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