Hi Fediverse ๐
let me sum up the situation around #switchingsocial
Around September 20th, the original (anonymous) author of switching.social shut down its website and all related Social Media accounts, including mastodon ๐ค
This info reached me (@tobias ) the next day via my German version @swisode .
As there hasn't been any sign of life since then, I restored the website and created this new account. Right now I'm out of spare time to work on it, but that'll change in a few weeks ๐
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode
Thanks so much for taking aktion!
(and for the sum up)
@switchingsoftware
Thanks for your quick action. If I can help, happy to, just ask!
@tobias @swisode
@the_englishman I will do so, already wrote down your handle after your first offer to help ๐
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode Thank you very much, it's really kind of you to step up.
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode
For people who missed it (since it's on your home page but not in the toot):
@boud
Yup. I was just started searching alternatives to my #Tresorit account. Hints?
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode That's very sad -- I hope they're OK. I know putting yourself out there endorsing and un-endorsing things can expose you to a lot of criticism, I wonder if they found themselves under some kind of attack.
@edheil That's true, could be a cause. And I hope they are OK too
@switchingsoftware
And a big thank you for doing so!
@tobias @swisode
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode thank you for keeping this project alive! I hope the original founder is okay...
@switchingsoftware thank you very much for reviving the good work! I hope the original author is okay. I missed switching social. The whole project has been a very meaningful contribution to our fediverse life
@switchingsoftware
You are one of the good guys, someone who puts some time aside fo the others :)
@tobias @swisode
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode Can you put riot.im/matrix in here: https://switchingsocial.de/ersetze/whatsapp as signal is not free and xmpp is jabber.
@zem I'm aware of this issue ๐ The changes will take some time as I have to maintain German and English version now and the latter is currently quite a mess ๐
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode
Here's my personal list if you want to update the website with new software.
https://njoseph.me/mediawiki/Privacy_Stack
@njoseph_1 Love the idea of sharing one's personal stack ๐ Some interesting entries in there I havent heard of yet ๐ Thanks for sharing!
@switchingsoftware @njoseph_1 i have a similar page, but i think most are known https://davidak.de/empfehlungen/
@switchingsoftware tnx
Hope we come to know about what happened
Maybe it would be a good idea to open source the site content, and get a few maintainers.
Encourage people to submit changes themselves, which could be approved by a couple of maintainers.
@danjones Exactly! That's also my goal for this ๐ I'm currently preparing everything.
Btw: The current codebase is already open-source:
https://codeberg.org/swiso-en/archive
But as it is quite a mess, I'm setting up a project from scratch currently:
https://codeberg.org/swiso-en/website
Call for feedback and maintainers / helpers will follow soon ๐
@switchingsoftware @danjones
thats awesome. I may put forth my time in helping if you do a call. though I only know english so wouldnt be any use for the other instance.
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode thanks F-Droid for boosting this. It's y first time to know SwitchingSoftware, I'm looking for such thing.
@switchingsoftware What happened?
@Sylphox To the original site/author? Noone knows ๐
@switchingsoftware That's extremely eerie and definitely scary.
@Sylphox @switchingsoftware
If you're interested, there is some info and some theories here:
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode Thanks for picking up the mantle! It's such a good resource! :)
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode
I found so many alternatives through #switchingsocial- I hope the original author is OK, and thanks for stepping up! I didn't always agree with some of the choices or the reasons, but I don't think that's any reason to harangue any person, and I hope that's not what happened, and that they are safe and happy. ๐
@chuckdee @switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode
> I didn't always agree with some of the choices or the reasons, but I don't think that's any reason to harangue any person
unfortunately, everybody doesn't agree with you about that last part, especially on the instances and areas that the rest of the fed's trying to quarantine ๐
hopefully they're okay
but the anonymity wasn't a mistake, it seems 
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode many thanks! And I hope that the original author is well!
@switchingsoftware it's pretty cool how "SwiSo" lets you pretty seamlessly switch from Social to Software, which I think is a better term anyway since it doesn't leave you focused on just social terms.
Thanks for taking the time to get something back up so quickly; I know a lot of people relied on the previous account.
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode Thank you so much for doing this, much appreciated!
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode
When I try to go to switching dot social, my security software does not like.
"Web Protection by
Bitdefender
Suspicious page blocked for your protection
[https switching dot social slash switching]
Your connection to this web page is not safe due to an untrusted security certificate.
Phishing sites often use fake certificates that trigger this alert, and their goal is to obtain your sensitive information."
@hhardy01 Please go to https://switching.software instead ๐
.social is the old site that was taken down by the original author. That's why the certificate is out of sync with the placeholder page of the hosting company.
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode
it's always nice to see when a community of people has some who can step up to help with stuff like this ^_^ the more people out of the corp meat grinder social media the better
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode It's useful work.
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode Im here to help as well. Let me know what I can do.
https://boneheadmedia.com is at your service as well. Ill definately be adding you to the important links page soon. Switching.social was key in getting me into the fediverse and off the big tech. Time to pay it forward
@switchingsoftware Thanks so much, Tobias :) And thanks again for doing this. I will start referring people to switching.software from now on :)
@switchingsoftware nice! Thanks for doing this @tobias - with all the hoopla around Meetup's announcement yesterday, I saw someone put this list together - may be worth picking through to see if any qualify for the SwitchingSocial site: https://phacks.dev/meetup-com-alternatives
@switchingsoftware @tobias also, Open Culture has a lot of free online courses / books / movies / audio books / etc that may be nice to include: http://www.openculture.com/
@switchingsoftware @tobias @swisode Thank you so much for your efforts. ๐
@switchingsoftware Do we know by now whether the anonymous is okay?
@VictorVenema I don't, but I hope so ๐
@aral Hi, thanks for pointing out the ambiguity of my profile description concerning the person behind the new account. See my pinned post (the one I'm replying to here) for the whole background. ๐ค
I will update my profile info as soon as I can - will take a few days though as I can't do this via app. ๐