How can I have truely public groups?

Mobilizon Feature
#1

Hello!

What I want is to allow visitors to view all the details of the group, without needing to log in or to have an account.

However, if they want to contribute or respond to something, they’ll still need an account.

Is this possible today?

Thanks!

#2

Hi!

I don’t think that is possible today.
You can only access the « public part » of a group (posts and events) without being logged in.

What’s your story? :wink:

#3

Thanks Lahax!

Ah, that’s unfortunate.

As for my story… Hmm… I’m in Australia, and have been annoyed by Facebook for a long while, but still use it to host events and to see events made by others in the Auslan Community. (Auslan is the local sign language in Australia). Just a regular « Saturday » meet in the park, really. Very casual.

So I’m checking out Mobilizon, I still might not end up with it (There’s a few other options, eg, « just a telegram chatroom » might be more than enough).

Actually Mobilizon has a few problems with our group, sadly…

  • It requires a login, and it seems people aren’t keen to create a new account unless they know what they’re coming in for. Ie, they’re sticking to whatever accounts they already have.
  • Actually, speaking about a login, it seems these users are confused when they see the Group page first, and then are presented with « Log in », or « use a federated account ». Perhaps it would be easier if they were to see « Create Account » right there, as well. It’s a pity there’s no option to « sign in with gmail », or « sign in with Facebook », etc. (I realise that these are commercial entities we’re trying to avoid, but these are still a form of federation, and many people hate creating accounts).
  • Video support is poor, and you can’t express Auslan without video.

I’m still checking things out but it seems that the dealbreaker is that the group is unwilling to move, and I can’t (and don’t want to) force them! :frowning:

  • Actually none of them have created accounts on the test instance.
  • Several also don’t like Facebook, but I think they’re happy enough with Telegram. (You can « Pin » a message - eg, a screenshot or text description of an event, so there’s that).

Very few of these people are « first movers », they’re not technical people and are quite busy with their own lives, they don’t think much about websites and stuff at all.

Anyway, so that’s my story here. :smiley:

#4

Hello hrodpreht,

Now I’m wondering how you heard of Mobilizon in the first place! I didn’t know it had traveled that far!

You need an account only to access the « ressources » (link) and chat thread, but the events are on the public page of the group…
You can view and even mention you participate to an event even without an account.
So maybe you could create that « auslan » group, create the events, and then share the event link on facebook or on telegram or whatever support you’re used to. You can also feed the public posts.

I completely agree it’s hard to move people from one thing they’re used to to another one, you have to picture yourself like a pioneer :wink:

Also there is a very nice feature upcoming, that is to have a « ics feed » with all a group events. That means, for instance, in your google calendar, you can « add » a calendar which contains all the group events. And it’s dynamic, you do it once and then it’s automatically synced.

That doesn’t require an account either.

Please keep us posted!

#5

Yeah, those are excellent points and I think I absolutely need to keep an eye on this project!

As for how I found Mobilizon… I was looking for alternatives to Facebook events, and there aren’t that many good options. I took a look at Mastadon, but that doesn’t do events (It’s basically twitter, but without the user base…).

Someone on freenode mentioned Mobilizon, so I checked it out then! I liked that it was European. :wink:

Mobilizon is unheard of in Australia from what I know, though, although there was another Australian user in the chatroom just a few days ago who was thinking of maybe starting an instance up himself.