Mlem HTTP Server

[Sjmarf]

We need this for a number of features:

• Notifications for replies, mentions, messages etc (Notifications #72)
• More complex notifications than Lemmy supports, such as notifying when someone posts in a community or replies to a comment
• Sending a notification to the user when their registration application is approved (maybe)
• Replace MlemStats

Doing this will involve storing a user's auth token on the server. We should probably have it be a separate auth token from the Mlem app. Do we need to update the privacy policy if we want to do this?

I haven't looked that deeply into what languages or frameworks we could use for this. Using Swift might be a good idea, because we're already using it. Some brief researching suggests https://vapor.codes could be good? They've got built-in Apple Push Notification support.

Memmy's server is open source and written in TypeScript.

[d42ohpaz]

Please ping me when you get around to the cost analysis, as I'd like to offer my support as a donor.

[Sjmarf]

We've got a donation page here and are grateful for any contributions :) We haven't spent any of it yet; in future we'll be spending it on the server described here. We haven't looked into how much a server would actually cost just yet - there's a good chance we'll end up buying a cheap option and then upsizing as needed.

[d42ohpaz]

@Sjmarf Depending on the costs, I was thinking I might prepay you all one year of hosting.

[EricBAndrews]

The current plan is to begin implementation once 2.0 leaves beta. We'll perform a cost analysis once we have that work and the associated server requirements properly scoped and a server solution identified. @d42ohpaz I'll update this issue when that's all done. Thank you for your generosity!