Hey @ivan I've been thinking a lot about how we could make federated social networks more accessible for people who:Don't want to learn how to set up hosting or use the terminal.Have a limited knowledge of instances, federation, and all the technical workings of the Fediverse.Want an online space for their community which isn't Facebook.I know you mentioned it's something your team's been considering a lot as well.I wanted to wireframe a Bonfire setup process which doesn't require any technical knowledge. No finding a hosting provider, and no using a terminal. I also wanted to experiment with concepts which users would be familiar with from other digital products, like "trial" and "upgrade," by offering hosting as a service which can be bought and managed within Bonfire.My idea is that users can set up a test instance on a Bonfire-hosted server as a "free trial," with a limit on the resources which this instance can use. Once they have tried out Bonfire's features and customised their instance to suit their needs, they can then pay for a hosting plan with a partner company. Their instance's data is then transferred from the Bonfire-hosted server to the partner company's server, and any appropriate DNS records are set up automatically (either for the subdomain.bonfire.cafe address, or for their own custom domain).Here's my prototype:design.penpot.app/#/view/27a...What do you think of the idea?

As someone who’s new to the city I live in, I wish there was a solid alternative to Facebook Groups. There are a lot of local groups which you need a Facebook account to access if you want to see their events. I’ve been considering starting my own online litterpicking group for my local area. I’d like to post pictures and updates and organise litterpicking events in my local area, but I’ve struggled to find a decent alternative to Facebook groups. “Podia” seemed about the closest thing, but it’s paid if you want a custom domain, and it’s not really aimed at local community groups. I haven’t seen anything on the Fediverse which looks approachable for casual users who are used to Facebook. It looks like “groups” as a whole is a work-in-progress on several Fediverse platforms. I’d be really interested to see if Bonfire can fill that gap in time.

If you’d like a hand with planning, carrying out, or analysing user research or usability testing, I’d be interested to find out more 😊

I really enjoyed reading the Bonfire team’s research on misinformation. It’s great to see a Fediverse platform investing in user research! Are you planning on doing any more research as you go? I’d be really interested to find out what community leaders who currently use Facebook groups, Discord, or another centralised platform think of the Bonfire instance creation process. It would be really exciting if making a Bonfire instance was as easy as setting up a Discord server or a Facebook group. I think it could make the platform more inclusive towards less digitally literate people.

Some minor feedback. Testing on Firefox on an iPhone 11: the website field has autocorrect turned on. I typed in “www.” and it got autocorrected to “was.”the first letter of bullet points doesn’t get capitalised automatically. the post composer crashed 3 times when trying to write this post.

Otherwise, the UI is looking gorgeous. At first I thought “what’s this all about? We already have Mastodon.” But now I see you’re trying to build a set of tools which can be mixed and matched to suit individual communities, and suddenly I’m very excited about that. I’d definitely love to see how this progresses! I can see this being great for small communities if it’s easy to set up, can be easily tailored to suit the community’s needs, and is a really user-friendly experience. Awesome stuff, it’s looking very promising! Gorgeous design, I love the whole Bonfire branding.

I’d prefer to have the tab bar on the bottom on mobile. It took me a while to find the three-dot menu because it’s not in the top-right hand corner of the screen; instead, it’s underneath the tab bar. Moving the tab bar to the bottom would make it easier to reach with my thumb, would be consistent with how native iOS apps work, and would place the three-dot menu in the top-right hand corner of the screen, which is a pattern I’m very used to.

on iOS, because the font size of the “write a post” text area is less than 16px, when I tap on the field my browser zooms in. I have to zoom out or pan around to find the “Close” button