Plain-language definitions for the jargon used across the tilde pages. Terms with a full page elsewhere link there. Adapted from the tilde repo wiki.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| alpine | Terminal email client, successor to pine. Config in .pinerc. Wikipedia |
| ascii art | Pictures drawn with plain text characters. Wikipedia |
| astrobotany | A gardening game on the gemini protocol at gemini://astrobotany.mozz.us. Water daily; 5 dry days kill the plant. Tied to your TLS client certificate |
| bashblog | A blog engine that is a single bash script: bb.sh post turns markdown into static HTML plus RSS. GitHub |
| bbj | “Bulletin Butter & Jelly”: a text-based forum shared across the tildeverse. bbj.tildeverse.org |
| bbs | Bulletin Board System: a computer dialed into by modem for forums, mail, files. Wikipedia |
| bink | tilde.town's file-sharing tool: put files in ~/.bink and get a link |
| botany | Command-line virtual plant game. Water daily or it dies; neighbours can water for you. GitHub |
| byobu | A friendly wrapper around tmux/screen: persistent terminal sessions with status bars. byobu.org. See tmux & byobu |
| capsule | What a site on the gemini protocol is called |
| cgi | Common Gateway Interface: lets a web server run a script to generate a page on request. Wikipedia |
| dotfile | A hidden file or directory whose name starts with a dot (.bashrc, .config/). Holds user configuration. Wikipedia |
| dovecot | Mail server software running IMAP on tilde.club; writes index files inside the maildir. dovecot.org |
| finger | A very old protocol for asking a server about a user; reads .plan and .project. See Finger |
| geek code | A 1993 signature format encoding interests and skills as a compact symbol string. Wikipedia |
| gemini | A lightweight protocol simpler than the web: .gmi pages, mandatory TLS, no cookies or scripts. See Gemini |
| gemlog | A blog on a gemini capsule: dated .gmi files indexed newest-first |
| gopher | A menu-driven document protocol from 1991, before the web. See Gopher |
| guestbook | A page or file where visitors leave public notes |
| home directory | Your private directory on a shared unix system, written ~ |
| htaccess | .htaccess: per-directory Apache config (redirects, access rules) |
| irc | Internet Relay Chat: the decades-old chat protocol tildes still use. Wikipedia |
| irssi | A terminal IRC client. irssi.org. See irssi |
| maildir | Email storage format: each message is one file, sorted into new/, cur/, tmp/. Wikipedia |
| mbox | The older mail format: one file holding many messages concatenated. Wikipedia |
| micro | A friendly terminal editor with familiar keybindings. micro-editor.github.io |
| moo | A text-based virtual world of rooms and programmable objects, older than IRC. tilde.town has one at /town/moo. Wikipedia |
| motd | “Message of the day”: the greeting a unix system prints at login, from /etc/motd. Wikipedia |
| plan | .plan and .project: files read by finger. .project is a one-line bio; .plan is what you are doing now |
| prosaic | A cut-up poetry generator: feed it source texts and a template (haiku, sonnet) and it assembles poems. GitHub |
| public_html | The directory a shared server publishes as your website root: public_html/index.html becomes host/~user/ |
| pubnix | Public access unix system: a shared unix machine giving accounts to the public. See Pubnix History |
| rsync | The standard tool for syncing directories; copies only what changed. See rsync |
| shell | The command-line interpreter you talk to when you log in. bash, csh, ksh, mksh, zsh are dialects. Wikipedia |
| sieve | A language for filtering email on the server: sort, reject spam, auto-reply. Wikipedia |
| ssh | Secure Shell: the encrypted protocol for logging in and moving files. Wikipedia |
| symlink | A file that points to another path, like a shortcut programs treat as real. Wikipedia |
| tar | The tape archiver: bundles a tree into one file (tar czf compresses). Useful where rsync is unavailable. Wikipedia |
| terminal multiplexer | Software (tmux, screen, byobu) that keeps sessions alive after disconnect. How you stay on IRC around the clock |
| tilde | A shared unix server where each user gets a ~ directory and a host/~user URL. See The Tildeverse |
| town square | tilde.town's world-writable communal directory, /town/square. See Town Square |
| ttbp | “tilde.town blogging platform,” invoked as feels: a diary tool where each day is one plaintext entry. GitHub |
| weechat | An extensible terminal IRC client. weechat.org |