Meetings

Board Meeting - Q1 2026

Time:
Attendees:

Mark:
A large donation came in from the Donor Advised Fund!
sent us a really nice email and everything 🥰
what a great way to end the year!

Kiran:
wow! is it the first time they've heard about the organization?

Mark:
seems so!
we haven't been able to do much promotion
people may be finding us through search engines
word of mouth

Mark:
the service has been negatively impacted by bots all year... again
hammering the server
flooding it with excessive requests
taking down the entire service at times
so now restricting apps from accessing the service in severe cases of abuse
there's been some negative sentiment due to the restrictions

Kiran:
some people may be confused after not having access
might be worth explaining that we’re just trying to stop the bad bots?

Mark:
initially, due to limited time and resources
needed a quick and dirty solution
which was to just block all activity the system detected was abusive
to prevent it from degrading the service
negative sentiment began after that
i suspect due to some false positives
but I've since had more time to more accurately identify the abusive behavior

agree people shouldn't be confused...
there's now failure messaging when access is blocked or restricted
should help with any confusion
the Apps page now shows the status of each app along with any issues
Apps (and users) can also now verify
to bypass any aggressive restrictions if needed

Kiran:
is the bot situation any better now?

Mark:
mostly...
stricter rate limits, better detection, improved messaging
has all really helped
it's greatly improved the performance of feeds
and the servers are much happier now :)

Kiran:
👍 I know you spent a ton of time trying to handle all of that

Mark:
lost some donors after the abuse protections
but gained a few more
donations are still up overall, though

Kiran:
worth it

Kiran:
The feeds aren't working in Inoreader at all right now?

Mark:
nope, outlined in issue 14
the app has knocked the service completely offline many times
its overwhelmingly aggressive with its requests
it's one of the biggest and most harmful to the service
their support refuses to resolve the issue and have rejected our help
the system automatically restricts its access
to avoid bringing down the service
feeds wont work in the application until the app is updated to better interact with the service
as suggested in our Developer's Guide

Mark:
found a workaround to get difficult feeds working: Instagram, X, Facebook, etc
but not free...
I've been donating my own funds to accommodate
more donations could help
still thinking about it...
need to dig deeper to determine long-term feasibility

Kiran:
how much will it cost?

Mark:
hard to get a definitive number due to bots and excessive traffic
if it proves reliable, seems like a good investment
but if not, we may not be able to support these kinds of feeds just yet
or at least until we find a cheaper alternative
we'll see what the year brings

Mark:
speaking of the new year
not much happens in between our meetings
probably don't need to meet so frequently
are we OK with changing these meetings to once a year instead of every quarter?

Kiran:
fine with me

Mark:
cool, will update the Bylaws