9 Months of Cultivating an Online Community and Environment
- Speaker: Kasanwa‑Solane Aster‑Hope
* Room: CC 236
* Time: Sat 3:00 pm – 3:30 pm
- Format: Lecture (30 Min + Q&A)
* Difficulty: Introductory / Some experience required
* Track: Self-Hosting
* Presenter Location: In-person
* Experience: first time speaking
* At: at lfnw
Description:
This talk shares lessons learned from the first nine months of running OctoFriends.Garden, a small, community‑focused collection of online services hosted out of the speaker’s apartment.
At the time of writing, the community includes around 20 members and provides a variety of services: an email server, a Fediverse instance, a Matrix homeserver, a Git forge, file hosting, and several other tools. The session explores key decisions made from both technical and interpersonal perspectives — and how those decisions shaped the Garden’s growth, culture, and sustainability.
Attendees will gain insight into what it takes to cultivate a healthy small‑scale online community, the tradeoffs of self‑hosting for others, and how technical choices intersect with human needs.
Target Audience:
- Anyone interested in self‑hosting
* People building or maintaining small online communities
* Those curious about the social side of running infrastructure