Cultivating a Pleasant Local Timeline
It’s nearly 5785! During this time of contemplation and renewal, the Babka team has been thinking about community building. There are many dates of significance this time of year—this year, one more than before. On such days, we come together, and come apart. We would like to be a place that forges connection between Jews of the Fediverse, so that we can support each other in good times and bad times, and be a safe haven to be unapologetically and peacefully Jewish, even at times when it seems difficult or scary to do so. We would love to see our community grow and present a real alternative to Jews who may be looking around and thinking, “maybe the Fediverse isn’t for people like me.” We would like to create a welcoming and cozy home for such people. We can achieve this by tending our garden, and cultivating a culture that permits authenticity and self-expression, as consistent with our values.
Server rules vs. server culture
Babka has a set of clearly defined rules and a moderator team that is responsible for keeping us within those bounds, but community behaviour is more than just following rules. What are the norms that we can encourage that will make this a welcoming space and a joy to open every day?
Discussing difficult topics
There’s no shortage of difficult topics, and we love to debate them—but we also recognize that, as a community, we are worn down by a very, very long year. It is human to acknowledge that sometimes it’s all too much. We’d love to provide a ‘middle ground’ between being overwhelmed by darkness, and tuning out entirely (or leaving). Ideally, we’d love to create a Local timeline that is a joy to scroll, and a locus for Jews to connect with each other and build friendships. This cannot be achieved by rules, but by social norms. This post is just a nudge to encourage people to consider their part in fostering a joyful Local timeline that is an incentive to join the community.
So how do we do this? Here are some ways to think about the tools that are available to us.
Content warnings
People feel a lot of different ways about content warnings, and your opinion is your own. But consider: if a core function of a content warning is to avoid retraumatizing somebody, and if we kindly acknowledge that we are all carrying pain in our hearts from what has happened this past year (and beyond), consider your audience. Many arguments against the applicaton of content warnings involve the angle that some people must be made to face realities that they would otherwise deny. But if you are writing to an audience of Jews: we are not denying those realities at all. We ache from them. We don’t need to be educated; we already know, and indeed we want to know more and more and more, but we will look when we are ready. “Just waking up and scrolling our timeline for challah photos” may not be the time. So consider using gentle content warnings so that people can guard their hearts before opening your post. We like simple words like “war” or “AS” (for antisemitism), so that we can discuss painful issues when we are ready, and not when we aren’t.
“But I want to show this stuff to my non-Jewish followers!”
That’s very valid. There are many people who would take the option to look away for other reasons. If that’s the case, perhaps consider posting “Unlisted” or “Quiet Public” (different interfaces will name this different ways). Such posts will appear to your followers as normal, but will not be included in the Babka Local timeline.
Let’s cultivate a Local timeline, and a server culture, built on simcha and people living their best Jewish lives!
And since you probably have a lot of thoughts about this ;) let’s meet on Babka to chat about it!
Kol tuv, the Babka community team