Yes - we know that G+ is shutting down.

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Yes - we know that G+ is shutting down. It’s not going to happen for 10 months yet (end of August, 2019), so we have time to find another forum solution. @Mark_Kriegsman and I are already talking about it (and we’ve been idly talking about it on and off for years at this point).

Some of the things we will be looking for:

  • Not facebook
  • A focus on sharing images/video (the community sharing the things they build is a part of what I love about it - a lot of the myphp style message boards out there are really terrible about that - I love coming to the g+ page and just scrolling/skimming over the images/videos of what you all are making)
  • Doesn’t suck

Don’t worry, though, we’ll have someplace to go before this place goes away.

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I strongly agree with all of your points, Daniel!

How does everyone feel about reddit? It’s the only free hosted community I can think of that isn’t facebook that puts images and video on the front page.

There’s already a FastLED subreddit, I’m sure the moderator would hand it over. Not sure why it’s not showing images and video on the front page, maybe a subreddit setting?

https://www.reddit.com/r/FastLED/

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Reddit like above or Discord (see Reactiflux)

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Discord feels more like a slack variant than a g+/reddit variant. Reddit might be an option - if we can avoid some of the more cesspool bits of it… it’s a distant backup option at this point (someone else camping on the FastLED subreddit makes it a bit trickier)

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I already have the fastled reddit group, and would happily hand that over to you guys.

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Ah! Didn’t realize you were the moderator on there - didn’t recognize the username (other than the short circuit reference). Good to know :slight_smile:

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Hopefully permalinks will be possible with the new forum?

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Discord is a good option, NO FACEBOOK THANKYOU! Reddit…nope.

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I thought discord was a text/voice chat app for gamers?

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@Jason_Coon It can be utilized in many ways. The web UI is great.

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@Leon_Yuhanov cool, have an example? Seems to require an account just to view, which seems like a major drawback.

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Being able to view and link to content without an account is important.

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@Jason_Coon @Daniel_Garcia Ah yeah, Discord does require an account.

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Does it need to be a turnkey service, or are you open to the idea of self-hosting something?

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The biggest reason I wouldn’t want to self host is that I’d prefer something with decent mobile clients (iOS and Android) - which is something that most of the self hosting systems seem to lack.

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People seem to generally love Discourse (https://www.discourse.org) but seems like the free version is a PITA to setup?.. Just throwing that out there. It’s what Particle uses for their forum.

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I’m totally down with Reddit. It’s already a part of my daily feed for my other hobbies like Animatronics and VR, so the shift wouldn’t be too terrible for me.

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I use Discourse Hosting for the SmartMatrix Community. $20/Mo and I don’t need to maintain a server or update Discourse as new releases come out (they do it).

You may need a higher tier to support more page views or storage. I bet there’s a bunch of people here that would kick in at least a buck a month to a Patreon. https://www.discoursehosting.com/pricing/

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Also, Reddit seems like a decent alternative

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Consider that when using Discourse or any other system where you are collecting user information you may need to make the system GDPR compliant. Not a trivial task:https://www.discoursehosting.com/your-discourse-forum-and-the-gdpr/