On Visibility and Access for Social.Coop
Malaya
Mon 8 Dec 2025 8:30AM
Public
Seen by 168
Hello y'all, while I've only been here a couple of months, I've come to appreciate social.coop! As a neurodivergent, chronically ill, WOC, sometimes it's hard to find online spaces where my values and, tech preferences, and privacy are all taken into account. Being on social.coop has inspired me to do more online social organizing and has showcased that it is possible to find a non-toxic community. However, I only found a social.coop through an acquaintance mentioning it; and I've just begun researching the long history of .coop.
That brings me to the point of the importance of outreach: how could we increase the visibility of social.coop? Maybe my awareness of social.coop has something to do with my regionality (I am the in the USA). Though, I believe a lot of people could benefit from a space like this, if they knew about it. Accessibility is a key factor in social responsibility and openness one of social.coop values. Something that others mentioned on # Coop values evolved into DisCO values?
thread, is that social.coop could specify their values more; that would assist with potential outreach as well.
I've noticed that privacy conscious spaces can often seem gate-keeping, not engaging with individuals who may not have technical knowledge or background of capitalistic/corporate technological systems. While I still have knowledge in IT, the initial dismissing of individuals because of the services/platforms that they may use can allow some people to fall through the cracks.
So, I wanted to call to discuss and inquire what are some current or future visibility and Community awareness practices that social.coop engage in? Do others find this necessary or meaningful? I have found a lot of wonderful creators and orgs from even just this Loomio threads, like Fodongo and Technostructures, so work like this could be a way for mutual amplification across the Fediverse. What do y'all think?
I'm willing to dedicate some time to work on these inquires, if interest/need arises!
As a side note: I've got my undergrad in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Communications, and I've found in Western cultures there can be numerous intersections between people not having awareness of the ramifications of digital privacy and economic and educational enrichment. Of course, I cannot paint any groups with a broad stroke, but I believe knowledge is one of the best forms of empowerment!
Kaitlin Tue 9 Dec 2025 5:04PM
Hello and thank you for bringing this up!
TL:DR: Visibility might be best done through fandom and subculture networks that provide people with "instant" community.
I am a former Women and Gender studies instructor and most of my life right now is about parenting. Most people in my life use tons of social media, and the ones who have dropped out have done so for very good reasons, but then miss a lot of what happens in terms of local social events and in terms on online culture discussions.
Yet even though everyone i know is using social media all the time, and i promote mastadon and fedi.tips as much as I can, I have succeeded in helping only 3 people join the fediverse. 2 of those pretty quickly dropped out and rarely login even though they remain active on things like instagram. 1 is getting started but I can see how their account is isolated. Thank you @Danyl Strype for linking the Tim Chambers write up about why this is.
I have put so much time into finding people on the fediverse. Following boosts and trails of who likes a post and going through hashtags. I don't blame the people I know for not having an hour a week to try to build up a network. If you don't do that, you join and maybe find one or two people to connect with, and then sputter out.
Since most people I know are burned out parents a lot of their time on social media is, for example, sitting next to a kid's bathtub and scrolling for a bit not knowing when you'll get interrupted because they are done or they've flooded the bathroom. Or literally while a pot is boiling. People are flooded with care work and need social media to be a tool for connection, not a project. Almost all of the mastadon help that I can find requires more concentration and more time committment than they have available.
That said, I think people's profiles/engagement/"who they are" on different platforms is different. For me mastadon is done with such intention, and I follow people whose accounts show similar intention in what they post. When I think about who I see continuing to use mastadon, it's folks who have connected to a cultural community and want a space that lines up with the values of that community. Even those parents burnt out with carework usually have something that they care about enough (music, fandom, crafting, cooking--any kind of subculture) to get through the hurdle of choosing a server and figuring out how to follow people. Right now my general impression is that the subcultures drawing people in are mostly tech.
I don't have an answer, I'm not sure what exactly promotion via subcultures looks like or how to make all this easier for people, but I did relate to a lot of what you are saying and as someone who feels like I am on the fringes with no tech literacy (the fact that I even know the word mastadon is high tech literacy in my circles), I'm happy to help brainstorm.
