Bonfire: A Social Platform Apart

This article explores what sets Bonfire apart (for its users) from closed commercial social platforms and even its peers on open social.

(And it will also note which capabilities our Manade project will or will not enable. Manade is an example / starter private instance of Bonfire that {preferably} local communities can {preferably} use democratically to support themselves against techno feudalism and surveillance capitalism without government interference).

The Difference

As mentioned in a previous article:

"Bonfire stands apart from other Fediverse platforms due to its Circles, Boundaries, and upcoming Groups. Designed for extensibility and experimentation, it focuses on local-first, community-driven governance. It's also more privacy/security-focused than its peers."

You can get into the nitty gritty of any of the topics below by visiting the Bonfire documentation.

I am basically simplifying and paraphrasing them in this article in any case. Like most of us, I am fairly new to Bonfire myself.

Profiles

You can have four profiles per Bonfire account which is unique. They show up as separate identities - personal, work, or project / community ones for example.

Consequently, you have both one account and individual profile settings.

As you would expect, account settings are the default preferences for all your profiles (language, notification preferences, privacy defaults, etc.).

Profile settings override those defaults for your individual profiles. This gives you the freedom to customize how each profile appears and behaves, independently from your main account.

Create or manage profiles by:

• going to your account settings and selecting Profiles.
• clicking Create Profile.
• setting a username and display name
• adding a bio
• and adding an avatar

That’s it.

Then choose privacy setting options for each profile:

• "People need to make a request before they can follow me." When enabled, others must send a follow request that you approve before they can follow your profile.
• "Make my profile publicly discoverable." When you choose this your profile can be found in Bonfire directories, the Fediverse, and search engines. (This won't be enabled in Manade as it's a private community by default).
• "Make my content searchable." This choice allows your posts and content to be indexed and found via search in Bonfire, the Fediverse, and search engines. (Again this will be disabled by default in Manade).

Your admin will be able to set up whatever your community desires.

Your Bonfire address is in the format:

@username@yourinstance.etc

Where username is the name you choose when signing up. And yourinstance.etc is the domain of the Bonfire instance you joined.

You will also have a link to an individual profile, such as https://yourinstance.etc/@you (personal) or https://yourinstance.etc/@your_project. (project profile).

Also note that by default, your different profiles are not publicly linked—each appears as a separate identity.

You can switch between profiles as needed when posting or interacting.

Finally, remember to select your preferred settings for each profile.

Circles

Bonfire Circles are lists of users that individual users and admins can create based on levels of trust and intimacy. And permissions control circle activities.

Shared Circles are co-managed by users and can include other Fediverse users (interoperability). (Again this will be disabled for Manade as it's a members only, quick start instance).

Everyone in a circle can be followed. Circles can also be used as lists or to filter sidebar feeds. And they can be made into custom feeds.

Bonfire allows you to define circles based on your unique style of relationships and interests. And circles give you the ability to manage relationships and activities in a way that works for you.

You can find your circles in settings and create new ones. Add members to a circle when creating it or by editing an existing circle.

And every circle has its own feed, showing posts and activities from its members.

Circles are private by default, but you can share a circle with others.

When someone receives your share link (and has permission via the boundary you selected), they can:

• View the circle's feed and see activities from its members.
• See a list of members and optionally click a "Follow all members" button to quickly follow everyone in the circle.

Admins can create default circles. Bonfire also comes with some default circles, like “people I follow”. Obviously, these capabilities makes it simple to coordinate, discover, and connect with others in your Bonfire instance. It's all up to you.

Boundaries

As you might expect, Boundaries are limits that you place on yourself or other users to control what you're comfortable with while using Bonfire.

They control how others interact with individual users' content / posts / activities etc. And there are many options.

Bonfire succinctly notes: "Boundaries takes things to the next level by enabling you to combine one or more circles and then grant specific roles to each circle."

And they are compatible with Mastodon quote authorizations and GoToSocial interaction controls. (But not for Manade of course).

With Boundaries you can allow your "friends" circle to reply and like, but restrict "acquaintances" to only read. You can even block a specific user from interacting at all.

Define boundaries when posting or create one in your boundary settings. Just give it a name and description and you can reuse it anytime you post and want to apply the same boundaries.

Groups

Bonfire Groups have come along since some of our previous articles.

They are self-governed spaces where members from different servers coordinate, collaborate, and organize around shared topics without platform lock-in. (Obviously, this will be disabled in Manade. Again, it's a private not public starter instance. But you can also create groups inside a Manade instance. I think.)

Anyway, groups can be public, private, or unlisted with fine-grained control over who can see their content.

Community members can join groups, leave at any time, and admins will manage membership, roles, and permissions. Along with moderators they manage content and enforce community standards.

As an user, you may create posts, discussions, and threaded conversations within a group. These are separate from your personal feed. This is fairly unique in the Fediverse.

