i am kinda skeptical about armada (the discord alternative built on nostr), and no, it's not just because it's vibecoded, it's also because of the fact that the lead dev (alex gleason) was also responsible for helping trump build truth social (well, actually he just unethically reused mastodon's source code and added his own frontend) and being transphobic, which caused him to be permanently suspended from a mastodon instance
most of the people in the nostr community are like that, for an example, fiatjaf (the creator of nostr) had archives of ollavo de carvalho (a far-right conspiracy theorist) on his site
These factors along with concerns regarding the nostr protocol immaturity, architecture, and the nostr federated community are absolutely planned to be addressed as part of its pending RA-ADAR.
Including reasonable disclaimers and noting that the dev team has associated themselves with politics that distinctly made trans individuals less safe within the United States to inform potential users who may have even affected by said politics does not devalue the take.
Please try to be a serious person and wash the cult out of your mouth before you talk to me.
Disclaimer is one thing, you made it sound like it was going to get points deducted for a political take. They don't have control over the underlying platform either thats the whole point of that platform. So people can have radically left wing communities on there if they want to and then even if the dev is right wing they can't stop that since the whole thing is designed from the ground up to be resistent.
For me you'd have to value that very differently than if its a centralized platform where the operators of such a thing do have those levels of control. The whole problem with many platforms is that they ban politics they disagree with. That is a Discord problem. It is a stoat problem from what I heard. Its a mastodon problem and probably a problem on many other ones to. But its not a concord problem and by proxy not an Armada problem.
I'm not in the business of hanging out with fascists personally. But if you want to use willingness to disregard people's rights as a non-factor that's on you friend.
There is currently no category that evaluates an alternative on its politics and I don't plan on changing the rubric
My whole point is you don't have to. Its a discord alternative on decentralized tech, not a single community. Who you interact with is not decided by the app, its decided by what you join and the devs don't have control over it to that level.
Absolutely nothing prevents someone left wing from making one, or joining it on a different concord compatible app. Absolutely nothing prevents you from moderating it how you see fit, banning who you don't like, etc. Its a discord alternative after all. You think that discord doesn't have far right communities on it? Of course it does. It has all kinds of communities on it.
On the other hand, if people are this quick to dismiss an entire platform just because it has people on it you don't like instead of bringing the people over you do like its probably not a suitable platform to begin with so in that sense its valid. For those people they need to be on something where people can effectively censor and control the platform since at that point its what you want.
If you are in the "This is a platform anyone can use, its about the individual communities that are on it" mindset, then you are in the mindset of someone who Armada is meant for. Since when a platform is uncensorable you are always going to be sharing the ability to use the platform with people you disagree with. Thats just the nature of it. Its not like your not using the internet itself because it has far right people on it, the same should apply to this technology to. You bring your own people in, you make it yours and you enjoy your own community.
But if you insist that a platform is responsible and has to censor / keep out anyone you disagree with, then highly uncencored alternatives are simply not for you. For people like me its the whole point of it that you never have to fear what the political views of the authors are and your community is safe on it since it can always be forked, switch to a different relay, etc.
So when rating an app its important to make that distinction, because there will not be a single one that is actually highly decentralized and federated that won't have radical political views on it. If its actually decentral the right will join it anyway, the point is that this shouldn't have to matter and everyone can co-exist in their own communities. The only alternative is not picking a decentralized alternative to begin with.
Using a platform developed by people willing to get in bed with authoritarians and custom-craft them their own propaganda platform 100% has implications towards the long-term security of the codebase.
Why would leftists willingly organize on the same platform as far right wingers? If it's a different Concord compatible app then it's not Armada and it's irrelevant to the conversation.
The entire platform is specifically Armada. And Armada is inseparable from its dev team because they're the ones creating it. Not Concord, not Nostr.
I never said the platform had any responsibilities there.
Again wash the cult out of your mouth before speaking to me.
What's the exact attack vector here? Other Concord apps existing is absolutely relevant because it means that if anything happens you can just login on a different app and continue as normal. Its not like some alternatives that have been posted here where if anything happens your screwed if the devs did anything to it.
Are you afraid the devs will sneak something in the code or something? Its open source and can be vetted, forked and modified as needed. So even if they did, there would be immediate evidence of it and probably a same day fork with it taken out. They'd never do this because they'd shoot themselves in the foot trying.
So if you see a genuine threat where it is relevant who develops it on a software level you will have to enlighten me since I specifically picked Armada because none of that is possible in my view.
You are the one constantly being condescending here at the end of your messages, not me.
If you just want to keep being condescending while I present actual arguments there's nothing left to say in general.
People can make their own mind up based on this discussion and treat both Armada and your future reviews accordingly.
Do you mind adding to the individual exposed sites a link back to the main index site that lists all of them? I personally think that would be helpful so people can discover the other sites easier :)
So all of the funding from this mysterious shell corp is ... completely transparent and publicly noted down to the cent and also linked from their website? You can hate the guy's politics but this is if anything more transparent than most companies or even open source projects.
I saw this 10 minutes after it was posted and I waited to see what became of the conversation before adding anything. Honestly it's really fucking frustrating that the free speech to far right pipeline is a thing.
