A new social network

[treonb]

While I'm pondering the LJ situation, and why DW is not the best solution for me, it occurred to me that I could start up my own fan-oriented network.  Not the easiest thing, but not impossible either, I hope

Comments

[amnisias]

I think LJ is pretty good as a platform, what's missing is The People. Over the last 5 years fandom has dissiminated itself across different social platforms. What you describe sounds pretty perfect, but I won't work without fandom people, and they're really hard to come by these days. One thing that would be essential I think is crossposting/importing ability from LJ and DW.

[treonb]

I'm not sure fandom people are very hard to come by, there's a lot of fan activity that I see, just not in my specific fandoms. Or maybe it just seems that way from my little corner.

Crossposting/importing to LJ/DW is a given. As well as ability to export anything.

[amnisias]

I didn't mean there is a lack of fannish people, but they now are spread over many different platforms and there is less sense of community overall, compared to a time where most of fandom was on LJ.

I am very comfortable on LJ because it fits my needs,community, reciprocal conversation, archiving. I'm not at all freaked out by the TOS and I have never understood the migration to DW.

[aragarna]

I've mostly migrated to Twitter, Tumblr and even Instragram, cause that's where fandoms are these days, but what I real miss are actual, organized conversations.

LJ's architecture was great for that. I feel we have much better conversations with fellow fans, while also being able to ignore whatever we didn't care about in someone's journal.

People do talk on Tumblr, but that thing is such a total mess...

But mostly I feel like the multiplication of social media has dispersed fandoms. It's hard to find a place where everyone would be.

I still think people looking for fics would mostly go to FF.net or AO3, so archiving there is still a good option to share your fics.

[treonb]

Yeah, all these new services are extremely bad for conversations.

[nieseryjna]

a special place for all fandoms would be great, but getting fans there might be challenging. With all the social networks around it might be difficult for some to find time for yet another place to visit. Automatic crossposting to AO3 or FF.net would be needed anyway alas nothing dies on internet fiction is better found in one place.
Those days I'm lurking on LJ, and AO3 and FF.net looking for new stuff to read, but have not met new fandom and place to stay for longer. Tumbrl is awful, twitter is just to short... ech a new place could be fun.

[treonb]

Well, I'm thinking small. I have a community of fans around me, would they be interested in using such a service?

[china_shop]

Various (and variable) privacy settings. I don't like how you can't friends lock (or equivalent) specific tweets on Twitter or posts on Tumblr.

This seems like a huge undertaking...

[treonb]

It is a huge undertaking, that's why I'm trying to test the waters first. If my fan friends say they won't use such a thing, then it's really not worth the effort. But if there's a need for it and people might use it, then it might be worth it.

[china_shop]

Well, if it's a useful datapoint, the truth is I'm probably too lazy to switch from the existing web of DW/LJ comms and journals that I already follow.

[treonb]

Yes, it's important to know. Is there anything that would convince you otherwise? If the comms go, would you go with them?