Mastodawn

Andrew (Television Executive)

In very broad terms, the available Options:

- Forum software
- Fediverse server
- Chat software
- Live streaming video platforms
- Something email based
- An app (that combines so number of the above)

There are specific implementation details about each of these things that vary from software to software that might come with their own benefits or drawbacks, but I'm not going to talk about the specifics right now, I'm just talking about the general.

Each of these comes with problems:

- Forum software
- - Tends to be an attack target for both spammers and botnets
- - Needs a secondary comms channel to notify people that things have happened (which means email, which comes with all the problems of email)
- - Demands our people set up a fresh account, raises barrier to entry.

- Fediverse server
- - Confusing
- - Requires creating new account
- - Also exposes them to the larger fediverse which is fine but not the goal and reinforces point one
- - demanding of resources for moderation, new account creation, and server admin
- - Really really confusing

- Chat software
- - Too many options
- - Most of them have major drawbacks
- - Sets an expectation from our community that we're available in real time.
- - Either have to use a commercial platform (no!) or people have to create a new account (bad!)

- Live streaming video platforms
- - Needs a singanlling channel to let people know we're live
- - Requires dedication to performing certain times of day certain days of week.

- Something email based
- - Google decides who sees our stuff
- - Broadcast only, not conversation
- - No free mailing list providers anymore
- - Probably the best option for today.

- An app (that combines so number of the above)
- - Gotta register with app stores
- - Gotta maintain an app
- - Gotta convince people to install an app
- - Still need some or all of the above to expose within the app.

I should probably just start a newsletter for now, start collecting email addresses and seeing weekly updates, and then move to other methods in the future as we figure out what they are.

But it would be really great to come up with something a little more Flashy to be able to bring to people at upcoming shows.

What are the best platforms like this?

Are you a member of a fanclub style thing somewhere? What works? What doesn't?

A bunch of people I support on patreon or whatever offer discord "servers" for subscribers and I understand why, but that's letting discord own the conversation and I don't want that.

What do you like?

At the moment, I think our best option is probably: A newsletter from @buttondown or similar.

A forum from Discourse.

But I'm willing to explore other options, and also willing to pay for something that provides a more robust experience (whatever that means!) if it's compelling enough.

I just want a place where I can share behind the scenes stuff with people who care about that, and hype up our new stuff, but also stay in touch with the folks who are the most into what we're doing, and give them a chance to influence how things move forward and to get access to exclusives and that kind of thing.

I want to make it feel special.

Yeah, the more I noodle on this, the more I land on Fan Community Website + Forum + Email Newsletter as the only viable path.

You don't need to set up a new account to receive an email. You can log in with one of your existing accounts to access the forum. Logging in to the forum lets you access the fan community website.

I'm really just reinventing patreon, I guess.

keithzg 1d ago

@ajroach42 I think I've seen some Rocketchat or Mattermost or such setups that do close these gaps a bit, ie. include OAuth for folks not having to create Yet Another Account, have a nice enough web interface which can display stuff without login yet also existing apps for easy mobile access, self-hostable, some etc etc's but ultimately among other downsides those solutions will inevitably feel very prefab I reckon?

And also the inherent pacing of a Chat creates a very different vibe than a Forum, the former like you have to be very engaged to keep up since it's a theoretically constant stream while the latter is like perusing a bulletin board and letting a few things catch your eye.

@keithzg I think a forum is probably the move, but we'll also need a broadcast/notification channel.

Patrick Georgi 1d ago

@ajroach42 Apparently Ghost (the blogging/newsletter software) is Fediverse-capable these days (https://activitypub.ghost.org/) and I've seen how-tos to hook that up to the big networks via RSS (e.g. https://circleboom.com/blog/automate-blog-sharing/, which is advertising their automation system).

NodeBB would offer more of a forum experience than Ghost, also with tie-ins to Fediverse and RSS (and should therefore also work with such RSS->big network bridging) but it seems to be less suited for email newsletters.

Maybe Ghost for the website + newsletter + POSSE broadcast type of stuff, plus NodeBB for the enthusiasts, where the Ghost posts start a thread per "world wide" post plus forum-only activity?

Building ActivityPub

Ghost is federating over ActivityPub to become part of the world’s largest publishing network

Building ActivityPub

Mark Harbinger 1d ago

@ajroach42

As someone who generally abhors online marketing, I wanted to thank you for your public musings on this.