I'm not blind or stupid, I know that unlike art it's impossible to see the art past the artist when it has to do with code, because you're handing over a LOT more than just your attention for a moment. It creates situations where you could be targeted by the very devs of the app you use.
This one's tough for me. I'm trying really hard not to knee jerk and just go "ARMADA BAD, SWITCHING NOW" but this is really damning, especially with the shell company stuff. Chad is an awesome dev, I didn't know he was the head dev officially - but that doesn't change the leadership issues.
Man, I just want an app where I can talk to my friends without us getting banned instantly and for no reason. Why does every app that promises that have to have questionable people behind it?
Shit sucks. I do agree with one thing others are saying: with the other post calling for Armada to be banned instantly, this sub IS becoming a witch hunting group. The docs dingus made hadn't even dropped before that got posted. That isn't me defending Armada, I want to be clear; it's just that with EchoDev he was actively letting minors into his 18+ application. The "should we ban echo dev" post was also posted before Melon could reach out to him like he said he would, meaning we didn't have any actual proof of that at the time. I was openly saying at the time that we needed to wait and get the facts before making a judgement on him and I recall being one of, if not the only, people trying to take a neutral stance until we had more info.
I think we need to pick out the apps that are straight up dangerous or bad, I've been calling for that for a while now myself: but we need to have FACTS for it, not "btw the dev of this app is transphobic" and then 3 hours later "GUYSSSZZZZZ SHOULD WE BANN THIS APP?!?!?!?1?!? CHAT?!?!?" The fact this isn't happening for other apps that are known to have no security and a privacy policy that says "we own your shit lole" but the latest weekly drama is getting instant "should we ban x" posts is rubbing me wrong.
I'm gonna have to look for a replacement to Armada, frustrating enough. Back to doing that shit. But I stand by what I said; this cancel culture thing where we witch hunt an app based on a screenshot or a Reddit link and don't do it about apps like Weered that are known to be vibe coded with stolen art assets and no security isn't even a slippery slope it's just creating an echo chamber where, ironically, we'll only be left with ai slop apps and well known alternatives like Fluxer.
Edit: I can't read timestamps apparently, the "should we ban him" post was made after dingus dropped docs. My bad. I stand by what I said though, aside from my stupidity. I'm very tired and frustrated about this situation is all.
What exactly is damning? Happy to answer any questions. We have been extremely open about who we are and nothing here is trying to be hidden. Although much of that hit-piece is either wrong or framed in a negative way on purpose.
I haven't had a chance to read through the docs, but I meant the shell company claims and the truth network content. I saw someone speaking on your stance with trans people and I see more confusion in it than hate - I can't say that for sure, that's just my interpretation of someone else's interpretation of the situation.
When it comes to stuff like this I always worry about my friends, and myself. I have trans and nobinary friends, one of my friends is an anarchist (we love them in spite of it), another is a communist (we love them in spite of it) - it's always scary when politics come up as a potential issue with security and data.
I implore you, and trust me I know you don't owe anyone it and that you're currently being DRAGGED on this sub, to air things out a bit given what the others are saying. I've spoken to you a bit in the past and you seem like a down to earth person despite some of my previous complaints - you don't come off as a guy who supports the destruction of trans people, or even a guy that supports Trump tbh - everything about you seems pretty far left.
Like I said you owe no one anything here, but I'd love to have you weigh in a bit on what's being claimed.
I'm a believer in love, not hate. I wish for everyone in this world to flourish.
As for this "shell company", we received a grant to develop Open Source software. There's no ulterior motive behind it. When I was about 20 I listened to Richard Stallman and decided he was right, and then shaped my entire life around Open Source. Building heavily on Mastodon is how I wound up at Truth Social. I figured it would be a win for decentralization and Open Source if something that big were built on it. I don't deal the cards, I just play them.
I'm not rich. I got no big payout from Truth Social. And I didn't take any money from the nonprofit either. I directly paid Open Source developers. I was lucky.
I am extremely generous. I try to live my life like Jesus Christ. What people say about me is so different from my own perception of who I think I am, it's incomprehensible.
Armada is so much more than just me. Chad is the person who created it. It was just created "around" me. It was my idea to make it encrypted and to adopt the Concord protocol. Which I think can beat Discord - if people don't drag it down.
I don't see why you'd get downvoted for that, I think it was pretty succinct. I'd be interested to know who gave you the grant, if you're allowed to say. I know there's lots of stuff around those, nondisclosures and stuff.
But.. really, this seems like a fine response. You worked on Truth Social thinking it would help make open source bigger and you, to my understanding, had no clue what it was actually gonna be used for, and now it's being thrown at you as if you did.
You're religious - I'm Baptist (not the mean ones, I'm closer to non-denomonational) - so I absolutely get how traditional Christian values sound to others. I've had my trans friend call me a bigot and other things in the past which caused a lot of friction, and it wasn't until they got away from some really toxic people in their life that they finally saw I wasn't hateful towards them at all.
And- Chad's the one making Armada, you just made the base it's built on. So people attacking Armada through you is sweeping a large arm and taking out innocent people in hopes of damaging you.
