.replying.net&#39;,
    &#39;email&#39;: &#39;null&#39;,
    &#39;status&#39;: &#39;block&#39;,
    &#39;created_at&#39;: None,
    &#39;updated_at&#39;: None
  },
  {
    &#39;id&#39;: 125,
    &#39;username&#39;: &#39;@tedious.domain&#39;,
    &#39;email&#39;: &#39;null&#39;,
    &#39;status&#39;: &#39;block&#39;,
    &#39;created_at&#39;: None,
    &#39;updated_at&#39;: None
  }
]</code></pre>
<p><strong>Caution:</strong> When subscribing to a federated blocklist
you need to have a high degree of trust in the people maintaining it. If
they turn out to be untrustworthy or malevolent then they can
potentially render your instance useless by blocking all your followed
domains.</p>
<h3 id="replacing-words">Replacing words</h3>
<p>Sometimes you may want to replace words within received posts. This
can be for added clarity, to dissipate annoyance or just for fun.</p>
<p>From the main timeline select the top banner to go to your profile,
then select the <strong>edit</strong> icon. Open the <strong>Filtering
and blocking</strong> section and then you can specify replacements as
follows:</p>
<pre class="text"><code>OldWord -&gt; NewWord
original phrase -&gt; new phrase</code></pre>
<p>These replacements are subjective, such that if you
boost/repeat/announce a post then the original wording will be retained
for recipients.</p>
<h3 id="content-warning-lists">Content warning lists</h3>
<p>Content warning lists are lists of domains and/or keywords which can
be used to append a warning if they appear in the content of an incoming
post. For example, you can have a content warning added if a post
contains links to satire sites, so that you don’t confuse them with real
news and you don’t need to be familiar with every possible satire site.
These types of warnings are opt-in, so if they don’t apply to you then
you don’t have to have any.</p>
<p>From the main timeline select the top banner to go to your profile,
then select the <strong>edit</strong> icon. Open the <strong>Filtering
and blocking</strong> section and look for <strong>“Add content warnings
for the following sites”</strong>. You can then select the types of
warnings to be added to your timeline.</p>
<h2 id="emergencies">Emergencies</h2>
<p>The fediverse is typically calmer than the centralized social
networks, but there can be times when disputes break out and tempers
become heated. In the worst cases this can lead to administrator burnout
and instances shutting down.</p>
<p>If you are the administrator and you are in a situation where you or
the users on your instance are getting a lot of targeted harassement
then you can put the instance into <em>broch mode</em>, which is a type
of temporary allowlist which lasts for between one and two weeks. This
prevents previously unknown instances from sending posts to your
timelines, so adversaries can’t create a lot of temporary instances for
the purpose of attacking yours.</p>
<p>A general observation is that it is difficult to maintain collective
outrage at a high level for more than a week, so trolling campaigns tend
to not last much longer than that. Broch mode allows you to ride out the
storm, while retaining normal communications with friendly
instances.</p>
<p>To enable broch mode the administrator should edit their profile, go
to the instance settings and select the option. Once enabled it will
turn itself off automatically after 7-14 days. The somewhat uncertain
deactivation time prevents an adversary from knowing when to begin a new
flooding attempt, and after a couple of weeks they will be losing the
motivation to continue.</p>
<h1 id="themes">Themes</h1>
<p>Generic-looking user interfaces have become expected for many types
of software, because they are designed to scale up to very large numbers
of users and hence need to be as bland and inoffensive as possible. But
small web systems don’t need appeal to a bland, corporate, imagined
average user. If you are spending significant time using a social
network then being able to customise it and really make it your online
home improves usability.</p>
<h2 id="standard-themes">Standard themes</h2>
<p>Epicyon has multiple standard themes and if you are the administrator
then if you edit your profile and open the <em>Graphic design</em>
section then you can change the current theme for the instance. Users
may need to reload the web page with <em>CTRL+F5</em> in order to see
the changes.</p>
<h2 id="theme-customization">Theme customization</h2>
<p>If you have the <em>artist</em> role then from the top of the left
column of the main timeline you can select the <em>Theme Designer</em>
icon, which usually resembles a paint roller or paint brush. This allows
