allochthon

For people who are looking for places to put their media (art, vids, gifs, etc) files while the tumblrapocalypse is playing out, this might be worth a read.

Cheap big media hosting - a guide by absolutedestiny

This looks like a good solution for media files when you want to link them in at places like AO3, Pillowfort or Dreamwidth, places that don’t have decent dedicated media hosting of their own. And it's clear, and really well written.

I just finished reading the Fandom platform of the future - specs and features google doc, and it reminded me of a few things.
(*My understanding is that the doc is closed, so I'm unsure where to put my thoughts. Hence, this post).

I would have posted this on post_tumblr_fandom, but I wasn't sure where was a good place. So I put a link in comments on this post at post_tumblr_fandom. Comments are probably better made over there.

These are thoughts for IF fandom rolls its own Social Network, whether it's a fork of Pillowfort or DW, or a collection of federated services, some other launch point, or built from the ground up.)

Money and Volunteering
With respect to money and possible paid tiers:
Would it be possible for people to pay for things via volunteering? There are a LOT of people in fandom on limited/no income. Volunteer or the abuse squad, tag wranglers, or whatever the site ended up needing? I want to mention the possible need for a human to verify uploads don't contain copyrighted material or similar, but that could be too easy to game. And teaching people the ins and outs of copyright law for different jurisdictions could be a nightmare. Still, volunteer in lieu of actual monetary payments?

(I don't want to get in a fandom/fair use discussion here. I am all for fair use. I'm just thinking about the incoming EU Chapter 13 issues).

Ads
There was a discussion about having user-based ads. If we did this, perhaps this could be a model:
I, as a user, could buy space and create an ad for a local convention. Or for a service I provide, like making cosplay costumes. So we'd be serving ads for ourselves, but not for Comcast. Ads would be image/moving image only, to prevent the Malware Injection issue. There could be people who offered ad-making services, like people make icon sets/gif sets/mood boards now.

Kudos/Likes/+1
There was talk of having the ability to have multiple like/kudos/support/witness options. Don't know how I feel about that, but if we did do it, having 'witness' would be a good one. That would prevent the necessity of +1 or liking a post about a sick pet, for instance.

Also, please have the ability to undo the like/kudos/support etc. I love AO3's kudos, but I dislike hitting the button by mistake on a fic I do not like at all. Once I am familiar with a corner of fandom on AO3, its not unusual for me to scroll to the kudos on a fic I haven't read to see if people who's taste I trust have already placed kudos there.

Birthdays/dates (+ security / Identity theft)
Developers/designers, PLEASE don't forget that birthdays are used by banks and the like for ID verification, and putting birth dates on social media sites makes it easier for identities to be stolen. If a person wants to broadcast their birthdate, fine, but do NOT make it display as the default.

And make it possible for (at least) 18+ people to never have to input it to start with.
[as an aside, in my password keeping software, I have a place where I note what birthdate I gave a site, because so many places require it, that really don't need it. Unless I'm legally required to be honest, hell no, I'm not giving a site my birthdate.]

Giving an actual date is no better for age verification than "please check here to confirm you are over [insert desired age here]."

And related, asking for a birth date for ID verification (for things like lost passwords) isn't good either, because so many people do put their birthdates on their social media. Use user-chosen and user-answered questions instead.

In addition, if there's a field in a user database for birthdate, if a person deletes it, make sure it's actually, immediately, and irrevocably deleted. Nothing chaps my ass more than to realize data I deleted from a site was subsequently released in a breach.

Transparency
One way to help with transparency is to use a bug/feature request-reporting system that allows users to see what's in the bug/feature request queue, and vote on what's most important for them to fix. I think AO3 does this? (https://otwarchive.atlassian.net/browse/AO3 ??) Maybe Bugzilla does this?

Pingbacks / Notifications
Be able to mute notifications if a post goes viral. Also, but probably as an advanced feature, be able to auto-mute something, and have it configurable. For instance, "if a post gets more than -500- likes, don't notify me of any more."

and lastly, Names for this site.
Yes, we are WAY too early in the process to think about this, but I am fond of SNoOO. Also, NoOO. Nooo for the "Luke, I am your father." "Noooooo!!!" opportunities.

Also, NO3 is the chemical formula for Nitrate. Nitrate is fertilizer. Yes, there are poo-related issues there, but there are also "nothing grows without fertilizer" opportunities, and seed/seedling/growth opportunities.

I’ve been going through the list of people I follow on Tumblr, and seeing if I can track people down (only using commonly known usernames for those folks, not doing any real detective work) on pillowfort and dreamwidth. So if you see me following you on those sites, that’s why. Feel free to block/not follow back/tell me to take a hike.

Also feel free to let me know if you have those accounts. My messages / asks / inboxes should be open.

I’m also on copperbadge’s Find Me list.