A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
Rules:
Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam posting.
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
No trolling.
Resources:
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
If its just for her, I don't really care what content I host for family unless it straight up nazi/gay hate shit. New age "found christian" movies are massive yuck, but innocuous otherwise. She's gonna consume them regardless of whether you host them or not.
Move it to its own library, make sure to rip in low quality (480p low bitrate) so you're not spending too much disk space in her, and let it be. It's not worth driving a rift in the family over.
Good level headed reply, I like this. Others have suggested that as well, I'll move the crud over to her own library, then it doesn't pollute my main library and I can hide it from the others.
I don't have this problem exactly, but what I would recommend is putting it in a specific separate library. You could even set it up so only your mother's account can access it, and you never have to see it, or you could have it visible but never go to it.
Would probably do this, but also rip it in very poor quality to be sure it does not take too much space :D
Malicious compliances in action. Not that you can't do, but this can tense up the relationship.
This is a good idea, and an approach I'm going to think about and probably take. Then it's away from everything else, and not polluting my actual good movies.
Separate library for her movies, only her user can access, done.
This here OP! ☝️
Jellyfin lets you do this easily.
A solution would be to place these movies in a seperate Library and only give your mother access to that library, so it does not show up for you other users.
This is it. Also given the low quality of the movies production wise you can even rip them at suboptimal settings. I am sure Mom won't care if she watches her Christian propaganda at 4k or 720p with some visual artifacts.
Pretty much this it gets it's own folder and in jellyfin it's own library. You just give mom access to this and whatever else you want to. you unselect that library for everyone else. The setting is under users. It's straightforward and is a check mark based select. You probably have it set to all libraries right now. Uncheck that and you can pick and choose per user.
I’m not entirely sure what those movies are like, and don’t want to know, but …..
My Mom watches horrible Hallmark stuff constantly. As far as I can tell, every movie has the same plot, they are low quality, etc. The thing is they are simple feel good movies for her. She finds them relaxing and gets good feelings from them, perfectly appropriate for “entertainment “.
If there is any parallel here, my point is that you don’t have to appreciate them for your Mom to. Why does it matter whether you agree with the movies or not: do you love her? Do you want to help her with entertainment that makes her feel good /relaxed/entertained?
Yeah this is the only post that I agree with so far.
To op, also have in mind that re watching movies many years later can feel a bit cringe even with great and recognized movies. People change their expectations over time and the collective aesthetics do too.
I tell people, like my friend that wanted a bunch of drivel kids stuff, that if they give me 2 hard drives I'll set them up as their own library.
You made an offer likely knowing what content your mother consumed.
Also, doing this for her means those charlatans aren't actually getting her money.
Something to consider in favor of doing your mom a solid.
Just make sure you out satanic films in the folder and rename them to Christian themed titles.
Just say you can't rip them because they have godly protection;)
They've got strong DRM (Divine Rights Management)
Just put them in a separate library and only share it with people that ask for it.
Do one of the following:
I'd personally use option 1, but you do you.
I don't know if you can do this with Jellyfin but this is what I could do with Plex:
In the end no one else sees Mom's special, while your mom sees everything and Mom's special.
You can do this with Jellyfin, exactly like your instructions.
Perfect. That checks one more requirement on my migration checklist. 🥹
I migrated from Plex to Jellyfin maybe a year and a half ago and haven't looked back. Great user experience and works so well out of the box IMO. Good Android app, too. Works with Chromecast, too (though I've been trying to ditch Chromecast in favor of just a laptop connected to the TV via HDMI).
I started digitizing old home movies that were on VHS and created a "Home Movies" library for my family; none of us had watched them in ages since none of us have a VCR anymore, lol. Great mother's/father's day gift for one's parent if you've got the time and equipment. It's nice having the whole family able to easily stream our home movies.
It was a mistake to agree to that. Also I don't see how the types of movies change a thing
For my wife, I have a separate library folder, mapped to just her account in Plex. It doesn't appear in my library at all, so I don't really care. Even better, I've spun up an Overseerr instance for her, so she can just search and auto-add anything she wants for herself.
If there are just a few movies just make a separate library or something. If there are a fuck ton of shit movies that takes up lots of time to rip or use lots of storage, just say no.
I say "no", but for your case and for your mom, I'd agree with what others have said, a standalone library.