For one thing, I had never heard of Discourse. NICE! (Probably will use that for the soon-to-be-released short story collection)...

😎 👍 👍

Patrick Georgi 1d ago

@ajroach42 I wonder if it's possible to build a funnel, starting from "here's a website with updates" (syndicating to the big platforms POSSE style), where everything just happens to be Fediverse in the background.

That way you could

- reach out to folks where they are (even if it's a lossy channel because who knows what the selection algorithms of the big platforms decide to show or not), ideally with interactions blocked (like YT with comments disabled),

- provide a login-free website to just follow along "unfiltered",

- offer "push" updates for the site via RSS or https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Push_API if people want it,

- with the option for the audience to play a more active role via Fediverse (with an account on your infra or elsewhere).

And every now and then a nudge: "PSA: we're available practically everywhere, but for higher fidelity, come to the website or even join us in the Fediverse."

Push API - Web APIs | MDN

The Push API gives web applications the ability to receive messages pushed to them from a server, whether or not the web app is in the foreground, or even currently loaded, on a user agent. This lets developers deliver asynchronous notifications and updates to users that opt in, resulting in better engagement with timely new content.

MDN Web Docs

@patrick That's absolutely possible, but it's something we'd pretty much have to roll and maintain ourselves and while I'm not opposed to that on principle, it is a level of effort I'm not sure I can justify.

Stu 1d ago

@ajroach42 I have about two decades of Invision Forum administrating experience, which now that I think about it is kinda wild given the trends which have come and gone in that time. I would definitely consider Discourse, especially if they have Oauth connectors (helping with the "another account" aspect).

I don't have a good answer to the spam issue though, it's a definitely a constant fight. We resolved to manual account approval, which definitely has scaling issues (and it's not an ideal experience).

This is a bit of a meandering "I agree with a forum!" reply.

@tehstu I think a newsletter and a forum is the answer.

Steve Atkins 1d ago

@ajroach42 Discourse has a lot of functionality beyond basic forum. I keep avoiding the docs, but I know it has a plugin to support live chat.

DHeadshot's Alt 1d ago

@ajroach42
Does a mailing list discussion group work or is that far to esoteric?
@buttondown

@ddlyh It doesn't solve the "google decides who sees our posts" problem and adds a "moderation becomes a lot more difficult" and a "people don't really know the etiquette of a listserv anymore" problem.

I'm not completely against it, but I think it is unapproachable.

@ajroach42

Doesn't Lemmy/kbin cover several of these? federated thread based text based

I mean, IRC still gets my vote, but I get it, not cool with the youngins.

@tezoatlipoca

This is a thread specifically about why I don't want to use any of the above, and trying to figure out which compromises I'm willing to make.
I think Lemmy is a great combination of several of the above, which takes it further from what I want, rather than closer to it.

@ajroach42 well I know NodeBB because I frequent TheDailyWTF, but it publishes RSS, is ActivityPub compatible you can also host it yourself and harkens back to the old school cgi/php forums of the mid 00s. phpBB and Discourse are also up there but I know them only second hand.

But lemme ask this tho: you're forming a fan community. You probably don't want people to have to create yet another new id/login, but rather let people use their existing one? so where is the fanbase coming from?

@ajroach42

like I guess what Im saying is the form / platform of the community matters less than the content/ease of joining. So if the fanbase is mostly facebook (I dunno, guessing) then something that allows FB/insta logins might be crucial..

@tezoatlipoca

> You probably don't want people to have to create yet another new id/login, but rather let people use their existing one?

Yep.

> so where is the fanbase coming from?

About a quarter of our existing audience is here on the fediverse, the rest is on instagram or only every interacts with us in person at the moment.

> like I guess what Im saying is the form / platform of the community matters less than the content/ease of joining. So if the fanbase is mostly facebook (I dunno, guessing) then something that allows FB/insta logins might be crucial..

If we were to just go with what the most people have that solves the most of our needs, we'd probably land at discord. A majority of our existing fanbase already uses discord to some capacity, and it's easy to onboard.

But then Discord owns our primary comms channel with our community, and that's not a situation I ever want to find myself in.

I don't use Instagram or Facebook as our primary organizing channel for exactly the same reason.

I won't force people to use a commercial platform, or allow them to use us as an excuse to stay on a commercial platform, even though that significantly lowers the barrier to entry for new users.