This project is now depreciated and the qchat instance has been taken offline. Thanks for your participation ^.^

 

INFRAstructure: qchat

Queerzone3000 launches a new social network

Since this project began we have always been interested in the notion of space and how important it is for our communities to have space in which they feel safe and able to express themselves. We strongly believe that also this constitutes a space which is free from corporate or state surveillance.

In the past, this real time asynchronous communication was mostly carried out through IRC or XMPP, however these decentralised open protocols are now increasing showing their age and are increasingly being phased out by closed systems of communication (Facebook’s chat dropped XMPP support in 2015 and Google switches to “Hangouts” in 2013). Though there is still some great uses for these older protocols, we decided to investigate solutions that are more innovative and exciting.

The platform we are currently testing is called RocketChat, which is an open source “team collaboration” application similar to the proprietary (or closed source) Slack service. This chat paradigm has seen wide adoptions in communities and workplaces as a way of moving beyond email for group discourse. Though we mostly use Signal private messenger for our more personal communications, we felt it would be helpful to create a more public virtual space for our community.

RocketChat has support for a wide range of modern features including file sharing, encryption, inline content, video calling and native apps for all major computing platforms. We are currently hosting a RocketChat instance up on a Digital OceanUbuntu 16.04 server in their London data-centre.

This currently represents a compromise in term of privacy and security. On the upside, we control the server and can ensure it is secured and has no extra tracking capability than is necessary for basic functionality. On the downside, we still rely on a third party (Digital Ocean) to physically host and maintain the server hardware. If time and money were no concern, we would consider hosting a server that we have physical control of. We would also like to host RocketChat as TorOnion Service to make it easier for users to connect anonymously.

We would like to invite you to come share this online space with us as long as you abide by the following rules:

We require you to be respectful and kind towards others.

We will not tolerate:
Racism
Homophobia
Transphobia
Sexism
Misogyny
Bullying

Don’t spam. Don’t be annoying. Don’t be an asshole.

So feel free to enter into the qchat and say hey. Drop into the various channels and chat with us.

You can access qchat either through your web browser at https://chat.queerzone3000.tech/ or through a desktop or mobile app which you find here https://rocket.chat/download.

Just register a new account using your email and choose a strong unique password (see part one of our guide for securing your online communication).

The “Server URL” you will encounter on desktop/mobile apps is simply https://chat.queerzone3000.tech/.

We will be writing further tutorials on using qchat but give us a shout if you’re having issues: https://queerzone3000.net/contact/