Hi!
I've been trying to figure out what a web based fan club looks like in 2026.
I very nearly went with an 80s BBC + an IRC door + a Discord < - > IRC bridge but no matter how much I talk about it, I can't bring myself to let Discord own my primary communication platform with the majority of our community.
I won't endorse them, even tacitly.
And so now I'm back to exploring how we do this on the open web.
And I don't know! I don't have a good answer.
This is a thread.
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.
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.
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?
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..
> 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.
Andrew (Television Executive)
Third spruce tree on the left