you to change colors and values for user interface components.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-theme-designer.png" alt="Theme designer screen" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Theme designer screen</figcaption>
</figure>
<h1 id="buying-and-selling">Buying and selling</h1>
<p>When creating a new post you have the option of specifying a <em>buy
link</em> This is a link to a web page where you can buy some particular
item. When someone receives the post if they have a compatible instance
then a small shopping cart icon will appear at the bottom of the post
along with the other icons. Clicking or pressing the shopping cart will
then take you to the buying site. It’s a predictable and machine
parsable way indicating that something is for sale, separate from the
post content.</p>
<p>To avoid spam, it is possible for the shopping icon to only appear if
it links to one of an allowed list of seller domains. In this way you
can be confident that you are only navigating to approved sites.</p>
<h1 id="sharing-economy">Sharing economy</h1>
<p>This is intended to add <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freecycle_Network">Freecycle</a>
type functionality within a social network context, leveraging your
social connections on the instance, or between participating instances,
to facilitate sharing and reduce wasteful consumerism.</p>
<h2 id="adding-a-shared-item">Adding a shared item</h2>
<p>When creating a new post one of the scope options is called
<em>shares</em>. You can describe an item or service that you are
willing to share.</p>
<p>Sharing is primarily intended to not require any monetary
transactions, although prices can optionally be added. There are no
payment mechanisms implemented and if that is required then it is
recommended to include details of payment method within the
description.</p>
<p>It is optionally possible to display the shared item on your profile,
which makes it <em>fully public to the whole internet</em>. Only a small
number of shared items can be shown on your profile though, which is
decided via the command option <em>–maxSharesOnProfile</em>.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-new-share.png" alt="Adding a new shared item" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Adding a new shared item</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2 id="adding-a-wanted-item">Adding a wanted item</h2>
<p>This is the opposite to adding a share in that you are making a post
which indicates that you are wanting some particular thing or
service.</p>
<h2 id="new-shares">New shares</h2>
<p>When new shared items are added then in the left column of the main
timeline screen there will be a section showing recent shares.</p>
<h2 id="shared-and-wanted-items-timelines">Shared and wanted items
timelines</h2>
<p>Any items shared or wanted will appear within timelines, which can be
viewed by selecting the <em>show/hide</em> icon.</p>
<h2 id="federated-shares">Federated shares</h2>
<p>If you are the administrator of the instance then you can specify
other instances with which your local shared items may be federated.
Edit your profile and select the <em>Shares</em> section, then add the
domain names of the instances to share with (one per line). If other
instance administrators also configure their system to share with yours
then this is the ideal mutualistic situation, increasing the set of
things being shared.</p>
<p>The technical implementation of federated shared items currently does
not use ActivityPub, but instead a pull-based system more comparable to
RSS/Atom. This is so that the people doing the sharing always remain in
control of what they are sharing, and can withdraw a share at any time.
A pull-based implementation also makes things considerably harder for
spammers.</p>
<h1 id="search">Search</h1>
<p>To search, select the magnifying glass icon from the top right of the
centre column of the main timeline. This will take you to a separate
screen where you can enter your search query.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-search.jpg" alt="Search screen" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Search screen</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Hashtag categories</strong></p>
<p>If you select <em>SHOW MORE</em> at the bottom of the search screen
then this will show all recent hashtags, in alphabetical order. If you
have the <em>editor</em> role then selecting a tag will then allow to to
assign a category to it. In this way you can build up <em>hashtag
categories</em> as a way to group tags together under subject headings.
