Features of a Asstr.org replacement

[Some Dude]

I recently bought asslr.org to start as a side project to replace asstr. I would love some feedback on what features would be needed to make a viable replacement people would use.

If anyone has experience with the potential legal issues as well, I would love to hear about that.

It was originally discussed years ago, but ran into issues agreeing on what it should be. Things like FTP will not be used due to security and implementation issues. Need to find alternatives authors will like. I don't know a ton about the current/past features authors had access to on asstr.

[a425couple]

Good luck to you!!!

Personally, I am way less interested in ASSTR and
similar things like 'Stories on Line' than I used
to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, at some point, some of us,,
we get older.

To be very usable, a good working search feature
is real important. But that seems near impossible
to pin down.

Again, Good luck to you!!!

[rdodger]

Author features - secure login, convenient upload (nowadays you might want to virus-scan the upload), ability to create/upload a webpage front-end (similar concerns), story topic tagging, download counts, reader feedback
User features - author listing, author name search, story title word search, story topic tag search, new author listing, new story listing (or new in past week/month)
Site features - data backup, server maintenance
Just my $0.02 for a starter

[Y Lee Coyote]

On Fri, 12 Nov 2021 20:03:04 -0800 (PST), Some Dude
<somedu...@gmail.com> wrote in
<86b1a121-5e70-48af...@googlegroups.com>:

>I recently bought asslr.org to start as a side project to replace asstr. I would love some feedback on what features .........

Hi Some Dude,

Sorry for taking so long to respond and rdodger made good points. Here are
a few more general thoughts in random order.

* Upload list – Indicate ‘new' or ‘updated' and skip those with just typo
correction (determined by author).

* In the US words are pretty safe but images can be problematic. Unless
you have some review capability it might be best, i.e., safer not to allow
them. NB: IMNAL

* Have a response form capability for those who want to be anonymous.
Applies for both authors and readers.

* Register similar domains before they grabbed for porn especially
asslr.com and asslr.net.

* Don't need editing capability just upload (new/replace) and delete.

* SFTP and/or FTPS are both secure and have available agents (e.g.,
Filezilla). Require secure logon and transfer.

* Perhaps have both <user>.asstr.org/<file> and asstr.org/<user>/<file>
going to same place for some people prefer one or the other.

* Support Unicode and encourage it although allow others.

* Have visitor counts and perhaps even country counts.

* Have a donation site.

* Have search capabilities perhaps by embedding Google search.

* Have search just for title, key words, and summary as defined in HTML
headers meta tags.

* Block auto redirect except within the site.

* Stories should be HTML or perhaps plain text that wraps to screen width.
PDF is really a paper image and not appropriate for narrow screens. Of
course allow js and css files.

* Have author list.

* Allow collections.

HTH

Y.

Valid return address is <YLeeCoyote (at) juno.com>
(Posting address is for the spammers)

See my stories at http://www.asstr.org/~YLeeCoyote/

P & E

[Some Dude]

With asstr.org going down, I think it's time I invested some effort into a modern replacement. I'll work on a prototype this weekend to have a basic replacement for user pages with FTP access. Going to have to research a good configurable FTP server I can control with some code.

It will take longer to figure out a way to aggregate all the uploads and make them searchable with listings on the homepage. At least people could get to their favorite authors if I keep the URL's close to the same.

- Some dude

[Mecca B]

Hey, this also has me thinking about starting my own site. You seemed to have progressed further on it, so I'd be willing to help out where needed.

My thought was to buy a domain, get some cheap hosting, and then use WordPress as the initial form of the site. WordPress basically has all the features an erotica site needs, with authors being able to login and post their stuff, with access controls and the whole bit. But I also could write plugins or even write a custom site built on Apache/Tomcat/Jetty if we wanted a few more custom features.

I don't think FTP is the best way to upload content. I'd like to have a more modern file upload system, which I think WordPress has.

[Some Dude]

FTP is definitely not the long term solution, but it's one which the existing authors are familiar with so transitioning will be fast. The initial version is a stop gap. I have some ideas to mitigate some of the short comings of FTP which I will experiment with.

If the original site comes back online, my goal is to make it possible to create a mirror quickly.

