So I was thinking a bit and want to get some input... As you all know QOTO is for anyone in STEM as a professional or with a passion for the topic.
I just had an idea of starting a sister-server, one based on the same principle as QOTO but oriented specifically for students and amateurs as seperate from QOTO, which will remain open to everyone.
This separation can have a few advantages. For starters a new server that will have a new reputation in the fediverse so will have much larger initial reach . But more importantly we can use the main server as sort of a source for mentorship for those on the younger server. I'd like to setup extracurricular servers that might be good to facilitate this and provide learning resources as well as publish more advanced content. Maybe even start a scientific journal or organize a shared blog where all our members can post to as a collective...
I'd love some thoughts.
@freemo @trinsec @Romaq @khird
I have to say I agree with trinsec and romaq about not splitting the instance, but I love the remaining ideas.
How about an index site/page/feed that people can post their blogs to that allows interested parties to rapidly search the index? That way each person can manage their own static site blog, but any content tagged specifically for QOTO (e.g. tutorial, etc) gets crawled and added to the index?
I 10000% think that having a set of learning resources and tutorials would be excellent, but I also think there are lots of benefits to individual site maintainers to keep their sites that way, rather than needing to interface with some alternative posting strategy.
Finally, *inhales* I WANT THE ACADEMIC JOURNAL IDEA TO BE REAL AND I HAVE IDEAS FOR THIS THAT I'VE BEEN SITTING ON, PLEASE CAN WE DISCUSS THIS? *exhales* I've wanted to help set up a journal and data store for AGES. I even have ideas on how to manage membership structuring/fees, journal requirements including replicability/code review, peer review, grant/funding opportunities (if that's a future option under consideration and we get big enough) etc. please let me help or at least chat with y'all about it 🥺
@johnabs
We *kind of* have this in the form of the QOTOJournal hasthag (the link in the menu here is still to the misspelled QOTOJornal one even though I reported it ages ago *glares at a certain admin* :P
Though I do like the idea of a shared resources thing. Idly wondering: Wordpress for groups with a fediverse plugin? Just randomly thinking.
@trinsec @freemo @Romaq @khird I've never used wordpress personally, though I've used static site generators like hugo and jekyll. I suppose my first question would be what are the benefits of using wordpress in this particular usecase over a simple index submission page or similar? This is where I'm not the most knowledgeable, but I'd love to learn if you have time to educate me trinsec :3
As for the journal stuff though, I have loads of experience creating journal templates, peer reviewing papers, proofing work, experimental design, etc. Also, I have a few novel ideas for using distributed micro-server maintenance as an alternative for journal membership fees and such, along with mandatory steganographically embedded digital signatures to validate that the data on the servers has all been peer reviewed...I'll try not to spam this thread but I have loads of ideas for various use-cases if we need to consider niche ways of running things in a lean way! :D
@freemo
If Qoto itself would be like 100k+ active members, you might have a bit more of a call. But right now.. we just need to improve Qoto first imo.
@Romaq @khird