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Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

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Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#371

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

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…

Yep, and this is what I have been telling people that the reason why Trump won is because the right cares much more about their agenda than the left. It's all just surface level virtue signaling for the left, which they will drop immediately if they get a good discount on a local mirror in a city group. On the other hand, be openly LGBT friendly and see if a Trumper comes to buy from your store. Not a single one will.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#372

Post by randcraw »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #209
coldpie wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct, but this is quite a boring response. If no one tried to make the world a better place, the world would never get better. It is an uphill battle, but I wish the OP luck all the same.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903)

More precisely, that unreasonable man must add sufficient extraordinary value to his product to convert complacent users into willing defectors.

Thus you must convince users that 1) FB is clearly inferior to your product (e.g. many important hidden demerits) or 2) your product adds something essential that's absent in FB. Otherwise, why switch?

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#374

Post by benatkin »

helboi4 wrote: post #362
benatkin wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s owned by Facebook

Did you read my comment smartass? Do you think I don't know that?

Just agreeing with you but taking it farther for myself by not acknowledging the Altria-like new name

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#375

Post by TCSoft »

Hey, this is a great idea! I've been trying the same thing for my community, but I decided to work at the neighborhood level rather than town level for a lot of the reasons folks mention in this thread. Feel free to shoot me a message through my site, https://www.communityally.org/, I would be happy to chat about my experience if it might help you.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#376

Post by Zak »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #367
Zak wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have used both Signal and Telegram for years and I'm not seeing much UX difference. What's better for you on Telegram?

Right clicking on a conversation on signal does nothing. On telegram is shows the menu that if expect. Signal takes many seconds to render the main window. Telegram opens in a reasonable amount of time. Chat bubbles in signal reveal some hidden icons when you hover them, but have a separate right click menu when you click them. You basically have to guess which of both menus contains the action that you need. Copy pa…

The only one of these I'm seeing is that there's no right-click menu for conversations in the desktop client, which does slightly violate my expectations. As to everything else:

Signal desktop takes 4 seconds to launch for me. That's a bit slow, but I launch it at boot and leave it open all the time.

I see a ... menu when I hover over messages in a chat; its contents are identical to what I see right-clicking the message.

Copy/paste of images into and out of chats works for me. The voice clip button works for me.

I'd be annoyed if I ran into a bunch of client bugs like these too, but they do sound like bugs rather than bad design. If you haven't used it in a while, they may be fixed.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#378

Post by lowercased »

pc86 wrote: post #255
lowercased wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suspect the 'free' and 'no ads' would be somewhat mutually exclusive. Perhaps a particular group organizer pays a modest amount - $19/year(?) - to manage/moderate groups up to X000 members.

Which means it isn't free, it's a charity project paid for by the group organizer(s). That's probably fine in the short term, maybe even longer, but eventually the organizer(s) will move out of the area, or get tired of managing the group, or die, or whatever, and someone will need to manage it. Honestly if it really would just need to cover the price of the cheapest hosting you can find and the domain registration a…

I didn't say it would have to be free.

I run some meetup groups, and still pay for it for now, but the price hikes and other charges they're adding are onerous. I know many groups who have shutdown, and I know of some other players wanting to get in to this space to take over from meetup.com. $10/month to run a smallish group is affordable for a lot of folks. $50/month is not. $300/year is just not worth it to many folks, but... $99/year would be. Meetup seems to be moving in to some weird 'hyper optimize for short term revenue' move, which makes me think they'll be gone or acquired/dismantled in the next 5 years.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#379

Post by rolandog »

lsllc wrote: post #324
dawnerd wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I actually started with Telegram, then there was some "don't the bad guys use that?" so Signal it was ...

Bad guys can and will use any platform that preserves privacy... but the default unsecured policy of Telegram was a bigger concern to me and the dread of having to request all contacts to enable end-to-end encryption (the instant messaging equivalent of having to explain to grandma why she should use pgp keys for privacy of her email communication).

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#380

Post by mmooss »

latexr wrote: post #364
mmooss wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you’re trying to move a significant mass of people from something that works to another platform for ideological reasons, you’ll be met with resistance. Every time you fail you’ll be met with more until you can move no one. That's not actually how it works. People try time and again, sometimes over decades or centuries, before achieving change - or achieving anything at all. One thing you do by trying and fail…

> That's not actually how it works. Yes, it is. And your next sentence demonstrates how you’re still missing the point. > People try time and again, sometimes over decades or centuries, before achieving change - or achieving anything at all. Do you think OP has decades or centuries to move their community out of Facebook? That is patently absurd. Again, I’m offering specific advice. Specific , as in to this situation…

Here's a specific tip: If you run out of arguments yourself, you can always insult the other person and their arguments.
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