have a vps, experimenting with creating some sort of leftist community that isn't chan-based. I dunno, forum, mastodon, radio?, zine?, etc. open to suggestions. It's a forum right now and it looks kind of ugly by 2019 standards, but looks great by 2005 standards. I don't think it matters, boats still have sails and paddles. Again, open to any and all suggestions. If someone thinks they can do better they can have a crack at it.
Currently decided on a forum, anonymous posting allowed on some parts. Want moderators to be 'elected' from the userbase, i.e. people who use the site decide who gets to 'run' it. I'm happy just playing with the technical side of things and being a regular user. Would be nice to have help. I'd like to be part of a community where everyone has a say and plays a part. There's so many online leftist things that are either missing or lacking. For example, everyone complains about shitty leftist youtube videos. Unlikely that one person will embody the ability to be a good speaker, do good research, write well, be a good editor/animator, or have the time to do all those things well. If we crowd-source scripts for videos, someone presents them, someone edits a video and puts it all together, the quality of the work would be much better. Why not create a place where people are able to collaborate on projects if they wish? There has been a lot of complains around these boards, not only at how the boards are run, but also on the website on which they're hosted.
Maybe some sort of longevity of written work would encourage higher quality posts. The book club was a great idea, but would people be more encouraged if they could write a short essay/critique of the work, or part of a work and have that text cleaned up and put online somewhere? I'm just asking.
I feel that being limited to an imageboard, without archiving and good threads that just disappear isn't ideal for our type of discussion. It's fine for consumer interests, where new fads and fashions allow for recycling of threads and discussion of the same topics. For our purposes to be able to search through discussions that already happened is fantastic. How many times do we need to answer the same questions, repeating the same talking points ad nauseam?
I see the value of anonymous imageboards. I enjoy posting on several, in fact. I've just stopped expecting any kind of 'serious' discussion, advice or sense of community. You may laugh at that last bit, but right-wingers globally have their own communities, websites, discord, they even do meet-ups. In my own city someone advertised a "Traditionalist Meet Up", basically for "classic libertarians" who want to go back to a simpler time in the past. What the left has is sectarian pockets of people who think they alone follow the true Marxism/Communism (bit of a People's Front of Judaea vs Judean People's Front vs The Popular Front situation).
What I want to be part of is an "all-inclusive" leftist community. Not a movement, not a Left Unity political party. Just a place for leftists to come together and associate with one another in an environment where their words won't get them in trouble. Where they won't be denounced as 'tankies' or 'anarkiddies', because that doesn't create a welcoming atmosphere. I haven't found a place like that yet, so here's my attempt at creating it. Last place I knew like that was revleft, but that's dead now. And as time passed revleft also became more sectarian. I reckon it had something to do with the site moderators picking favourites and being sectarian themselves.
Regarding how being tolerant of one another will be enforced the truth is I don't know. No one gets banned. No IP bans, just username bans. You can just create a new username. Maybe that works, maybe it doesn't. Maybe the site gets overrun and I just nuke it and start over. Email isn't required to register or validate either, if the registration asks just type in anything that looks like an email.
I am aware how unimaginative the name/address is. Open to change that as well.
