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Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

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Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#301

Post by redserk »

amelius wrote: post #149
inanutshellus wrote: post #135

* Look into Diaspora. ( https://diasporafoundation.org/ ). Upside: It's basically a self-hosted facebook. Really cool project. Downside: Unlike facebook, there's no fake/pushed content so it tended to feel stale. * Look into hosting a forum (e.g. phpBB). Forums are excellent because they don't lose old information like facebook does. When someone says "Hey what's the policy on dogs?" three years later I can search "d…

> Downside: Unlike facebook, there's no fake/pushed content so it tended to feel stale. It would be cool if they had a scraper that could pre-populate the system with some content from Facebook.

Or go for the small-town gossip feel and have fun with $10 in LLM credits.

"Generate a quick (salacious|funny|sad) story involving (random group member) and (random object) happening at (randomly selected location)."

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#302

Post by dawnerd »

lsllc wrote: post #222
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…

This. After WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook (this predates any of the current political stuff, it was entirely about privacy), I tried to get friends and family to switch to something else -- Signal in fact as iMessage was a no-go because of the lack of Android support. Out of ~30 people, I got precisely 3 people to switch. No one else cared, no one else wanted the hassle of switching. I even got a few comments alo…

I managed to get people over to Telegram. Signal was a no go. It’s still a bit inconvenient. Mobile only unless you link a desktop is a non starter for me period. Majority of people don’t care about e2ee. They want an easy to use app that syncs everything and doesn’t require reading a manual.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#303

Post by solid_fuel »

scarface_74 wrote: post #213
Stronico wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got it down to 45 minutes a month, including a phone call to the venue.

And what happens when he gets tired of managing all of that? With Facebook he can just give someone else admin access.

Organizing people takes work, and passing off a single set of credentials to someone else doesn't mean that work will still get done - whether its all in one place or not. Look at all the subreddits which are lost because of no moderation, even when they used to have a team.

When they eventually get tired of managing all this, they will eventually need to hand the reigns off to someone else. Hopefully someone will step up, because if someone doesn't it won't matter if the group is in 4 places or one.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#304

Post by magneticmonkey »

I’m cofounder of an app called dateit an event planning and RSVP app we have been developing over the past couple of years. We started it because we noticed many of our friends were leaving Facebook, and group texts were becoming a hassle. While it might not have every feature you’re looking for just yet, we’re actively working to expand its functionality. In the future, we’re hoping to introduce features like communities and a public events feed.

You can check it out at https://dateit.com/ I’d be happy to offer you and maybe some others here free access to our premium features so you can experience everything the app has to offer. Just create an account and email me at rob@dateit.com and mention this post.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#305

Post by slackfan »

dylan604 wrote: post #58
slackfan wrote: post #12

Knocking on a door and actually talking with people. Barring that a ham bbs that geographically covers your tegion.

when's the last time you were happy and excited when someone randomly knocked on your door? exactly

About four weeks ago when i got a random offer for about 10 free laying chickens.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#306

Post by chickenfeed »

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…

We have local community groups on FB. One for our hamlet of about 50 houses. Some households refuse to join as they don't do Facebook. I only do Facebook because of the local group. I long ago gave up trying to fill those people in. It is somewhat of a pain.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#307

Post by misiek08 »

dawnerd wrote: post #302
lsllc wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. After WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook (this predates any of the current political stuff, it was entirely about privacy), I tried to get friends and family to switch to something else -- Signal in fact as iMessage was a no-go because of the lack of Android support. Out of ~30 people, I got precisely 3 people to switch. No one else cared, no one else wanted the hassle of switching. I even got a few comments alo…

I managed to get people over to Telegram. Signal was a no go. It’s still a bit inconvenient. Mobile only unless you link a desktop is a non starter for me period. Majority of people don’t care about e2ee. They want an easy to use app that syncs everything and doesn’t require reading a manual.

Sad you got downvoted. Signal UX is 100x worse than Telegram and I probably can calculate it to prove this exact number. I’m dreaming about Telegram client and Signal-like openness.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#309

Post by tacostakohashi »

The rural areas I've been a part of tend to have one or more noticeboards, either on the main street, or often at the main supermarket. People put up flyers, business cards, possibly with links or qrcodes, or otherwise phone numbers.

In Vermont, there are mailing lists for every town that are widely used, https://vitalcommunities.org/community-discussion-lists/ and also Front Porch Forum https://frontporchforum.com/. I guess the latter is pretty much what you are talking about, a community social network that is not Facebook or Nextdoor and not trying to become a megacorp.

There is still a lot of facebook groups for many small towns, but its easy enough to totally ignore and just use noticeboards, ask/talk to real people, etc if you want.

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