After it's working and if the authors adopt it, I will start evaluating the next steps to modernize the site.

[Mecca B]

Sounds great.

[Some Dude]

May be able to use a wayback machine (archive.org) downloader to get some of the site back. You could investigate that if you wanted.

[Geri Nichols]

[Geri Nichols]

You may not be able to use WordPress. The author, Janus, formerly on asstr.org, had a series called 'Pam & Jeremy'. He transferred the series to WordPress and wrote some new chapters to the series. Suddenly, he was suspendered from his account for no reason. No explanation was given. He then moved to: ArchiveofOwn. He thinks it is because the 2 characters were involved in preteen sex. Pam was 20 something & Jeremy was 12 years old. He did some images on his series, but nothing obscene with them. So you may not be able to publish on WordPress. Just want to let you know. Geri

[Eli the Bearded]

In alt.sex.stories.d, Geri Nichols <gerinic...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You may not be able to use WordPress. The
> author, Janus, formerly on asstr.org, had a
> series called 'Pam & Jeremy'. He transferred the
> series to WordPress and wrote some new chapters
> to the series. Suddenly, he was suspendered from
> his account for no reason. No explanation was
> given.

There's a good point to be made here. If you rely on hosting from
someone else (eg Wordpress on Wordpress servers), you can find the rug
torn out from under you very fast.

If you self-host Wordpress, not as likely to have issues like that, but
it is more work.

> He then moved to: ArchiveofOwn.

As in
https://archiveofourown.org/
? Or self-hosted using
https://github.com/otwcode/otwarchive/
? The first seems to be invite only, which may mean that they don't have
funding to scale fast. The second is the code for self-hosting.

There are other options. The "Content Managment Systems" at
https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
(and some of the other categories, maybe hubzilla or one of the blogging
platforms) can give ideas.

As for ftp servers: if it's compatible with your method to make the
site, vsftpd is probably a good choice.

Using sftp (which is different than ftps) is better, but the tooling for
authors may be different.

Using something very fast to set up, and then iterating to something
better is my recommendation. I would not pick Wordpress as fast to set
up. It's fast to install, but post-install config is more complicated.
BUT if you already know how to do that, maybe not so bad.

Elijah
------
ran qz.to prior to asstr

[Some Dude]

Phase 1 will just use virtual private server from a hosting provider, Nginx webserver, and vsftpd for FTP. Users will be authenticated with a SQL database. Will route https://{user}.asslr.org and https://asslr.org/~{user} to their assigned FTP directory. Will need some test users who can try to upload their stories so I can work out the kinks.

Phase 2 will involve building a file index to allow for searching and increasing security. A basic home page will be added with a search and authors list. All files will be served via a proxy to allow for hit tracking in the future. Need to find a path forward to handle images since they are my biggest concern. Also need to determine how authors will sign up and be verified in some way so it's not just a free hosting service for bad actors.

[HBB Writes]

> > > I recently bought asslr.org to start as a side project to replace asstr. I would love some feedback on what features .........

> > > With asstr.org going down, I think it's time I invested some effort into a modern replacement.

Yeah, seriously! And NOT the fun and sexy kind of "going down" either... 🤣
Instead, in the case of ASSTR, it's looking a lot more like the Titanic -- just sadly and tragically sinking into the murky depths of the ocean. While Celine Dion is positioned somewhere off to the side, at a moderate distance and with a complete concert-grade audio/amplification set-up, passionately belting out the lyrics of "My Heart Will Go On" as the harsh, icy winds carry her resounding voice over the vast, dark expanses!

> > > Hey, this also has me thinking about starting my own site. You seemed to have progressed further on it, so I'd be willing to help out where needed.

Awesome sauce! But in fact, this also reminds me of MY own "feature suggestion" that I wanted to strongly encourage:

1. A more robust and "fail-safe" kind of infrastructure/organization in terms of administration, moderation, tech. maintenance, etc. -- i.e., more "fault-tolerant" with respect to the "human being" aspect of things!
2. A somewhat decentralized/distributed approach to privileges, permissions, access, and various "executive" aspects of running the site -- where the absence or departure of any single individual doesn't put the community at risk of waking one morning to find the whole thing gone, with no recourse to keep things turning.