Malaya Wed 10 Dec 2025 6:15AM
@Kaitlin I really appreciate what you raised about the kinds of labor that shape people’s time! Many people don’t have an hour to explore a new platform or find community connections. Even when they value decentralization, care work, work schedules, and constant interruptions make it hard to commit to learning a new interface.
Subcultures really do seem like an anchor point. As I reflect, other platforms (though corporate and surveillance heavy) acutely list sub-cultures or communities that people to quickly access knowledge/media types. Intentional visibility around the communities already present here could help newcomers understand what social.coop is and how it’s used.
Your point about intentionality really stood out: it’s difficult for people to understand the identity of a platform if that identity isn’t clearly articulated. That’s part of why I’m interested in drafting this document, not to define anything rigidly, but to surface what people already value and practice here. People, like y'all are doing the work!
I’m also developing a multimodal, participatory media group, and one of the first topics we explore may be Mastodon itself: how people interact with it, what feels accessible or intimidating, and how digital community design influences participation. This thread has given me a lot to think about.
I’ll include the resources you shared in a Resources section of the document, I'm creating. Once I finish the draft, I’ll post it here for anyone who wants to review or contribute, totally optional and at people’s discretion.
Thanks again to everyone contributing; it’s sparked a lot of ideas about visibility, onboarding, and the broader Fediverse ecosystem!
Danyl Strype Wed 10 Dec 2025 9:51PM
@Kaitlin On that ...
@Malaya
When I think about who I see continuing to use mastadon, it's folks who have connected to a cultural community and want a space that lines up with the values of that community.
I think this is right. Funnily enough I just republished a blog post about this.
One good example is this PeerTube site set up specifically for crafters and DIYers, and in particular this video intro to the fediverse aimed at that community;
https://makertube.net/w/tGjYr2Mm56V7bU4d9ua38z
Malaya Wed 10 Dec 2025 9:49PM
Okay I officially, made the Questions on social.coop Identity + Onboarding doc using Cryptpad. You can access/edit/comment here:
https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/edit/vC9o9pdIgCyyipMuUT4yMj+v/
Thanks for y'all thoughts!
Benji Mauer Thu 11 Dec 2025 10:36PM
@Malaya every question in your doc that begins with “Should” … my answer is yes! Happy to work with you and others to make those recommendations a reality.
Maybe we could have a hack day/build day in the next couple months?
Malaya Sat 13 Dec 2025 12:37AM
@Benji Mauer Yay, that's great to hear (or read)! I’m open to something like a hack/build day. I want to be transparent that I haven’t edited/moderated a community wiki before, so I’d want to approach it collaboratively and with some structure rather than assuming best practices on my own.
But we can totally work in February or March 2026, we can organize something? I'm not sure the best way to do that, but I can assist. Thanks for everyone's input!
Melissa Santos Sat 13 Dec 2025 5:56PM
sneak peek for the January "onboarding" hackathon (with cosocial.ca folks ) https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/January_2026_Hackathon - we are definitely including discovery in the scope of things.
We need to put more of what tasks we are thinking of tackling out in the open and then create a loomio something that will send an email as well as creating a server announcement.
I'll be there and I'm comfortable messing around in the wiki (It stores a history! you can always revert!) If that time doesn't work for you, I'd be happy to help when you do schedule something if I can!
mike_hales · Wed 10 Dec 2025 1:13PM
@Malaya
A markdown document held in a NextCloud space can be shared either as read-only or read-write. You can rent a piece of NextCloud from many coops - I get mine from MayFirst Movement Technology, who are in the USA and are great. https://mayfirst.coop/en/member-benefits/
Simpler, free and potentially more trackable in contributions if contributors are disciplined (colour coding), but also perhaps subject to casual anonymous edits: open a riseup pad (Etherpad)? https://pad.riseup.net/ Maybe, harvest (download) the edits frequently?
Keep a clean read-only copy 😉
Once you have a NextCloud, "a dedicated resource page" is easy to mount (again in markdown), as a (read-only) Note - or a family of linked lists (in a cluster of notes).