Feed: sizeof(cat)
Title: Start a new private community?
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2025 06:17:21 +0000
Link: http://sizeof.cat/post/new-community/
 
[image 1]
 
Would my website visitors (and friends) be interested if I start a new private 
(invite-only) community, on this website? Topic would be anything worth your 
time (and mine): retro hardware, old Internet, Windows/Linux/macOS stuff, old 
software, music, movies, self hosting, solar, cyberpunk, promote your websites 
and ideas, personal projects, as long as it’s not politics and intentional 
baiting.
 
No identifiable data will be saved, no logs kept (spam would be pointless since 
the community would be private, and spamming would get your account removed 
anyway), I’m thinking about having a mandatory e-mail field on sign-up because I
might want to contact you for explanations instead of just nuking your account. 
I won’t use the e-mail address for anything except that, no confirmations, 
validations, newsletters, spam, and after creating your account you can change 
it to something like a@a.com if you’re not interested in future e-mail 
conversations with me. Nobody else will see your e-mail address and if you 
change it after creating your account, the original address is no longer visible
anywhere, or saved in any logs or databases.
 
[image 2]
 
I’m not interested in bringing phpBB or Discourse bloat into this, it will be a 
custom-made PHP8 “script” with nothing but categories, topics, replies and 
profiles. Data will get saved into a SQLite database, similar to the guestbook 
script. Since my website is pretty much compatible with most of the old web 
browsers anyway (except those that don’t like SVGs), the community part would be
(and should be) browseable and usable on older machines too.
 
[image 3]
 
No files/images uploads, topics and replies would be Markdown-only with images 
and any HTML code stripped out. Keeping it as simple as possible.
 
Does it sound good? Bad? Insane? Batshit insane?
 
Links: 
[1]: http://sizeof.cat/post/new-community/img/cafe-1.png (image)
[2]: http://sizeof.cat/post/new-community/img/cafe-2.png (image)
[3]: http://sizeof.cat/post/new-community/img/cafe-3.png (image)

