Fedivangelism
Questions have been raised about how exactly we can get a community of people to go from just subscribing to actually helping out. Various proposals have come and gone, and I figured I'd throw in my two cents and also use this thread as an opportunity. The most common type of proposal I've seen has relied on some sort of paid marketing or financial incentives for contributors. In my view, this is a poor foundation to start with, as it gets people in this mindset that without money they can't do anything, and even if we had money, we'd just be encouraging people to only do things for money. As we've seen with all these other alternative social media sites, throwing money at the problem doesn't create organic communities. We have to incentivize by creating a sense of community and mutual accountability. Working on this should feel rewarding and fun, as if you're a part of something. In that sense, this initiative isn't just for the purpose of marketing but also a way of prefiguring the vision of the Open Web. The first step has been taken in that we have a [Discord/Matrix](https://lemmy.ml/post/146208) server which allows for closer and more real-time communication, but I do think it's time to take another step in ensuring people participate: tasking people. **In this thread, put down your skills and any ideas you have (if any). I (and hopefully other people in this thread) will try to come up with suggestions of what you can do. By tasking people and having them report on their progress here, that'll create a sense of accountability.** **If you're convinced you have no skills of use, doesn't matter, post anyways. What we need is engagement and commitment, and one of the biggest obstacles to that so far is people being convinced they're useless.**
One of the biggest strengths of the fediverse (and free software) movements is how it brings people to collaborate and to spur that, we need spaces to organize. I see here and across the fediverse that people want to help out but don't know how. I've just started a set of Matrix rooms (with a bridged Discord server so that the chat platform doesn't get in the way of people wanting to participate) where people can do the following: - strategize on how to best promote the fediverse - collaborate on their free-culture/federated projects and find people to help - promote their own fediverse content, find fediverse creators to follow, and offer feedback to others' [The video](https://share.tube/w/1tGvezJtU4qQVtCPJRimGD) has been uploaded and the server is up. If you have any ideas, any ways you'd like to help, or just want to chat, join! I really do believe this is gonna be crucial to pulling off our task. Real-time chat is more personal and live so it's easier to collaborate and build a community. If you're interested, join here: - [Discord](https://discord.gg/yhEDkW3hry) - [Matrix](https://matrix.to/#/#collaboration-commons:matrix.org)
discuss.coding.social
Today, we are taking the first step in building out an initiative to create opportunities for people to help build the Fediverse and create an organizational structure which can allow developers to coordinate their efforts where most needed. We call upon anyone with both the skills and motivation to join us and the Guild we are starting, Guild Alpha. Read the announcement linked to learn more and find out how you can participate! If anything discussed here has your interest or you want to help grow free-software and the Fediverse, fill out this [form](https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/51sefzylAJQXxCCw1QmfB9Q1R7L0gpY8nj57evKCtNk/%E2%80%8B) to let us know!