Andrew (Television Executive)1d ago

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.

Show threadJoe Cooper 🇺🇦 🍉
@ajroach42 I always recommend Discourse whenever anyone wants something vaguely shaped like a forum or group chat. Open source, easy to maintain or you can use their SaaS if you don't want to self-host, easy to extend and customize, good spam and moderation tools (which is the most important thing for anything on the open web). I've maintained the same large-ish community forum for 21 years across a half dozen forum apps and the only one I've ever actually liked is Discourse.
Apr 13 at 6:56pmWeb
Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)1d ago
@swelljoe I'm definitely leaning in the newsletter + forum direction, and paying discourse for hosting doesn't sound like the worst idea.