BUT! Only the Christian movies. Put them in a library called "The Christerion Collection".
"Jewish Fanfics"
You could make a new movie library named “Christian Propaganda”, put them all in there, and only give your mom access. She’ll probably be mad, but it’ll be funny and you’re technically abiding by her request. Once you have your laugh, you can change the name to “Christian Movies”.
I'd just host them in a library only visible to mom and members that would want to view it.
Also consider the unintentionally comedic value of such films, they're sometimes fun to watch just because of how bad they are.
I disagree with my mah and old man a lot. But, when I was having hard times as a kid, giving them headaches and heartaches, and when I struggled as an adult they were there to tell me they loved me, hug me, feed me regardless of what I believed. They have always loved me unconditionally.
If it ain't illegal. I'll host it for them, no questions asked. If I ever needed anything, those are two people I know will be there every time, without fail. It's the least I can do to try and pay them back, even if I know I never could.
I'd keep the physical library around and just digitize as and when she asks for specific stuff. You'll probably never back up half the library. That or stick it on a HDD out of the way and transfer the few she wants, then tuck the drive in a draw forever in case she wants something else.
Jellyfin must have a feature like Plex where certain user accounts can have certain libraries attached? You could use that to avoid having to look at those crappy movies in your library.
I don't really have much of an issue with family recommendations but I do tell them that the space isn't unlimited so if they don't watch something they asked for I'm likely to remove it for something we WILL watch. In your case, you could at least have leverage to get her to narrow down what needs hosting and what doesnt.
I mean, you don't have to watch it.
I don't like hosting things I disagree with for others to view and consume
So don't?
I'd say a good middle ground could be making that stuff only visible from your mom's user (or even setting up a completely separate server)?
It depends on what YOU want to do, really... personally, I would be ok hosting religious nonsense if asked, as long as it's not generally available in kids' accounts and stuff (also, porn), but I would come clean and outright refuse if it was neonazi,racist and/or conspiracy stuff. It depends on where you decide to draw the line.
BTW: there's also the passive/aggressive, cowardly option of sayng "I'll rip them when I have time" and then sequester all the DVDs and only ever find the time to rip the ones you don't mind
"No."
User requests come through ombi and I'll reject whichever ones I feel like. No explanations, I just don't.
Host it exclusively to her user or don't host it at all. If you're not going to host it, you know your mother better than any of us, so you'll know which approach would work better.
Troll mode: Rip the first 5 minutes of each movie then splice in Rick Astley
Troll activist mode: Rip the first 5 minutes of each movie then splice in Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion live reading
Troll comedian mode: Rip the first 5 minutes of each movie then splice in Monty Python's The Life of Brian
Activist mode: Find a set of movies to rename that teach about the harm religion has caused
Ethical absolutist mode: Refuse to host them, and explain why
Non-confrontational familial support mode: Give Mom a unique user and make the god movies only accessible to that user
In all seriousness it depends on what your priorities are. Is it more important to you to provide judgement-free support to your mom so she knows she can rely on you, or is it more important to try to reduce harm in the world by deplatforming harmful media? Or maybe it's more important to try to teach your mom what's wrong with those movies and you can come to an arrangement where she can watch those movies only if she agrees to watch movies you choose in equal amounts (since you can track it) to counteract the propaganda?
What is most important to you?
I loooove bad movies. Not religious-bad, more mystery science theater bad.
I rip everything and plunk it into it's own library just for me.
If you have the space and time, go ahead and limit access to her. She's already seen them or will anyway. You hosting a file for one individual isn't going to tip the grand scale of anything.
If you have a moral issue against it, don't host the content. You've already made up your mind, it's just taking you a while to realize it.
Ive not shared mine to the point anyone can arbitrarily get media. They have to ask. And I can always say “Oh its not available on my sources” or whatever
Build her a server, install it at her house, set up some sort of automated DVD ripping mechanism so that she can digitize her own collection, wait for the inevitable tech support call, then go spend a Sunday afternoon fixing her server and digitizing her collection for her while she makes you dinner. You get to call it "quality time", and you get fed while keeping her happy and her collection as far away from yours as possible. Win/win, everyone is happy.
Whenever people ask me to put up right wing propaganda type shit I just say I can't find it
Use your words. Tell her you don't want to and why.
Well, just don't host them, what she gonna do? Tell the police ?