cross-posted from: https://literature.cafe/post/30387402
Ik that there used to be Diagonlemmy, but, IMHO, we should create an instance that is exclusive to Harry Potter, and the Wizarding World.
Perhaps call the instance Wizarding.World, or something.
That way, Fediverse users who wish to interact with Harry Potter material can, and other users/instances/etc, can defederate/don’t have to.
Harry Potter is only going to become more popular.
The HBO Harry Potter series is coming. Whether we like it or not, the HP fandom is about to have a significant resurgence, and it’s going to find a home somewhere on the internet.
The question is whether that somewhere is Reddit, Discord, and corporate platforms — or whether the Fediverse gets there first and shapes what that community looks like.
People flock to spaces where they feel familiar and welcomed.
Rowling will profit from HP whether a Lemmy instance exists or not.
The Fediverse needs more projects that make immediate sense to people, and it needs to stop ceding entire fandoms to corporate platforms by default.
The move isn’t to reject the fandom.
The move is to build the instance with explicit values — pro-trans, pro-queer, progressive moderation, zero tolerance for bigotry.
Pull HP fans into federated, open spaces and surround them with those values.
That’s far more powerful than gatekeeping.
I shared this, because I wanted to know what the general consensus was.
Also if there were any users who might have any experience with potentially creating/running their own instance.
The Harry Potter franchise is pretty expansive, so even if this next series is a major flop, I have my doubts the series will alone be able to burn all the goodwill in the franchise, leaving plenty still to be discussed.
Also, I like the idea of forums focused on specific niches, but having seen isolated ones multiple times shrink into irrelevance, being federated should help give it a bigger life span. Also wouldn’t be the first focused instance I see around. So on this point, I also defend the creation of a Harry Potter instance.
Just don’t know how protective the companies involved with the Harry Potter brand are towards it, so hopefully a site that presents itself as purely a discussion forum among fans won’t be stepping in anyone’s toes.
And about the fediverse not liking Harry Potter as someone commented, such perception feels awfully like centralization, in this case on ideas. So another reason to have a focused forum, so people may be more comfortable enjoying and discussing what they want, instead of falling into a silence spiral to not be the perceived majority’s enemies. And as you proposed, those that don’t like are free to block/defederate.
And about software, might I suggest an hybrid one, so people on both threadiverse and microblog platforms may be able to interact? Dunno how Piefed fares on that front (I keep forgetting to check) and Lemmy is kinda isolated by their design philosophy.
But back on creating an instance, now that at the end I reread the other comments, it’s a task, requiring resources, interest and time someone may not have. So if asking for one to be created by others is likely be a short-lived idea.
So good luck on finding anyone then.
Or maybe also you’d be interested in reading the responses to a question I made in a self-hosting community, if you want to do it yourself but don’t know where to start:
https://thebrainbin.org/m/[email protected]/t/1513112/What-to-study-to-be-able-to-host-a-site