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Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

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Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#21

Post by sebstefan »

ecshafer wrote: post #14

> I live in a more rural community (moved from a big city). We have 5-6 small (~50k people) towns, all well connected. Everything happens on Facebook. I would like to move to a different platforms. Plus points for self-hosted, federated. Do YOU want to move off of Facebook for some reason, or do people want to move off of Facebook for some reason. MOST people in the US, especially in a rural are are not going to quit…

Most people in the US have already quit that app, the battle's not that uphill. You're starting half up

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#22

Post by scarface_74 »

yurishimo wrote: post #4

It depends on what kind of community you want. Something like Facebook Events, I haven’t really seen a successful alternative for. If you just want a discussion board, Discourse is self-hostable and people might be familiar with it from other companies. I’d argue it’s not a very normie-friendly platform however and out of the box, I find the notification defaults quite annoying. Maybe admins can change that, but most…

How many people in rural America are going to be familiar with Discourse? And if the end goal is to have a discussion forum and you are trying to meet the needs of the people, why would they care about it being self hosted and what happens when the original poster gets board?

This is like the hobbyist version of resume driven development.

But the better question is, what is the purpose of getting off of Facebook? Are the users asking for it?

Especially now that Zuck has kissed the ring, conservatives (ie rural small town folks) are not trying to flee Facebook now if they ever were.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#23

Post by helboi4 »

Everything I do is either a Whatsapp group or a Telegram group these days. Whatsapp is owned by Meta but is at least encrypted, private and free from the bullshit of a real social media. Telegram is a better alternative if you really want to leave Meta behind. People will suggest Signal but in my experience literally nobody uses it except radical organisers. I have only one group on there and its for a protest group. Nobody else ever even messages me on there.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#24

Post by BaudouinVH »

tgirod wrote: post #5

Maybe have a look at mobilizon : https://joinmobilizon.org/en/ Never had the opportunity to test it, but it's been developped by the fine folks of framasoft as an alternative to facebook for community/event organization. Might fit the bill for you.

Indico is a not-framasoft open-source made in CERN event organisation solution : https://getindico.io/

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#25

Post by gorjusborg »

BaudouinVH wrote: post #17
xnorswap wrote: post #10

A WhatsApp group might well be an easier alternative for many people, although it's another Meta company if that's a concern.

Whatsapp belongs to Meta. A group on Signal would be entirely outside the Zuckerberg-verse.

Zucker-verse has a nice ring to it. It's a place for all those zuckers ;)

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#27

Post by xnorswap »

BaudouinVH wrote: post #17
xnorswap wrote: post #10

A WhatsApp group might well be an easier alternative for many people, although it's another Meta company if that's a concern.

Whatsapp belongs to Meta. A group on Signal would be entirely outside the Zuckerberg-verse.

I'm aware of the link, but people don't have Signal, everyone has WhatsApp.

In the UK at least, a recent ofcom ( Communications regulator ) report suggested that 76% of people reported using WhatsApp in the previous 3 months.

This is close enough to the 83% of people who reported making a phone call in the past 3 months that you can consider "everyone" to have WhatsApp in the same way you'd consider everyone can make phone calls. Yes, there are notable exceptions you may have to accommodate for or be prepared for if necessary, but you can by default assume everyone has it on their phone.

If OP's objection is to Meta, then of course don't use WhatsApp. But if the objection is Facebook as a platform then a message group may be suitable.

[1] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/internet-based-services/technology/...

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#29

Post by 1oooqooq »

BaudouinVH wrote: post #24
tgirod wrote: post #5

Maybe have a look at mobilizon : https://joinmobilizon.org/en/ Never had the opportunity to test it, but it's been developped by the fine folks of framasoft as an alternative to facebook for community/event organization. Might fit the bill for you.

Indico is a not-framasoft open-source made in CERN event organisation solution : https://getindico.io/

> main features: > Multi-granular tree-based protection scheme

that will drain users from Facebook instantly! i can already see the flood of people coming. /s

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#30

Post by qntmfred »

EGreg wrote: post #19

I know I’ve been posting this a few times over the past few months, but I haven’t started promoting it yet to the world. This is a hard problem because people expect real-time chat, videoconferencing, livestreaming, privacy controls, proper notifications, profiles, photo uploads and much more. I have spent over a decade building essentially an open-source Facebook that can federate in more interesting ways than Masto…

#YangGang
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