{"item":{"_id":"6a6381fe1b61cab82533ad6d","objectType":"Page","type":"Page","parentId":null,"order":0,"actorId":"@kwln.social","actor":{"@context":"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams","id":"https://kwln.social/users/@kwln.social","type":"Application","objectType":"User","preferredUsername":"@kwln.social","name":"KWLN","summary":"

This is KWLN, the first ever Kowloon server and the private community of Joshua Ellis, Kowloon's creator. Invite-only at the moment.

","icon":"https://kwln.social/files/file:6a5d1313ec25fddea16de58b@kwln.social","url":"https://kwln.social","inbox":"https://kwln.social/inbox","outbox":"https://kwln.social/outbox","publicKey":"-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\nMIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAxxhT/1As5uANYLUXUcok\nD0rxLc3E6uUgEdWOyXe6NoWlIFCGohW1zOWXDtgJoW51QIJajh7z7cmpLPhychG2\n/q29trOP2JL0SolVgulaY7qqLI+Rjn+rHkAi+TinpDlIXbpLCfZeSZqSS7izqvoD\nKir0ZMl2weyMs8LYeFqPKlnyH6UeSSpB/uv9T8V4hARO8HZEH/Z5qlebLjOnZceh\nPkbGictD2brsBup28GNzHZsLblI4/LyQkuYyvtHNAtME6ZYKe9H9Fxv3mQs+Mr2A\nYqt3wNEIfuHykfa1ZGZ6nFLhbsXCtoUaY9zu6AkbZePoFme7IIEX37Q35Mqn5ScQ\nPQIDAQAB\n-----END PUBLIC KEY-----\n"},"title":"Welcome To Kowloon","slug":"welcome-to-kowloon","summary":"A basic intro to Kowloon and Circles","source":{"content":"Hi, and welcome to Kowloon! As of now, if you're seeing this, you're an alpha tester and I appreciate your willingness to jump into what might be shallow depths filled with old medical waste and 1970s soda cans. 😂\n\nSo if you look at your home page, you'll see your Feed selector at the top. This shows you all posts to your own community/server, your own posts, or posts from any of your Circles or Groups you belong to. (You can also search through Circles and Groups and soon you'll be able to pin them to the top of your list.)\n\nCircles are probably the most confusing part of Kowloon, but they're also the core of how it works. Basically, you don't have followers/following or friends: you have Circles, which serve three main purposes:\n\n1. As an audience for any of your posts. Think of it like a mailing list, and when you address a post to a Circle, only people in that Circle can see that post. But nobody *knows* they're in your Circle unless you tell them - they're not notified of it - and they won't see your post unless they follow you. If that seems weird, imagine I create a Circle called **Hot Sluts In Your Area Crave Your Dong** and add everyone I can find to it and send you ten posts a day about horny MILFs and boner pills. It's also so you can decide how to categorize people as you see fit: you can have a **Friends** Circle and a **BFFs** Circle and nobody will get butt hurt from being in the one but not the other.\n2. As a way of filtering your timeline. Your feed can only display your **Community Posts**, **My Posts**, posts from any Group you belong to... or posts from people or servers you've added to one of your Circles. Everyone gets a default **Following** Circle created for them and if you only want to put everybody in that one, feel absolutely free... or create as many as you want and add one person or a billion to each. Me, I plan to create Circles for **Friends**, **Family**, **Musicians** I dig, **News** I follow, etc. But you absolutely do you. You don't have to ever address a post to a Circle if you only want to use it as a feed filter. Totally up to you.\n3. As a way of sharing people and servers you think are interesting - Circles can be Public, Server only (meaning only your community members can see it) or private. So if I made that **News** Circle and made it public, you could also see it and use the **Save To Circle** button to copy it to your *own* Circles. (It's a copy, not a live clone, so if I add new members to *my* News Circle, *your* News Circle doesn't update with them, but I'm working on creating those, and shared Circles, as well.)\n\nYou'll notice I said you can add servers to Circles too. What does that mean? It means that if I, @[jzellis@kwln.social](mailto:jzellis@kwln.social), add a server like @kwln.city to my Circles, all public posts to that server appear in that Circle's feed. (But not community/server only posts, because @[jzellis@kwln.social](mailto:jzellis@kwln.social) isn't a member on @kwln.city.)\n\nDoes all of this make sense so far? Do y'all see the benefits of this model over the traditional model of social media?\n\nNow: you may notice you have no following/followers/friends stats. This is because those require a social graph and are only used for self-promotion and gamification and have nothing to do with self-expression and communication, which are what Kowloon is for. There *is* no soclal graph. I don't know who you have relationships, your server admin doesn't, nobody does.\n\nIf you follow someone who doesn't know you exist, you can see their public posts and comment and react on posts they allow the public to comment and react to, but you won't see anything they don't want you to see and vice versa. I'm working on the semotics, but for now: if you see a post with the Share icon grayed out, that means the user has added you to a Circle and addressed that post to it. They added you to a Circle of trust, in other words.\n\n**Everything you post as public is visible to anyone on Earth with the Kowloon app or a web browser.** You need to understand this. Kowloon is a publishing platform as much as a social media app. So be very selective about what you make public or community only or private. I can only warn you.\n\nI'm working on making Groups more useful so we can discuss all this as, well, a group, but for now, you can reach out to me directly on Facebook or FB Messenger to ask questions.\n\nPlease let me know if any of this doesn't make sense, is confusing or if you have better ideas!","mediaType":"text/markdown"},"body":"