When enabled, group posts and activities can appear in remote Fediverse platforms. There, remote users can interact with them at a basic level.

And you can discover public groups based on interests, topics, or recommendations.

Channels

Groups can have multiple channels (topics / rooms) for various topics. This has the benefit of allowing group members to organize conversations without everything collapsing into one poorly navigable feed. This is similar to Matrix's functionality.

Feeds, Custom Feeds, & Filters

Speaking of feeds, Bonfire gives you powerful tools to customize your experience via your navigation controls as well as in feeds and timelines.

Select the feeds that appear in your navigation section. They include:

• presets like Following, Local, Articles, Bookmarks, Explore, Likes, and more (Events, Audio, Images, Bookmarks, etc.).
• and your custom circles of people are also shown as feeds, as mentioned above.

You can filter feeds:

• by content types (only images, only articles, only events, etc.).
• by activity types (only boosts, only replies, etc.).
• and by time range, local / remote, and more.

Extensibility

Widgets

Bonfire developers can create widgets. They are reusable components that encapsulate data and provide context-specific information to users based on the pages they are currently viewing.

Widgets are typically placed in the right sidebar and developers can define which widgets should appear on each page and in what order.

Developers can also include options for users to enable, disable, or rearrange the order of some widgets.

They usually consist of a title and data formatted in various ways. They could include links, data visualizations, actions, or information fetched from third-party apps.

(FYI, Manade will try to avoid 3rd party widgets and apps unless Bonfire explicitly integrates them. For example Ghost CMS and their LAUTI calendar capabilities. And I am not sure about those to be honest).

Extensions

(Also, Manade will come with limited extensions {maybe the two below}, at this point.)

Bonfire's extensions are code collections that deliver new features and enhance the platform's functionality. Or they could create a different user experience for an existing feature.

For example adding entirely new pages, such as bonfire_invite_links. These let admins create and share invites with usage limit and expiration date. They could also implement specific components or widgets.

Another example is bonfire_editor_milkdown, which integrates a markdown-first editor for publishing activities. Which is fantastic as we recommend writing everything in markdown.

Extensions are versatile:

• they can implement their own schema, database, logic, and components
• they can leverage existing fields, context functions, and UI components
• or more commonly, a combination of both.

So, your instance's developers and admins have a tremendous amount of customization power.

Community-driven governance

Instance admins also have access to advanced tools to manage users, extensions, and the overall health of their Bonfire instance.

These tools include:

• user management
• instance settings
• circles, roles & boundaries management
• and advanced monitoring and maintenance.

Of course your community's admins, moderators, and user members can democratically agree on its norms.

(As a starter instance, Manade will be a magical kingdom run by an enlightened despot, me. 😉 But, communities will customize it in their image {democratic I hope} once their admins have the instance up and running).

Privacy/security-focused

As you saw in the boundaries section above, Bonfire provides flexible tools to help you manage your experience, protect your boundaries, and keep your community safe.

You can also flag or hide posts.

To flag, report a post to moderators for review. You should explain which boundaries were broken and the action you request. To hide a post just remove it your feed. You can still view it via direct link.

Blocking in Bonfire includes silencing and ghosting.

If you silence someone it hides all content from that user in your feeds. You won't see their posts, mentions, or messages, but you can still view their profile via direct link.

Ghosting stops a user or instance from seeing or interacting with you or your content. They won't see your private posts, can't follow you, and you can't mention or message them.

When you block someone Bonfire combines both the silence and ghost functionality.

You can manage your block, silence, and ghost lists from the Safety section in the sidebar. You are in total control. This is rare in the Fediverse.

Bonfire also lets you import blocklists from trusted sources to silence or ghost multiple users or instances at once. These are a fantastic resource.

And of course admins and moderators can do all of this instance wide. Be sure to give them your input.

OK, that's enough for now.

Wrapping it up

As you have seen, Bonfire might (just maybe) have the potential to be the everything app of the open web. 🤯

And it contributes to the trend of people leaving public social for authentic, private, and preferably local communities. This a truly fortunate one IMHO. 😈

In any event, Bonfire is very flexible, customizable, and even a little anarchic. 🏴‍☠️

Other open social platforms will have similar capabilities. And there are simpler options available. I am impressed with Acorn from Blacksky which is built with ATProto. However, it's not self-hostable.

But for the reasons stated here, I believe Bonfire provides the flexibility and potential to alter what social media and the open web mean to communities. And that is supporting communities against techno feudalism and surveillance capitalism. ⛓️‍💥 Fuck them and techno fascists. 🗡️💣 🪢

That's why we've fallen in love with the idea of Bonfire. And our Manade project 🐴 is going to help in a small way to bring that potential to fruition and to you and your communities!

Thanks for reading and go build a community on Bonfire. 🔥 Eventually you will be able to with Manade.