For example, <em>cake</em> might be under a <em>food</em> category.</p>
<p>The hashtag categories are published as an RSS feed at
https://yourdomain/categories.xml, and editors on other instances can
add those feeds to their newswire. This enables the categorization of
hashtags to be crowdsourced between instances.</p>
<p><strong>Searching for a fediverse handle or profile URL</strong></p>
<p>If you enter a fediverse handle or a URL corresponding to a profile
then the system will try to find it. If successful then a summary of the
found profile will be shown, and you will have the option to
follow/unfollow or view the original upstream profile page. If you are
already following then a different screen will be shown with more
options available.</p>
<p><strong>Searching your posts</strong></p>
<p>To search your own posts prefix the search text with a single quote
character.</p>
<p><strong>Searching hashtags</strong></p>
<p>To search for a hashtag just enter it, complete with the hash
prefix.</p>
<p><strong>Searching shared items</strong></p>
<p>To search for any shared items just enter the text that you want to
search for.</p>
<p><strong>Searching wanted items</strong></p>
<p>To search for a wanted item then enter the text that you want to
search for prefixed by a full stop (period) character.</p>
<p><strong>Searching for skills</strong></p>
<p>To search for accounts having a particular skill, prefix your search
text with a star character.</p>
<p><strong>Searching for emojis</strong></p>
<p>To search for an emoji use its name prefixed by a colon
character.</p>
<h1 id="browsing-in-a-command-shell">Browsing in a command shell</h1>
<p>Since the web interface of Epicyon only needs HTML5 and CSS, it can
work with browsers which don’t implement javascript at all.</p>
<p>Screenshots within the preceding sections all assume that you are
using a common graphical web browser. However, it is also possible to
use Epicyon from a shell browser, such as <a
href="https://lynx.invisible-island.net">Lynx</a>. This may be better
suited for use with screen readers, or if you want to check your social
media while logged into a server via <em>ssh</em>.</p>
<p>If you are using <em>Lynx</em> then you will need to ensure that it
is configured for the <strong>utf-8</strong> character set, and that you
have emoji fonts installed (eg. <strong>noto-fonts-emoji</strong>). Edit
your <em>lynx.cfg</em> file (usually in <em>/etc/lynx.cfg</em>) and
set:</p>
<pre class="text"><code>CHARACTER_SET:utf-8</code></pre>
<p>To avoid annoying questions you may also want to set:</p>
<pre class="text"><code>ACCEPT_ALL_COOKIES:TRUE</code></pre>
<p>After logging in you will see a menu, which are shortcuts to
different screens.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-lynx-menu.png"
alt="Menu viewed within a shell browser" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Menu viewed within a shell
browser</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Timelines will look something like the following.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-lynx-inbox.png"
alt="Inbox viewed within a shell browser" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Inbox viewed within a shell
browser</figcaption>
</figure>
<h1 id="content-licenses">Content licenses</h1>
<p>ActivityPub posts are really just content on a website and so are
subject to copyright rules. Historically, the copyright status of posts
was always left as ambiguous but in Epicyon for the avoidance of
disputes it is made explicit. Setting the scope of a post, such as being
to followers only, is not sufficient to indicate how that post is
intended to be used.</p>
<p>Content licensing is at the instance level, and set by the
administrator. Log in as the administrator and then go to <em>instance
settings</em>. From there you can set the content license, which should
be the URL for the full license text.</p>
<p>When subsequently creating posts a small copyright icon will appear,
which then links back to the license.</p>
<p>The choice of content license is for the instance administrator to
decide, but it is recommended that <a
href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode">non-commercial
creative commons licenses</a> may be enough to deter some of the worst
abuses of <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_data">personally
identifiable information</a> by BigTech companies.</p>
<h1 id="building-fediverse-communities">Building fediverse
communities</h1>
<p>The great thing about running a small instance is that you can do
things in whatever manner you prefer. What follows is a few guidelines
which may help.</p>
<figure>
<img src="manual-fediverse.png" alt="Fediverse logo" />
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Fediverse logo</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Have a working backup system</strong></p>
<p>Keeping backups is very important, and fortunately with Epicyon this
is a simple process. The Epicyon installation consists only of files in
a directory. There is no database. So just backing up the directory
where it resides - typically <em>/opt/epicyon</em> - is all that you
need to do. Once you have a backup system in place, test that it
works.</p>
<p><strong>The fediverse is not an open source Twitter</strong></p>
<p>This sounds like a trite comment, but if you have members on your
instance coming from Twitter and expecting it to be the same sort of
thing then they will be disappointed. A major difference is that the
fediverse is more about conversation rather than one-way broadcast.
Sites like Twitter encourage you to become an “influencer” and adopt a
style of communication where you are shouting to a large audience
without much expectation of dialogue.</p>
<p>On Twitter there is an algorithm which will make follow suggestions
and dump all manner of aggravating trash into your timeline. On the
fediverse if you want to connect with people then you will need to be
more proactive in going out to <em>find the others</em>. There is no
algorithm trying to guess what you want without your participation.</p>
<p><strong>Robustly remove bad actors</strong></p>
<p>If people are creating a problem or bringing trouble and are not
amenable to changing their ways, whether they are members of your
instance or not, then be prepared to block or suspend their accounts.
Remember that <em>trolls will destroy your community if you let
them</em>. Define your <em>terms of service</em> and apply it
consistently to anyone interacting with your instance.</p>
<p><strong>Curate your experience</strong></p>
<p>Add links to the left column and blog or podcast feeds to the right.
Choose links which are relevant to your community so that useful
information is one click away. If you have multiple people on your
instance then assign roles to them so that they have a stake in
maintaining a good experience.</p>