My primary concern is setting up and rebuilding my communities, and not only rebuild them, but to welcome and...
My primary concern is setting up and rebuilding my communities, and not only rebuild them, but to welcome and incorporate potential new people that may come along. A lot of the current communities I moderate are open to 13+ but are suitable for all ages, so I'm concerned about learning curves.
-I've been trying to set up a community on friendica for a while. So far it's going slow, and while I'm eventually getting the hang of it, I have to admit that everything about it so far feels clunky and clumsy.
-Given the types of communities that I moderate, I'm extremely uncomfortable with Minds and Gab, so those options are out for me.
-Discord and Reddit have both been ok, so far.
-I hate Facebook.
Thus far, the platforms that have left a lasting impression with me, at least as far as setting up and building communities are MeWe, Diaspora, Hubzilla and Cake.
I'm still trying to explore more options, if anyone has any. I understand that no platform is perfect, but I'm not looking for perfection, just something good.
-I've been trying to set up a community on friendica for a while. So far it's going slow, and while I'm eventually getting the hang of it, I have to admit that everything about it so far feels clunky and clumsy.
-Given the types of communities that I moderate, I'm extremely uncomfortable with Minds and Gab, so those options are out for me.
-Discord and Reddit have both been ok, so far.
-I hate Facebook.
Thus far, the platforms that have left a lasting impression with me, at least as far as setting up and building communities are MeWe, Diaspora, Hubzilla and Cake.
I'm still trying to explore more options, if anyone has any. I understand that no platform is perfect, but I'm not looking for perfection, just something good.
MeWe is a simple learning curve for Communities to transition over to, and they're strongly engaged in soliciting feedback to improve their Groups to ease the transition.
ReplyDeleteI'm also trying to find the best platform to migrate my community to.
ReplyDeleteEli Fennell So far I like MeWe. It's one of the few that I've explored that didn't leave me wanting to tear my hair out. Hubzilla has been another great one, even if it is a little empty. I'm trying to give myself a few more months and not rush head first into things, but if I don't find anything else suitable, it looks like I'll be going the MeWe route after all.
ReplyDeleteI'm liking MeWe so far. Not too bad in terms of functionality, which I think is the most important for any community I join. Not as concerned if the rest of the public space on that network is popular or not, since most people will have to join the network as well as my community anyway, which is always the big hurdle.
ReplyDeleteYou might check in the left-hand navigation menu for this community and locate the AMAs tab - it's home for a series of "Ask Me Anything Q&As with representatives of several of the social media options people are exploring; the first one, with a representative of Mastodon, is up now, and worth reading through, including the comments. I plan to follow along as more of these are posted, as it's a rare opportunity to talk to the people who are creating these alternative spaces.
ReplyDeletePat Kight Thanks so much for the insight! I'll start reading the Mastodon AMA and will definitely be keeping up with AMAs in the future!
ReplyDeleteThe two communities I like the best are, I hope, headed for mewe. Where ever they go I will follow. If when you figure out where you are going post it. I might be one of your members and I could very well follow you.
ReplyDeleteGrupos in Minds
ReplyDeleteMinds.Com
Dreamwidth is easy to use and I suspect that it has more of the features that G+ had than any other service - including some that a lot of us wanted G+ to have, but it never did.
ReplyDeleteCommunities are easy to set up and run there. Free accounts have a lot of functionality. The one real drawback they have is that they do not have a mobile app.
Pam Mitchell So happy to see you here Pam. Your presence inspires hope. I have established a base camp on MeWe and consider you to be an essential connection. Send me an invite to anything you like there....trust is so essential, and I have loads of that for you. TNQ
ReplyDeletePeter Maranci I have seen the other recommends for Dreamwidth, but your endorsement compels me to check it out. Thank you Peter. TNQ
ReplyDeleteTodd Q Yes, trust is essential. I'm glad we have the good group that we are involved. in. Hows Holly doing?
ReplyDeletePam Mitchell Staying remarkably strong and laughing with me in the face of continued adversity. She is a redhead Scorpio after all. :) Thank you for asking, she sends her love. TNQ
ReplyDeletePeter Maranci I'll check out Dreamwidth. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteTodd Q That's good to hear. A redhead scorpio ..... tell her I said yikes! LOL!
ReplyDeleteHere's my Dreamwidth journal. I'd certainly be glad to link up there with anyone from here. And I'd be happy to answer any questions.
ReplyDeletebobquasit.dreamwidth.org - bobquasit | Recent Entries
nonie maylle If it helps, you've just captured the problem in a nutshell. That's what we're here about.
ReplyDeleteAre you talking to your community/ies? How many people? What are they familiar with / comfortable with? How are they leaning?
What features do you need? What do you want to avoid?
