Another idea for fandom's new platform problem

[selenay]

Via cesperanza, this post in impertinence's journal looks like an interesting idea: Federation and Fandom.

It solves the concerns we all have about P2P networks and could be more resilient than other ideas I've seen bouncing around, although I'm sure there are also some down sides to it, too. It's one that's worth investigating, though, as building our own platform won't be a fast process and setting up instances of federated serves could satisfy the urgent need.

Comments

[kimboo_york]

I'm on mastodon and I do think such systems have a lot of potential but the onboarding hurdle at this point is pretty big for most users, who are not very techy and won't grok it. I have hopes, but not expectations, is what i'm saying I guess.

[selenay]

I have hopes, but not expectations, is what i'm saying I guess.

Same. I think the reason fandom has always gone towards systems like mailing lists, LJ, and then Tumblr is because the onboarding hurdle is very low so it's accessible to people no matter what their level of tech knowhow. We might prefer something like mastodon for its flexibility and robustness, but fandom isn't going to flock there if it shuts out a lot of users with low technical experience.

I keep going back and forth on the various options out there, but this seems like a really important thing for the people planning a new platform to remember.

[kimboo_york]

Good point. It definitely needs to be a very high criteria for whatever DOES happen.

I've backed away from pillowfort due to their oddly-worded TOS update today. So, that's one down. :/

[selenay]

A lot of people seem to be backing away from PF due to that. I had a feeling they would be too good to be true.

Maybe DW really will end up being the fandom hub? At least for now. People just need to find image/vid hosting that doesn't suck and it could work.