Hi, and welcome to Kowloon! As of now, if you're seeing this, you're an alpha tester and I appreciate your willingness to jump into what might be shallow depths filled with old medical waste and 1970s soda cans. 😂

\n

So if you look at your home page, you'll see your Feed selector at the top. This shows you all posts to your own community/server, your own posts, or posts from any of your Circles or Groups you belong to. (You can also search through Circles and Groups and soon you'll be able to pin them to the top of your list.)

\n

Circles are probably the most confusing part of Kowloon, but they're also the core of how it works. Basically, you don't have followers/following or friends: you have Circles, which serve three main purposes:

\n
    \n
  1. As an audience for any of your posts. Think of it like a mailing list, and when you address a post to a Circle, only people in that Circle can see that post. But nobody knows they're in your Circle unless you tell them - they're not notified of it - and they won't see your post unless they follow you. If that seems weird, imagine I create a Circle called Hot Sluts In Your Area Crave Your Dong and add everyone I can find to it and send you ten posts a day about horny MILFs and boner pills. It's also so you can decide how to categorize people as you see fit: you can have a Friends Circle and a BFFs Circle and nobody will get butt hurt from being in the one but not the other.
    2. \n
  2. As a way of filtering your timeline. Your feed can only display your Community Posts, My Posts, posts from any Group you belong to... or posts from people or servers you've added to one of your Circles. Everyone gets a default Following Circle created for them and if you only want to put everybody in that one, feel absolutely free... or create as many as you want and add one person or a billion to each. Me, I plan to create Circles for Friends, Family, Musicians I dig, News I follow, etc. But you absolutely do you. You don't have to ever address a post to a Circle if you only want to use it as a feed filter. Totally up to you.
    3. \n
  3. As a way of sharing people and servers you think are interesting - Circles can be Public, Server only (meaning only your community members can see it) or private. So if I made that News Circle and made it public, you could also see it and use the Save To Circle button to copy it to your own Circles. (It's a copy, not a live clone, so if I add new members to my News Circle, your News Circle doesn't update with them, but I'm working on creating those, and shared Circles, as well.)
    4. \n
\n

You'll notice I said you can add servers to Circles too. What does that mean? It means that if I, @jzellis@kwln.social, add a server like @kwln.city to my Circles, all public posts to that server appear in that Circle's feed. (But not community/server only posts, because @jzellis@kwln.social isn't a member on @kwln.city.)

\n

Does all of this make sense so far? Do y'all see the benefits of this model over the traditional model of social media?

\n

Now: you may notice you have no following/followers/friends stats. This is because those require a social graph and are only used for self-promotion and gamification and have nothing to do with self-expression and communication, which are what Kowloon is for. There is no soclal graph. I don't know who you have relationships, your server admin doesn't, nobody does.

\n

If you follow someone who doesn't know you exist, you can see their public posts and comment and react on posts they allow the public to comment and react to, but you won't see anything they don't want you to see and vice versa. I'm working on the semotics, but for now: if you see a post with the Share icon grayed out, that means the user has added you to a Circle and addressed that post to it. They added you to a Circle of trust, in other words.

\n

Everything you post as public is visible to anyone on Earth with the Kowloon app or a web browser. You need to understand this. Kowloon is a publishing platform as much as a social media app. So be very selective about what you make public or community only or private. I can only warn you.

\n

I'm working on making Groups more useful so we can discuss all this as, well, a group, but for now, you can reach out to me directly on Facebook or FB Messenger to ask questions.

\n

Please let me know if any of this doesn't make sense, is confusing or if you have better ideas!

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