Author Archives: Commando717

Unknown's avatar Commando717 8:40 pm on April 14, 2025  

Upcoming Updates to RebelAuthor

In the last week the RebelAuthor bot has been pushing selected news to the main timeline, helping us keep eyesight on news worthy content. 📰

The objective here has been to curate a selection of posts from journalists around the country, staying ahead of typical news cycles and cutting through sensationalism. I believe several of the sources we’ve selected have been getting a little a sensational. So I’m going to address this by reducing the frequency of articles a bit, and have it push only priority content. Otherwise, we’re running the same mistake any other news feed is doing: Creating yet another stream of Trump related discourse.

We’re addressing this because superficially communicating that the President is terrible is not productive, the information pushed here should focus solely on things the administration is measurably doing that negatively impacts people. In working towards this, expect less updates in the near term, and hopefully better quality as we build back up.

I encourage you to forward independent news outlets or journalists that are offering high quality content. Please reach out on Discord if not here!

Unknown's avatar Commando717 7:02 pm on March 31, 2025  

Site Updates 3/31/25

We’ve been slowly adding pages and improvements, and now have also set up a method for getting news articles relayed here. Here’s the updates in order:

Development Updates

  • ✅ Another CSS Upgrade: More small CSS improvements around the site, including fixing the Login page on most browsers.
  • 🤖 Content Bulletin Tool (“The Content Bulletin, posted by RebelAuthor”): In an effort to get eyesight on current events here from trusted sources, I’ve built a bot that can relay newly posted articles to the timeline. Hopefully, overtime, we can curate a list of solid independent sources to keep viewers up to date on current events.

Content Updates

  • 📗 New Page: Active Resistance – A new page for tracking current organizing efforts: Including protests, demonstrations, and boycotts that align with our Platform
  • 📗 New Page: Resources – A new page for compiling relevant progressive resources for learning about anti-authoritarianism, digital privacy, ethical consumerism, outreach, and voting.
  • 📗 New Page: Current U.S. Reproductive Rights – A new page of member submitted data on current reproductive rights for all 50 U.S. states..

If you’re interested in adding information to our site in any of the above pages or on the timeline, sign-up and contribute!

Please visit the Site Dev Notes page for a full list of what’s being worked on.

Unknown's avatar Commando717 2:18 am on March 4, 2025  

Site Updates 3/4/25 📰

Reporting in on some important work going on behind the scenes.

Development Updates

  • ✅ Another CSS Upgrade: Reworked look, still buffing out some problems with the login and registration menus.
  • 🟨 Profile Picture Temporary Fix: Fediverse provided avatars now get a default color instead of a missing person icon, we’re still trying to integrate avatar’s found on the Fediverse and have them appear on our site.
  • 🟦 New Feature: Post Reactions, this is new and currently only works for logged in users. We will need to decide what reactions will appear and what won’t, you may notice them changing.

Content Updates

  • 📗 New Page: Website Tutorial – This page teaches new logged in users on how to post to the timeline!

Please visit the Site Dev Notes page for a full list of what’s being worked on.

Unknown's avatar Commando717 2:53 am on February 5, 2025  

Ongoing Testing Notice

Doing a quick notice to new members: Just be aware that you may see some posts being created and deleted sporadically as we test certain features with the timeline. We’re really trying to trick out the site with every bell and whistle we can think of.

Unknown's avatar Commando717 12:10 am on February 2, 2025  

Soft Launch

Maintenance mode on the website is deactivated moving forward, as it’s blocking several Fediverse features we hope to get working in the near term. This effectively soft launches RFAN to the world. We will continue to compile resources on this website, check out my Current Launch Plan post as it’s still representative of what we’ll be focusing on to get started!

Unknown's avatar Commando717 7:42 pm on January 28, 2025  

Current Launch Plan

We’re aiming for a public site deployment on February 1st. On this date, all updating of the site will just be live and ongoing. Overall I think we’re running into more problems with portions of the site disabled for maintenance, especially with our Fediverse connection. Here’s some of what we’ll be prioritizing leading up to February:

  • Building out RF’s Platform, in recent days and in recent discussions we’ve figured out that making this site a resource would be the most immediate impactful thing to get done. I aim for this site to be people’s go-to for explaining current issues. I think we’ve all run into the problem of “I wish I could effectively explain [example]” to a friend or a family member.
  • Various site functionality fixes, we have a few bugs we’re trying to buff out. But they’re bugs people can tolerate. I’ve added a new page listing bugs we’re aware of. We also need to get more people on the site to find out if there’s bugs we haven’t run into yet.
  • Creating a channel on the RF Hub that relays our Fediverse posts into our Discord.
  • Creating some RFAN specific graphics, and communicating these out to the RF network of Discord servers as internal recruitment.
  • Getting more people signed up!
Unknown's avatar Commando717 5:18 am on January 26, 2025  

Another Fediverse Bug Fix

Looks like media that was uploaded to the site was also being pushed to Mastodon. This has been deactivated.

Unknown's avatar Commando717 2:35 am on January 24, 2025  

Quick Status Test

Test post from an account that seems to definitely be working.

Unknown's avatar Commando717 1:43 am on January 23, 2025  

Fediverse Connection Now Active

Information regarding what the Fediverse is and what it means for our site.

This previously wasn’t something we’ve brought up much in introducing this site to some of you, mostly because we weren’t sure it was going to work at all. But, after a very successful (and easy) test run, our timeline and all member accounts are being mirrored to any Fediverse connected network.

