General Discussion

@julian yes yes yes yes!

Years ago when i first looked at NodeBB, I was thinking about it for a discussion-focused social network (kind of like the old tribe.net, or Facebook/Myspace groups), and this was a key area where forum software in general didn't meet my needs -- and it wasn't obvious how to extend it. So I rolled my own as a prototype and it's stayed as a prototype for a dozen years because trying to do a full-fledged implementation that's maintainable and scalable requires implementing a forum system, decidedly non-trivial.

This is an excellent idea, as demonstrated by the fact that many self-created communities (≈categories) on Lemmy have achieved significant global success. However, Lemmy's implementation is unsatisfactory and needs to be adjusted. I am the administrator of a Lemmy instance as well as a NodeBB instance, and I must admit that at the height of Lemmy's development, we never allowed autonomous community creation. This was due to some issues that arose with mastodon when homonymous communities and users existed. It was also because it was impossible to implement an approval process or ensure that the quality of the communities met the instance's standards. For this reason, the process for creating communities by users consisted of a request from the registered user and a creation reserved for administrators.

What I would like to see in NodeBB is the ability to create communities, but keep them in a sort of "limbo," a "section" where new communities remain until they reach acceptable quality levels for the instance's standards.

This is in addition to the entire user credit system, which I imagine could also be set up to achieve a suitable score for building a community.

Perhaps I'm asking too much, but NodeBB's development has been so impressive so far that I wouldn't be surprised if you could implement a feature like this.

@julian

OMG yes? This is how my favourite network ever, Ravelry, wound up happening.

🥰😍🥰😻🧡

julian Yes, I am very much interested in nodebb giving users the capability to create groups and moderate those.

julian You're going into a place I was going to suggest around 2022 (becasue forums have been on the decline for a long time), while this sub-reddit-eaque is a neat feature, what about thinking of "ways" of being instead.

TLDR

I'd really like to be able to, and within seconds, with a single email address and password sign up for a stripped down NodeLET Acc and be typing happily (content creating) within seconds, that I could then disturbute to wherever-whenever platforms I like with a few clicks, get analytics feedback on how content (posts) are doing, where it is being seen and how much and maybe even track and manage payment for any revenue generated, without being a site owner carrying any of that "publishing" at scale burden and cost or having to sign up to one or more platforms to get my content out to the world.

That' the bones of the original 2012 idea.

If you think about supporting or looking for inspiration in terms of feature roadmap, where next for then NodeBB as a content creation platform, extra of being a forum, is when you start to unlock the true potential.

You might rememeber I pointed out substack some years ago and it wasn't that familiar to you or most back then, it was the lockdowns and covid that allowed it go prime time IMHO.

So here is a concept you might like to ponder

The NodeLET

1. NodeLET (Solo) a stepped down versions of a full NodeBB that is content creator centric (it may not allow more than one user, it might limit users, it can have tiered plans, it hosted but NodeBB, it's liek NOdeBB for one user that can bu spun up like droplet are spun up on DO in seconds)

Think of NodeLET as content hub as opposed to a hub (forum) for users.

2. NodeBB with NodeLET functionally (integrated)

What is NodeLET?

NodeLET is hosted by NodeBB as an in-house service as a very mass market non-techie solution (think wordpress.blog but technically spun up like a DO droplet) the user does not need admin level technical overload, they are the content creation focused user, they just need composer, drafts and the tags fundamentally to organise content all the forums, sub categories, users admin backend etc. etc. is not needed, wwe;re stripping right back here, you get the idea.

Now that activity pub is in the mix you can use this to hook up NodeLET to other NodeBB's and beyond.

Content creation space for the quiet content creator who wants a nice place to go and tap without distraction and mange their more long form thoughtful content over time.

Does this make sense?

The idea is a NodeLET would start as a free service for content creators, now that substack exists which came to my attention after I thought of this way of re-selling or re-spinning NodeBB that market is well established in terms of a simple offering to the content creator.

It's a new market segment because no one did it so well and elegantly until substack came along IMHO.

Focusing on content creation, but still being a very different option than say a WordPress vs substack option.

All my UI suggestions are generally based around content creation centric idea of the NodeLET but I never explained it properly, but if you're gonna do sub-reddit you might as well embrace the whole spectrum of user-needs potential dev led paths or "ways" of being, as opposed to what others are doing.

Build for the user you missed or forgot about, because NodeBB can do it all technically, as I've pointed out most of the ability is already under the hood, it exists, it's actually a matter or reconfiguring layout, how you offer the capabilities to the potential user / marketing (Harmony theme actually works really well here)

Offer 2 configurations, of NodeBB

• Solo (limited, free) A Single user NodeBB offering.
• Solo Plus (fee, more features) A single user NodeBB for closed content creation group
• NodeBB (Full) What we all know and love.

There is naturally as explain no self-hosting option for a NodeLET

Bonus is all of these options can openly interconnect now, where back a few years they may have not so easily - Activity Pub is the thing that didn't exist when I was thinking about this, because as I've alluded to or implied it goes back to an even older idea I had when trying to solve a problem in 2012 no one was thinking about afaics, when I saw substack it looked the closest to my original musings over a decade later.

I know I'm sliding off topic but it's out of my head now. :)

I think it's a good idea.

The magic of forums is here to stay, and it will only get stronger with time and new features.

julian That would be really a great addition.