Instead of the present scenario, where our only option is to pin our hopes on one, single individual -- and the ever-dwindling possibility of receiving a concrete status update after -- based on the various older messages I've browsed -- what appears to be more or less literally years of "radio silence" 😢

[Some Dude]

I will make sure there is not a single point of failure for this new setup. I'm not 100% how to handle it yet since it would take a lot of trust in strangers. It will be hard to decide who should have high level access.

One issue will be paying for hosting. I'm researching providers now and most prohibit the type of content asstr contains. Since paying anonymously isn't really possible for most reliable hosts, my real identity will be tied to it. It will be hard to make a group of people who can manage all aspects of the site without revealing who we are.

[Y Lee Coyote]

On Thu, 4 Aug 2022 19:29:31 -0700 (PDT), Some Dude <somedu...@gmail.com>
wrote in <99be11b2-61e8-483f...@googlegroups.com>:

<snip>

>Phase 1 will just use virtual private server from a hosting provider, Nginx webserver, and vsftpd for FTP. Users will be authenticated with a SQL database. Will route https://{user}.asslr.org and https://asslr.org/~{user} to their assigned FTP directory. Will need some test users who can try to upload their stories so I can work out the kinks.

I can do that. Have a mirror of my site and Filezilla installed with FTP,
SFTP, FTPS and options.

Just ask in an email with directions. :)

YLeeC...@juno.com

See my status page at
https://yleecoyote.weebly.com/
for my temporary hosts

[light]

can't wait for your site to appear guys

[Eli the Bearded]

In alt.sex.stories.d, Some Dude <somedu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I will make sure there is not a single point of
> failure for this new setup. I'm not 100% how to
> handle it yet since it would take a lot of trust
> in strangers. It will be hard to decide who
> should have high level access.

Automatic backups to some other infrastrucure would help.

> One issue will be paying for hosting. I'm
> researching providers now and most prohibit the
> type of content asstr contains.

What are you considering? I'd probably stick this on AWS "ec2" instances
or Digital Ocean "droplets". Those providers are already hosting enough
variety of stuff to probably be good.

US law is pretty protective of written word, it's images that get
sketchy. But you also have protection under Section 230 for content you
host but didn't create.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230

(Ironically, the provisions against "indecent" material in that law,
provisions since struck down, are why I started an archive of assm all
those years ago.)

> type of content asstr contains. Since paying
> anonymously isn't really possible for most
> reliable hosts, my real identity will be tied to
> it. It will be hard to make a group of people
> who can manage all aspects of the site without
> revealing who we are.

It would cost you more, but a place like Panix(.com) would let you pay
be money order in the mail. Panix is pretty strong on the free speech
side of things, too.

Elijah
------
twenty plus year panix customer

[Chris H]

I'm happy to help, too. I use Linux and can ftp/sftp the local copy of my site, which is quite large (~1000 files).

~Chris (email: chrish...@protonmail.com)

[Tap Dance]

Will it be possible to upload mirrors (assuming that someone has site rips) of the old collections and old author pages? In particular I'm thinking about Lesbian Lolita and Loliwood Studios.

Also asslr.org doesn't seem to work, I assume that's because it's in maintenance mode? When I checked it a week ago it was reachable but said something like coming soon.

TapDancer

[Some Dude]

I researched using Amazon Web Services a year ago and it seems they have strengthened their language on under age content since last time I read the TOS. Sucks because I had the DNS pointed and an EC2 server setup to start configuring last night.

The best option so far seems to be Hostgator, they specifically say they will host anything which is legal in the US and the state of Texas. Confirmed it with a sales rep. The downside is, it is fairly expensive if you don't buy 12+ months and just not as configurable as AWS.

At least Let's Encrypt doesn't seem to forbid any sites, so I can get wildcard certificates easy once I find a good place for DNS hosting.

[Some Dude]

I'll let you know when it's ready. Have a few people to test now which is great.

[Some Dude]

Yes, I'm planning on hosting all the asstr content if we can find it.

I will be setting up the server this weekend which is why it's not available yet. Just have the domains at this point.