Sharing a message I wrote on discord, because I think it's something we can all relate to in one way or another as we go through these last few weeks of Cohost together.

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"I'm kinda shy when it comes to meeting new people or taking the first step to reach out, and I know I'm not alone in feeling that way! But! I'm also good at becoming the Community Manager Mom Friend when one is needed. As soon as the news dropped about Cohost I knew there'd be many who were at loss for where to go or how to stay connected with all the friends they'd made, so I decided to scoop up all the shy little eggbugs I've been getting to know and collect them all here!

'Cause this isn't our first rodeo. We've all gone through our share of forums, sites, or games that shut down overnight. We've all had friend groups that slowly shifted into strangers. There's no permanency on the internet, not really, but 20 years later my phone still holds the ghosts of people I've forgotten for far longer than I knew them. They resurface once a year when I get a reminder of a birthday; for a name that sounds familiar; for a person I can't remember.

Communities will come and go. Cohost wasn't the first, and it won't be the last. But when all is said and done, it's the connections, the people, that I regret not keeping. When I look back and wonder what happened to that person whose birthday was important enough for me to know, but didn't matter enough for me to say, "Hey. When all is said and done, where can I find you?"

I think we lose a lot of connections from simply not reaching out when we have the chance--be it from shyness, or indifference, or anxiety. I have lost a lot of connections to hoping someone would take that first step when I never did, and I have come to realize that someone has to reach out, and there's no reason why 'someone' can't be me.

And so here I am (and here you all are!), and while a discord server can't be a replacement for cohost, I hope it can at least be a place for friends. For connections. 😌"

I have no idea what modern forum infrastructure or hosting options are like nowadays, but what if we all helped put together one together with threads and sections focused on some of the most popular tags?

I'm imagining a place that could be potentially a less toxic something awful or resetera. Something that carries on the spirit of this place and allows for both long form and short form posts. It probably wouldn't grow, or have the same sort of image/audio hosting, but still.

Would that be something folks would be interested in? Do you think something like that would be worth looking into?

Edit: doing research...

Edit 2: Ok it looks like there's definitely a lot of interest in something like this. In terms of hosting there appears to be a tons of options ranging from free to paid. I think later today/this week I will set up a discord for folks interested and try to organize it's channels in terms of platforms, community guidelines, and everything that a community might need discuss. Gosh, I get to put my union organizer training to good use, I guess.

Edit 3: I have created a planning discord for this!
https://discord.gg/Zgp3qCQC

Since this is a public post I have an extra step to try to verify people as actual cohost users. It's manual though, so it might take me a while to get everyone who's interested in the planning stage in.

We have a small collection of folks discussing possibilities in the planning discord. Nothing concrete, but some good discussion.

unfortunate that this site is going down even if i didn't really use it (kind of wish i had done so more in hindsight). seemed like a very nice concept. if anyone wants, you can find me on tumblr (url straightlightyagami or isomorbism) where i am most active. i also have bluesky and pillowfort where i'm isomorbism but do not post as often since i don't have many followers. also isomorbism on neocities which i am planning to update eventually but haven't in a while. goodbye :(