Hey guys! We are @lukas and @groctel. We are both moderators of reddit.com/r/neovim. With the latest changes to Reddit, we have decided to try out alternatives for our community. You can read more about our discussion here.

This Kbin instance is the result of that.

What is a Kbin?

Kbin is an open source, federated alternative to Reddit. It’s still in early development, so it doesn’t have all the features that Reddit does right now, and it probably won’t, since the owners of both projects may have different views on what the platforms should offer. You can take a look at https://kbin.social/, its main instance.

What is federation, and what does it mean for the user experience?

Federation is a feature offered by many online services that allow them to seamlessly communicate with other services. You may have heard of the Fediverse, which is the set of all sites connected to each other because they all use the same protocol. At a local scale, you don’t join a network (e.g. Mastodon) by creating an account on its single server; you first choose an instance, which is the server where you would like to create your account in, and from there you can reach every user in your instance and every instance in the network. At a global scale, your account is not restricted to a single network; since all networks use the same protocol you can interact with other networks. Imagine browsing an Instagram account directly from Twitter and re-tweeting the pictures you liked without needing and account in both sites.
The main idea is that users are free to roam the Fediverse and interact with it without being restricted by particular sites.

Introducing open-source.social

We have created a Kbin instance called open-source.social. The name implies that this instance intends to house communities that discuss free and open source software and not just Neovim, but that will come with time. Right now, the site is a blank canvas waiting to be painted. We have just opened a Neovim and test magazines (the equivalent for subreddits) and there are no posts there.
Feel free to create an account and give it a try! Create a post, comment, create in-topic magazines… Most importantly: Have fun!
We’re still experimenting and the site is just an MVP. If you encounter any issues, please reach out through Matrix Support.

What happens to r/neovim?

The subreddit will not go anywhere. We will continue to moderate this sub and the new Kbin instance. We don’t mind if you want to stay on Reddit, migrate to Kbin or use both. Any option is fine, really! Cross-posting and/or sharing links between Reddit and Kbin will also be allowed.
The idea of this project is to give the community the freedom to choose and a place to be able to gather where the interest of the platform are aligned with those of the communities. Our goal is not to ditch Reddit for good if that would hurt the community. We just want to be less reliant on big companies we have no control over.

Who is paying the bills?

For now, @groctel and I will cover all costs. In the future we might set up a way for users to donate and help keep the project alive.