It looks like the Gemini protocol has been posted about on Hacker News!

Nov 18 · 4 weeks ago · 👍 Caleb, darkghost, ps, Homer, the_mantelman, bsj38381, curry, Vindemiatrix · ❤ 1

16 Comments ↓

Should we fear it?

It is a bit discouraging to read some of the comments but the folks making those comments won't bother to come here. It isn't their jam and that's fine.

True, it is odd how many people cannot see the value of Gemini's limits and constraints.

I've read through some of the comments on HN and got strongly reminded of the outright hostility I received when I presented some slides about Geminispace at a local hackspace recently.

I intended to show off the refreshing simplicity of Gemtext and the protocol. Instead of winning some fans, the Gemini protocol (and me, in extension) got accused of maliciously diverting part of the web community. They seemed to suggest that Gemini is some kind of new, evil AOL. Also, they found it unacceptable that you need a different kind of browser for the protocol. Sigh!

Instead of winning some fans, the Gemini protocol (and me, in extension) got accused of maliciously diverting part of the web community.

unbelievable and must be very frustrating. also that people may misunderstand to that extent.

i think it is so obvious that internet is internet, nobody among us aims to divide it, but we have other ports, we have whole two bytes to represent ports. so there are 65535 ports to choose from, not only 80 and 443. and there's /etc/services so many different softwares and protocols operate on the internet, not only http.

that reminds me of another weird thing, how people, instead of using sockets and ports to communicate, use http for everything.

also it feels so natural that in today's world where many websites maliciously identify you with screen fingerprinting, cookies, etags, browsers allow access to accelerator/gyro without asking the reader, bloatedness level, amount of js pushed to our browsers, it all should make people feel bad about their experiences and push to another place like gemini.

in geminispace we have refugees from those toxic places. people come here to breath with full lungs without being concerned about which js is running and if it is able to exploit you in some legal or illegal way.

The hostility is interesting. Perhaps it was overrepresented with professional web devs who might see such a thing as threatening. One doesn't need to be a fancy pants web dev to launch a capsule, like the old web where you just needed a basic text editor. But at the same time there is, as of the present time, zero commercial value here. Nor do I think there is a mainstream appeal here. So there is no threat. I still use the web, I have to.

@norayr yes, frustrating, but interesting also. I blame some of the dissonance on the contents of my talk and on my presentation. Obviously, I would have loved to convince them of the merits of Geminispace and would have liked to share some of my fascination with it. So, I am really looking into how to adjust the angle of my presentation to get the message across. Here are my slides, btw.:

I'm honestly content with Geminispace tbh, yeah I won't be able to add cool Html coding stuff to my capsule (it's hosted on Gemsync, I'm just waiting until it's booted up on the site's end) alongside me using Tor and Freenet, and the main HTTPS web. And not everyone on the main web will give this a chance, and that's alright honestly. (I wanted to make my own internet protocol that only uses Html and markdown, buuut I'll still think about it.)

own internet protocol that only uses Html and markdown

Yes, I thought about this, too. But, a very nice feature of Gemini Protocol + Text is that (a) the markup language is manually writable and still readable and (b) there is no processing required to publish it. With HTTP + Markdown, I still have to have a Markdown-to-HTML converter (server-side) or have a browser (client-side) that can display Markdown directly. Also, Markdown can contain embedded HTML, which means a „browser that can display Markdown directly“ needs to be a full Web browser.

I don’t know why every time a cool niche thing I’m into is posted there people are super critical lol. Not quite as bad as Stack Overflow but…

Some people only get happiness crapping on things others have built. They never do anything cool or noteworthy.

Vindemiatrix, it helps to remember that the Orange Site is run by venture capitalists, and a lot of people there are founders, or wanna-be founders. Will it further my goals (usually: make a lot of money)? Is it trendy enough to hire people to work on it cheaply?

I can't say I'm too surprised about the orange site being venture capitalist types, but meh. I'm just happy I can use this internet protocol, alongside Hyphanet and Tor.

I found gemini through that post. I've been reading ycombinator news for a year or two but have never made an account to post because it doesn't feel like a great community. I think I will fit in better here.

Welcome!