If you’re unfamiliar with what the Fediverse is, it’s most easily explained by exploring the website https://fediverse.party/. It’s a collection of individual servers that make up social media networks being ran independently. There’s been a lot more talk about decentralized and federated platforms as alternatives to places like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook after the recent TikTok ban drama in the United States. This is part of the reason why this site was created in the first place, there has to be better alternatives than allowing Meta platforms to mine our data for profit.

As an example, many of the apps on the Fediverse mirror major social media sites. Mastodon is an alternative to Twitter and Pixelfed an alternative to Instagram. Now, both of those sites now have something incredible in common: All members who post there can post to our timeline here. As we post here, all of our content is automatically generated to a profile that is viewable on other Fediverse platforms. When comments respond to us on those platforms, they also appear here, and when we respond here, those same comments appear instantly on those other sites.

In the coming days and weeks we will post more content about what our project is to help viewership in the Fediverse connect with us.

TLDR: Our Federation is going to get a whole lot bigger, because action.rebelfederation.com is now a node in the Fediverse.

Unknown's avatar Commando717 12:57 am on January 23, 2025  

Fediverse Test with Maintenance Mode On

Another specific use-case test, posting while the main feed isn’t available.

Unknown's avatar Commando717 12:38 am on January 23, 2025
Tags: Post   

Fourth Fediverse Test Post

This a test post to see if posting from our site’s home feed will work as intended. If this message works correctly, it will be added to the Fediverse, and be searchable on Mastodon.

You may see this message several times as we test this.

#post

Unknown's avatar Commando717 11:04 pm on January 22, 2025  

Site Subdomain Update

Posting a general notice: The subdomain has been updated from membership.rebelfederation.com to action.rebelfederation.com. If you run into any dead links or things not working, please log them under this post so I can fix them.

Unknown's avatar Commando717 1:18 pm on January 20, 2025  

Site Personnel Launch 1/20/25: I…

Site Personnel Launch

1/20/25:

Updated 1/22/25

I am now actively recruiting membership to the site, if you’re reading this, welcome! The RFAN site is not live yet, but will be deployed after an extensive update to the WordPress registration form that’s in progress [1/22/25, now completed!]. But we are ready to start adding content. The following content libraries we’re looking to get started on:

  • Create lists for brands and services to avoid who donated to Republican/MAGA candidates and causes. Some documentation like this exists online already, but we should have the most up to date lists people can share with their friends. We should also list brands and services that help progressive causes. This could be one page or multiple pages.
  • Blogroll/wiki for federated, open-source, and decentralized social networks and online resources.
  • Lists of progressive candidates, organizations, and non-profits.
  • Documentation on major political issues, debunking common MAGA propaganda/Project 2025 policy. Ideally, we start to build an actual Platform for the RF.

To start, I’d like to ask all new members to post an introduction to the main timeline. Just a little about yourself, your background with activism if you have any you’d like to share, and which specific issues are important you/what you’d like to work on the most.

Unknown's avatar Commando717 7:10 pm on January 12, 2025  

Site Development Notes II Site…

Site Development Notes II

1/12/25 Status Report:

More progress has been made on the website, including CSS upgrades and back-end house cleaning. Next steps:

  • Adding more pages that support how Members engage with and contribute to the site, what I have now is too general.
  • Need to decide if the site should be fully setup to be private or public. I’m leaning towards a join application system. But it’s also possible to have the entire site just be public where only members of the site can contribute to the feed. Unlike Facebook, the entirety of the home feed would just be out there.
  • For the join application system, I’m thinking that folks would either fill out a survey or just require a “sponsor” to be added, where a sponsor is anybody who is already a Member of the site.

Documented Bug Notes

  • Sometimes while typing something long, the post editor can bug out, and the user can’t scroll up and down to see full contents. Just have to ctrl + A the content, refresh the page, and paste into a reset editor.
  • Inconsistent fonts due to CSS bugs depending on browser.
  • Notification CSS colors may be off on some browsers.
Unknown's avatar Commando717 6:39 am on December 16, 2024  

Ideas for types of Action…

Ideas for types of Action Content:

  • Weekly Action, something bite sized anybody can do, updated weekly with a new objective via the “Assignment” page.
  • List of retailers, shops, etc, that support progressive agendas. Lists of the same that supported Project 2025 as documentation.
  • Contact information/how-to page for sending correspondence for local, state, and federal levels.
  • Effective communication/talking points on specific policies wiki, for both learning about topics and getting better at communicating topics.
  • Debate Posts, posts where a controversial topic can be discussed to establish a firmer position for the community.

Ideas for Utility Content:

  • Inline HTML tutorial page for using this site.
  • Changing Gravatar/WordPress profile info tutorial page.
  • Privacy Policy page specific to this site.

More to be added.

Unknown's avatar Commando717 7:05 am on December 13, 2024  

Debating on adjusting this project’s…

Debating on adjusting this project’s name and operational structure to better convey it. Instead of it being a general membership resource, classifying this as a Division would more appropriately allow this space to focus on specific priorities without redefining the entirety of the Rebel Federation at large– and it still gets to be a membership resource as a Division.

I just think this would work best with people who specifically understand what collectively organizing is and are electing to contribute to it. Over time this could become a more general resource for members.

One tentative name could be:

Rebel Action Network – RAN
action.rebelfederation.com

Unknown's avatar Commando717 8:57 am on December 9, 2024  

Site Development Notes

As of 12/9/24:

Site is deployed with an experimental and discontinued WordPress theme that supports micro blog posting. Anybody with a RF Website account would be able to post here. Currently reskinning the site as a start, some features may be hard to see.

All posting updates in real time, no refreshing needed.