I had a random idea I wanted to throw out there and see what people think:

Imagine a federated platform that works kind of like Discord, but in the sense of Lemmy, Pixelfed, Mastodon, etc.—with different instances hosted by different people.

The twist is that none of the instances would be connected to each other.

Each instance would function like a regular Discord server: channels, chats, roles, and all the usual stuff, but the instances themselves wouldn’t federate with each other.

The interesting part is that these instances could still federate with other platforms—like Mastodon, Lemmy, Peertube, Pixelfed, Loops, etc.—just not with each other.

It seems like it could be a way to have smaller, self-contained communities while still integrating with the wider Fediverse in some ways.

My only sticking point is figuring out signup/login mechanics—how would a user navigate multiple isolated instances efficiently without it becoming a nightmare?

Would love to hear thoughts, improvements, or whether anyone thinks this is a terrible idea.

  • The Bard in Green@lemmy.starlightkel.xyzEnglish
    0·
    23 days ago

    You can federate Matrix using Synapse.

    I think if Matrix were easier to deploy, it would have a lot more adoption for this kind of thing. Once Matrix is set up and running, it runs great! Put energy toward improving Matrix deployment (and don’t give me yet another ansible playbook or docker file… it should be as easy to set up on bare metal as forgejo or you’re doin’ it wrong) instead of building something new from scratch.

  • sneaky@r.nfEnglish
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    23 days ago

    I have been looking for a self hosted alternative to Discord if anybody knows some good options. I don’t need it to federate with anything not sure what you’re going for there… Closest option so far looked to be TS6, but they don’t seem keen on allowing self hosting for that. Apparently there’s a license that’s only good for two months. Would love to get my friends off discord and onto something local that has chat channels and screen sharing still.

    • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      23 days ago

      There’s Revolt.chat, which is pretty much aiming to be just a self-hostable Discord clone

      Edit: Apparently it’s called Stoat now. That’s definitely a downgrade in the naming department