WAFRN is a federated social media platform designed as an alternative to Tumblr, focusing on privacy and decentralization. It offers features similar to Tumblr, such as customizable posts and emoji reactions, while allowing users to connect across different platforms in the Fediverse using the ActivityPub protocol. WAFRN emphasizes inclusivity, with policies against harassment and content restrictions found on more traditional platforms, creating a space for users to freely express themselves. It’s currently in active development, and users are encouraged to host their own instances if desired.
idk why but I really hate that mascot. Something about the eyebrows and the way he’s lookin’ at me…
I can’t say that I like either the project name or the mascot.
I mean, it self-identifies as a hellsite. I think they are making some active decisions to make sure their appeal is not too broad. Probably not a bad idea honestly, as long as a large user base is not a goal in its own right.
Its smug aura mocks me
Very evil vibes
It’s less the design itself and more that it makes the entire proposition seem like a flash game portal circa 2006, so it just screams “stay away” at unsafe volumes. It’s not even a bad drawing, it’s just branding the wrong thing at the wrong time.
I kept reading “flesh game” in all the posts
Somehow still accurate.
Flash games tended to use vector art. This uses some flat color areas, but I’m pretty sure that that’s hand-drawn raster.
I didn’t say it looks like a flash game, I said it looks like the logo for a flash game portal.
He’s not going to murder you but…
Reminds me of neopets
That half grin is creeping me out.
Bug hater.
BugFeature haterThanks Todd.
Plus, it’s the only platform that federates with Bluesky (kinda)
Which is a nice option for those who want it. By default it does not show Bluesky, but it can be activated in the settings.
I don’t personally love the idea of Bluesky because it coopts the language and ethos of the fediverse while being corporate and centralized, but I’ve seen other people mention it here, so they may be interested.
I don’t like people who STILL use properitary software, so i am not using and will never use any sort of bsky bridge.
The software itself is not proprietary. The source is here.
IMHO, this is just more marketing because it’s prohibitively hard to actually implement, although there are 3-4 independent instances.
well, even if it doesn’t apply for bsky, it still applies to everything else. I cannot in good faith understand why EVERYONE is finding it diffucult to switch to FOSS.
Most proprietary software has a catchy name and branding, a single website to visit, and a push to “sign up” or “download now”. In contrast, most FOSS have goofy or even unpronounceable names with little or bad branding, no clear authoritative website (especially with federated services), and there’s too much friction to sign up or download the software.
Additionally, you and I see a clear benefit to open source software, but most people either don’t know what it is or don’t really understand or care why it’s beneficial. It seems so clear and obvious to us, so much so that we’re willing to put up with all kinds of rough edges and hurdles to use.
This is even worse with federated social media because of the network effect. If there’s no friends or celebrities already there, it’s not clear why I’d want to be there, and there’s very few organizations that have accounts with useful information that I want or need. Even worse, what good stuff does exist is spread across a bunch of different instances and interfaces so if something gets shared on other networks, it’s not clear where it came from or where I’d go to get more of that.
I’m sure if you look around there are other examples in your life where you haven’t put much thought into things beyond your obvious needs. Do you care enough about ethically sourced diamonds or coffee or other products to make the extra effort to only purchase those? Do you scour labels at the grocery store to ensure they’re sourcing ingredients from reputable places and avoiding using certain chemicals or drugs that you don’t want? Do you care if you’re using services built on clean energy or if they pay fair wages to their employees? Maybe you do all that, but most people find worrying about all that stuff exhausting and just want something to eat, a product that is useful to their life at a fair price, a helpful service that is affordable, etc.
I mean you have to just be obliviously stubborn or ignorant to reality to not understand. Cause it’s really god damn simple.
It’s not simple to use the alternative foss software in most cases, it’s not simple to even find out about them in the first place, and people generally speaking arnt actually effected in any real meaningful negative way that they care about from their current solution.
It’s not complex.
The name makes me think of Warfarin, not a good association imo.
Idk, keeps Tumblr-esque content from coagulating around one service, facilitating flow of content to other federated services?
I can dig it.
Exactly my thought
Same thing I thought of too, I mean it can also be a medication but it’s definitely not what I’d name it after
I love to see the diversity of software increase. Once we clone all the major ones we can start innovating to the point where you have something completely new and bespoke and that will be really exciting
I think the communication between the different platforms in itself is also something new and exciting that is brought to the table. Like when a comment on Lemmy suddenly starts making the rounds on Mastodon because it works well as a stand-alone toot.
I also like the potential for services to evolve more naturally. I honestly don’t think Mastodon is all that similar to Twitter, or PieFed all that similar to Reddit. Sure, they started out as similar concepts, but they develop in pretty different directions.
Things are starting to diverge but I think we’re still early on in the process. Exciting stuff to say the least. Also notable how we’re doing all this and bluesky isn’t despite them having 10x the userbase
I think Wafrn communicates also with Bluesky! But I’m not sure how well it works.
That Mastodon at least makes an effort to present content in a meaningful way is a great thing for the fediverse. It’s hard to imagine Bluesky growing into a huge set of different services when the mothership refuses to display more than 300 characters.
It’s funny all the actual federation is coming from our end
Pardon my ignorance, but isn’t Tumblr just another microblogging site? Wouldn’t mastodon be a viable alternative?
Not that in complaining that there’s another fediverse software, just trying to understand what is the difference or if it’s just splitting hairs.
It’s all just little text packets, this place included.
But hey, that’s all social media. The slight differences in threading, text limits, media embeds and share mechanics do matter.
They do, absolutely. But what are those differences between Twitter and Tumblr? I thought it was just a different CSS.
Tumblr keeps quoted post above your post, just the way it should be.
Oh. Yeah, the few times I’ve been directed at Twitter threads, it felt like having an aneurism.
Twitter has an aggressive character limit, a focus on a streaming feed and historically it’s been built on fast, trending content updated in real time via reposts and this sort of atomized discussion using unthreaded quotes.
Tumblr has changed a bunch trying to stay relevant in a MySpacey kinda way, but it’s ultimately more of a blog platform where the main post is expected to be bulkier and more readable while the threaded responses are framed as more of a comments section you don’t even get to see in full by default, so it more or less splits the difference between Twitter and Reddit, or between Masto and here.
“A different CSS” can impact how you interact with things a bunch, along with how you present trends and follows. Which I guess was my original point.
Character limit on the posts is a big difference, too. Tumblr had lots of short stories and long rants in a single post. You could also post several images in a single post, dunno what was/is twitter’s limit
Feature-wise, it’s entirely different from Mastodon and other Twitter-clone. Though, these days Mastodon copies a lot of features from Tumblr as well.
Example difference: quote feature (not the same as exisiting Mastodon implementation), custom UI, discovery layout, etc.
Isn’t Tumblr one of the last few good sites?
They had a purge long ago, I would have thought an alternative that allowed explicit content would have appeared since then but this seems like the first one which is mind blowing.
OnlyFans was basically the replacement.
No it wasn’t. OnlyFans is a place where “models” can monetize their sexy photos. Tumblr was used to share images and videos and people can reblog them on their own profile. The functionalies are totally different.
After Tumblr came newtumbl, bdsmlr, reblogme, imaglr, and probably some others. Some of these like newtumbl and reblogme were pretty big until their deaths.
Is tumblr like Instagram?
It’s more like Twitter, an alternative to Instagram would be Pixelfed. Tumblr is a microblogging platform that allows users to post text, photos, quotes, links, audio, and video, often in a visually engaging format, and follow each other’s blogs.
It integrates with Mastodon and Bluesky if any you even care 🥺
