BookWyrm - an ActivityPub alternative to GoodReads

[jdaviescoates]

Social reading and reviewing, decentralized with ActivityPub

Looks like it's still early days, but one to watch:

https://joinbookwyrm.com/
https://github.com/bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm
https://docs.joinbookwyrm.com/installing-in-production.html
https://patreon.com/bookwyrm

[RoundHouse1924]

@jdaviescoates
Plenty of release activity since OP:-
https://github.com/bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm/tags

Silly licence --- watch out, in the case of "commercial" activity:-
https://github.com/bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm/blob/main/LICENSE.md

BookWyrm Android app at IzzyOnDroid:-
https://android.izzysoft.de/applists/category/named/reading_ebookreaders
https://github.com/PrivacyDragon/Bookwyrm_Android

Twitter account interestingly active:-
https://twitter.com/BookWyrmSocial

All in all, well worth looking into!

[LoudLemur]

@RoundHouse1924

The "anti-capitalist licence 1.4" is indeed funny:

The User is one of the following:

An individual person, laboring for themselves
A non-profit organization
An educational institution
An organization that seeks shared profit for all of its members, and allows non-members to set the cost of their labor

What happens if you are unemployed? Who is going around ensuring compliance and enforcing this licence? I wonder what the earlier versions were like...

Anyway, it is nice to have an alternative to Amazon controlled Goodreads...

[ei8fdb]

@jdaviescoates This looks very interesting. I've been looking for something to manage a UX book club community idea on.

This might be something I could use.

Do you have experience on it?

[jdaviescoates]

@ei8fdb nope. I'd just love to have all these Fediverse tools on Cloudron

[jdaviescoates]

Some updated links:

https://joinbookwyrm.com/
https://github.com/bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm
https://docs.joinbookwyrm.com/installing-in-production.html

( @staff I'd add these to the OP if I were able )

[RoundHouse1924]

@jdaviescoates said in BookWyrm - an ActivityPub alternative to GoodReads:

I'd add these to the OP if I were able

Does that mean users are not allowed to edit the top post, for some reason?

[jdaviescoates]

@RoundHouse1924 yes, after a certain amount of time posts get locked (spam prevention, I think)

[girish]

@jdaviescoates thanks! updated.

Does that mean users are not allowed to edit the top post, for some reason?

@RoundHouse1924 yes, often once they get a 1 or 2 point reputation, they go back and edit the posts to have spam links.

[stormgrass]

I second this. Would be great to use this as a Goodreads alternative.

[jaschaezra]

I am running an instance outside of cloudron and it is really a nice thing

Would love to run it with cloudron

[LoudLemur]

@jdaviescoates made a great request here and very early in the BookWyrm's development. A lot has improved since then. Here is an ai generated summary. Lets support BookWyrm on Cloudron!

Bookwyrm Improvements: v0.0.1 to v0.8.0

Core Features

• Introduced user export and import functionality, with files now saved to /exports in local storage by default, and automatic deletion of import files post-completion.
• Updated minimum Postgres version to 14 (17 preferred) and Django to 5.2 for enhanced core stability and compatibility.
• Added management command to merge works, improving data handling for book entries.
• Added dates to RSS feeds and sorted them by most recent first for better content delivery.

User Interface/UX

• Display "no rating" instead of blank stars for reviews without ratings, improving visual clarity.
• Use translated shelf names in notifications for shelving other editions, enhancing multilingual support.
• Retain subjects and authors in the new book form even if validation fails, reducing user frustration during input.

Social/Community Features

• Show all reports (not just open ones) when linked from user admin, aiding moderation.
• Fixed federation issues with GoToSocial and inconsistent KeyId in headers, improving interoperability.

Book Management

• Optimized get_audience function by fetching only IDs, streamlining book-related queries.
• Enabled merging of works via a new management command for cleaner book database management.

Performance/Optimization

• Optimized get_audience by only fetching IDs to reduce query overhead.
• Increased default file upload limit to 100MiB, configurable via MAX_UPLOAD_MiB in .env.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed federation with GoToSocial and inconsistent KeyId in headers.
• Retained subjects and authors when new book form fails validation.
• Updated nginx config requirements, including new location blocks for static files and access restrictions to /images/.

Security/Privacy

• Included important security fixes in v0.8.0, with warnings to manually delete publicly available user export files (.gz) from images directories and S3 storage.
• Changed default DEBUG to false for production security; assumed HTTPS unless DOMAIN=localhost.
• Added optional S3 support for export files via new env variables like USE_S3_FOR_EXPORTS=true, with separate credentials for isolation.
• Deprecated USE_HTTPS and enforced HTTPS in production to prevent HTTP URLs in user/object IDs.
• Added nginx config to block access to non-image files in /images/ with 403 responses.

Documentation/Setup

• Introduced NGINX_SETUP env variable (values: reverse-proxy or https, defaults to https) for better proxy and dev environment handling.
• Updated default PORT to 443 (or 80 for localhost) if unset, differing from previous 1333 default.
• Provided detailed upgrade instructions for all environments, including Docker steps like docker compose down, database version upgrade to Postgres 17, and rebuilding with Django 5.2.
• Required manual nginx config updates in v0.7.2 for static file handling and security blocks.

Other

• Enabled optional S3 storage for exports with new env variables like EXPORTS_S3_CUSTOM_DOMAIN and EXPORTS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME.
• Encouraged deletion of legacy export files in S3, especially for Backblaze (B2) or Cloudflare (R2) due to potential unsecured buckets.

[scooke]

The new url for Production installation - https://docs.joinbookwyrm.com/install-prod.html