Pat Kight The AMAs are still in development. I'm trying to get a couple nailed down for dates and times.
ReplyDeleteI'm also looking for specific requests, and contacts. And of course, word back from Google.
Current status, requests, details, format, etc.
social.antefriguserat.de - Ask Me Anything - PlexodusWiki
nonie maylle should read "How to Plan an Exodus" as well, for thoughts on considerations and planning:
ReplyDeletesocial.antefriguserat.de - How to plan an exodus - PlexodusWiki
Edward Morbius Thanks! Yes, I'm keeping my communities in the loop as far as what's going on and any progress I've made/am making. Right now my largest community is over 7k+ people, but even in the smaller or quieter ones, I'm trying to keep people notified.
ReplyDeleteAs far as comfort level, I'm looking mostly for something that's suitable for all ages, and friendly & easy enough to jump into. I'm trying to stay away from anything that's too technical, even if it means just a slight technological/engineering background. For me it's no a big deal; I don't mind taking my time to learn, but for others, especially people who are much older/younger who are in my communities, I know that even just a little bit can be very intimidating and ultimately discouraging. It's kind of the reason why I'm so hesitant to go forward with friendica: it's powerful, has really great features, and I'm eventually getting into it, but I have to admit that even for me, the learning curve has been a little steep.
As far as features, it would be wonderful to find a platform that has very liberal moderation tools, and would allow me to add additional moderators as necessary. On this front, MeWe, Hubzilla, and Friendca have been very good 👍; Reddit and Discord have been ok. 👌
And generally speaking, I'm trying to avoid platforms that have administrators who either encourage or take part in pushing specific agendas.
To be blunt, at worst I'm looking for platforms that are generally left of center to apolitical, and at best, unsupportive of wacko conspiracy theories and far-right/alt-right nonsense, even if such things exist on the platform. The reason I'm looking for this is because I've been a part of so many platforms like that in the past, and each time without fail, these platforms have always devolved into festering beds of hostility, pseudo-science, conspiracy theories, support of mass-elimination of entire groups of people, and just outright hatred for humanity. From my past experience, I've seen and learned that this happens primarily because the administrators either support these views, or don't want to take action against them.
As a result civil discourse eventually breaks down and demoralizes the community, leading to one of two outcomes: either the community becomes so poisoned that no one other than far-right/alt-right voices can speak without being drowned out or attacked, or the community dissolves and eventuality dies.
I have a lot of younger people in my communities. They're very active and vibrant, so I'm confident that activity won't be a problem. However, it personally wouldn't sit well with me at all knowing that I played a part in normalizing such behavior by supporting those who uphold these kinds of platforms. It's the primary reason I am extremely uncomfortable with Minds and Gab.
G+ had all of this in just the right amounts, and plenty to spare...but no use crying about it I guess. 😑 Again, I know that whatever platform I find is not going to be perfect. But I do want something that compromises the least of all these things.
I don't want to put too tight a time limit on things, and I don't want to rush, but idealistically speaking, I would love to have something viable by the end of this year. I'm trying to find a platform now, because this will give me time to learn just enough at first glance and assist if any problems arise.
I know this post is long, but I do hope it explains my reasoning. I'll continue to look for a new place, and will do more research around here too. I really hope I find something good.
nonie maylle Good thoughts and well articulated.
ReplyDeleteThere are also Google Groups and mailing lists, which are old-school.
I've my differences with Reddit, but it may suit many of your needs. The moderation tools are powerful, if somewhat eclectic. My main issue there is actually Reddit's policies regarding forum ownership. If a moderator or owner goes offline for 6 months, any other user can request control of the forum. That's something I've never been comfortable with, and really doesn't suit Reddit's present scale and model (~1 million forums, most with at best a handful of users, some very large ones with millions of members).
Site dynamics, and the features driving them, is something else I'm looking at and have an interest in, and that's very hard to break down into specific feature sets.
I tend to favour more technical and novel options (as well as Free Software / Federated ones), though that doesn't suit everybody. There's some possiblities of hosted solutions so that you don't have the operational hassles, and that may open up, though expecting that by, say, January 2019, is probably optimistic.
You don't mention any blogging sites -- you might want to add those to your search list. Wordpress has phenomenal coverage, there's Dreamwidth, which tends to foster smaller communities, and Drupal is a popular and powerful option with hosting providers who can run the site. There are others.
Edward Morbius thanks for the suggestions. I'm actually checking out dreamwidth this week, and I'll add wordpress to that too. I don't know much about Drupal, but I will definitely add it to my potentials and see what it's about. Thanks again. :)
ReplyDeleteSverigeaktiviteter 2.0 Toxoplasma of Rage is a good read.
ReplyDeletehttp://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/
slatestarcodex.com - The Toxoplasma Of Rage