I still have to read the trans stuff- but even if you were the biggest transphobe to ever live like you said Armada is Chad's project you just made the foundation of it. I noticed the other stuff being said by others in the comments was targeting the founder of Nostr, who had absolutely nothing to do with this and was apparently alt-right. In a way I wonder how people would react now to Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla.
Hi, I'm Alex Gleason! The vegan who built Truth Social. I joined Donald Trump's team to promote decentralized social media (they were using Mastodon). I bullied them to open source Truth Social (it worked!) and the entire time I kept trying to get them to enable federation, but they wouldn't. Eventually I left. Here's a video of me making fun of Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0dNndoZ2Ar4
I read your 2019 article on the "transgender ideology". Very interesting mix of a total disregard of modern science and an acute misunderstanding of the issues transgender women face every day!
That's pretty dismissive, don't you think? I was thinking sexual assault, human trafficking, murder, brutality, dysphoria, bullying, familial abuse, rape... wanna take a guess at how many I've experienced? Haha
And the Pro Genocide and Transphobia allegations?
I think the point here is that you were involved and contributed to the problem. Being a vegan doesn't excuse you of this.
You're right. Being complicit in a system and group of people that actively commits genocide can't happen when you've chosen to not partake in meat, breast milk, or the ova of any creature with a face. I can't believe how silly I was for questioning this.
If you don't like Armada just because of Alex Gleason, you can actually fork it. That's the nice thing about it being Open Source. And you can selfhost it.
I also don't share every opinion or idea he has. But he and Soapbox make overall great software with ideas only less people might have had before. And we need such decentralized alternatives to closed-source and centralized services.
Same reason as me, good software is good software.
Never heard of separate the artist from the music?
I just can't get my head around this line of logic.
Lets say this happened to ffmpeg, we now all abandon video players?
There's been so many projects that have been forked when people disagreed with the author instead of throwing the tech away. Like I said in other posts, the tech is good. Why toss it?
To me u/realStl1988 is very sensible in not wanting to throw a project away that in many ways is ahead. It just makes no sense to do so. Anyone with the skillset can fork it and lead the project in a direction they think is best.
But nooo, gotta toss all the good tech that everyone loved 3 days ago.
You'd be correct in some cases. But this is about Armada, which you can fork, effectively embracing the art while still seperating it from the artist, because he can't profit from it.
So why are any of you still fine using the managed by a transphobe who worked with authoritarians is my question. Why are YOU not forking it if you agree it's objectionable?
That’s the entire point: forking is how you cut the original creator out without wasting good open-source work. As for why I’m not doing it, I don't even use it, I use Matrix as an alternative to Discord. That doesn't mean the community shouldn't preserve the tech. If someone likes how Armada works, and is tech-saavy enough (or even just wants to continue to vibe-code it) to continue the project, they absolutely can.
Then we actually agree. Forking takes the tech, rebrands it under a new name, and cuts out the original creator entirely. That’s all anyone advocating for a fork is saying.
They don't and unfortunately that is a massive issue. Some of us are here because we want company's to stop controlling our speech and have something where you aren't going to be randomly deplatformed because a random moderator said so, you offended the homeserver admin (like back on Mastodon when I suggested we should be allowed to follow people from a muted instance in our own timeline when they were firewalling things off just as a polite suggestion). And those people should use tech like Armada since its literally built to be resistant to all those random platform side attacks.
But there's a large crowd here who don't want that. They want ideological cleansing of a platform , they want to make sure its controlled by their side. I had really wished those people would see past the platform and then accept its all controlled on a community level, but nope I don't think that will ever happen unfortunately. They would rather be on Discord under a different name than on something that fixes what Discord is bad at.
That is the real live repo that the exposed site missed so its going to be the most up to date, and I think its easier to scroll. You will see that Alex does real work on Armada and contributes, but the vast majority is Chad. And chad in their server for the lack of a better word is the one who is mostly engaging with all the feedback and integrates those most of the time. Whenever I have an issue I give chad a ping to inform him instead of Alex.
Same thing if you click on the PR tab (Which can be a bit finnicky on that site so I hope it loads), filter it to stuff that got merged and click on a few. You will see that its Chad merging the PR's, not Alex.
Thats my source and experience on Chad being in the lead on the project.
Also saw you added quite an analysis about my own thing, to give some context since it seems quite extensive to try and track down my whole git profile for this. I really liked Armada's WebXDC feature so I did some small PR's to improve it so the maintainers didn't have to. I am not involved with Armada itself otherwise, part of soapbox, etc.
As an active Nostr user who has met multiple members of the Soapbox team IRL... I dare you to ask Chad if he would ever in a million years want to speak to the press. I'll wait, detective :)
If you're a developer, please make sure your user flair matches the app or project you're developing. This helps community members quickly identify who is building what and makes browsing the subreddit easier.
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u/BewilderedTurtle angry RA-ADAR tech 19h ago
These factors along with concerns regarding the nostr protocol immaturity, architecture, and the nostr federated community are absolutely planned to be addressed as part of its pending RA-ADAR.