I'm starting a DIY EV group on a new and upcoming social media site - MeWe

[neptronix]

Howdy, Endless Spherites.

Some of you remember that in 2011, when the future of ES was highly questionable, i started the Endless Sphere Facebook group as kind of a lifeboat for the community.

As the years have gone on, i've became more and more frustrated with how facebook runs their business and treats their users; and have been looking for alternatives to FB since 2014. Although the group attracted a huge crowd, i started regretting starting the place more and more, as i had a hand in drawing people to a web site i no longer support.

I still think there is a place on social media for discussing e-stuff though; after starting the first ebike/evehicle group on FB, many other groups sprouted up. There's a small handful even larger than ES FB today.

I believe that MeWe is the best social media alternative we have to FB today, after using it for a year myself.
So i'm creating a group for ebikes 'n e-stuff on this new social media site, in hopes that other frustrated FB users will make the switch. Even if you're not a FB user, but want a short form social media spot to discuss ebikes and whatnot, MeWe is great because it respects users' rights and privacy.

The rules in the group and intended vibe are pretty much the same, and MeWe is very similar to facebook, so if you're a facebook user, the transition will be easy.

It was controversial to borrow the Endless Sphere name back then even when our forum was at huge risk. So i'm calling this new thing Magnetic Motion.



You can join the group using this link:
https://mewe.com/join/magneticmotion

If you want to learn more about MeWe, check out these links:
https://mewe.com/faq
https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/05/...-alternative-worth-the-effort-mewe-thinks-so/
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mewe-is-the-1-trending-social-media-site-300764605.html

Hope to see you there!

 

[DAND214]

I'm IN!

Dan

 

[MJSfoto1956]

Crossing fingers.

 

[jonescg]

I may well quit facebook soon, but I'll never leave this place.

I find forums to be the best tool for the job - mostly great for technical discussion and chronological documentation of builds, and a little bit of social banter in there as well.

I mean, I use this forum to share progress on my bikes, battery builds, and sound ideas on various ideas. It's the one forum that covers all areas - if I was to bail on all but one, I'd use this one given its size and breadth of subject material.

I use DIY Electric car for car conversion specific questions, and I use the AEVA forum for conversion stuff local to Australia, as well as renewable energy storage discussions.

I remember when I was asked if I spent too much time on forums :lol: and then facebook became the major time-suck. At least with forums you weren't being bombarded with ads, shitty political memes and the like. It's a breath of fresh air to come back here, that's for sure.

 

[neptronix]

What i've seen in running the server here, as well as a social media fork of ES.. is that there's a 50/50 split between ESers who like the short format of social media versus the long format of a forum.

This forum can go 30 minutes between posts. But the posts are a lot longer. ES FB is much faster moving, but with shallower content because of the format. I'd call them about even in terms of traffic.

But there's also the Lunacycle sponsored facebook group and a few other large but lower quality ebike-oriented EV groups on FB. I don't know about their traffic, but i would hazard a guess that more ebike talk is happening on facebook than on forums overall.

Which is kind of a shame, but we can't blame people for adopting something that's more convenient to use and more responsive.

Today's forum software does not have the quick ease of use of social media sites. The younger generation likes social media.. the older generation likes forums. Somewhere in between the two is an ideal platform. And i've been looking for the fabled unicorn platform since 2015... tempted to write the software myself at this point. Last month, i wrote a complete blueprint for such software and realized how much time it would take. It would be a full time job for me and require some kind of funding to get off the ground. So that idea is shelved for the time being.

The cool thing about MeWe is that there's no ads at the moment.. as far as i know, no data mining is going on.
I think it's the best option we have for the short format discussion today.

 

[neptronix]

Thank you for joining, dan and mjs and a few others i know are from here.

We have had pretty good uptake ( 95 people joining a site they've never heard of ) but not much in the way of participation there. Most of the members are from ES FB.

I knew it would be hard to get people away from facebook before i started this group. Many others have failed at pushes to get people off FB and onto platforms that respect user privacy.

I am nuking my long running facebook presence very soon. Will be on MeWe, here, and Youtube.
ES FB will be fielded by my moderation team and will continue on, as long as facebook is still relevant and people continue to use it.

 

[markz]

As the years have gone on, i've became more and more frustrated with how facebook runs their business and treats their users

Facebook Rant
I just deleted my account, which I only logged in once every few months. I used my real name, but the pictures were of my dog, the childrens faces were spiraled. I was never a fan of faceplant, ever and why that is for some reason and I dont know why. I read a post on fb about a guy typing out some privacy statements so fb wouldnt give out data to search engines using fb users info. When I read that I deleted it. Well first I deleted 80 posts, pictures, likes from the account then deleted it. Even if you are not registered, they have a ton of info on you, thats what the zukerburg said in front of politicians. Google and Facebook are not good!

EV Groups
Well I am a member of MEETUP.com which I've attended a few meetups. I am a member of 30 local groups, including 2 non local, Toronto EV and Vancouver EV, not sure of the names. The ones I've attended are movie nights, board gaming, coffee converstion. Lots of bars and pubs but old people dont do that, well not old old, middle age to me is old. I would have attended some bicycle rides, but my head is so big no helmets fits. I'd love to say my brain was big AND smart too, sadly :lol: 8) the groups terms say need a helmet, so I gotta get one custom made that meets safety specs.

Other Ebikers
I notice them, saw one today which was rare but its cool. A teacher at elementary locks a store ebike in a cheesy manner, end of chain link fence post, with 3 hangers. 3 bolts gone. Unsure why she does that, not like its far from the train, but I dont see no bums around, nice park, 1km away from station.

MeWe is the best social media alternative we have to FB today, after using it for a year myself.
So i'm creating a group for ebikes 'n e-stuff on this new social media site, in hopes that other frustrated FB users

Never heard of MeWe, how did one become aware of something like that? Well I guess you did mention how you did.
FB well I mentioned that. Too many "Look at me's" on there. Look at this meal I just ate, while posting game highlite reel.
I will check out MeWe.

I've been trying to cut down on my computer use, closing accounts. For forums its changing passwords to random and using temporary email links. Open notepad, hit keyboard, blur eyes, copy paste, get random temporary email address. Cold snowy nights, tired, nothing else to do then wrench on stuff, surf the interweb, organize.

 

[neptronix]

I heard about mewe after researching social media sites of the future, looking for something less user abusive. I had this feeling that people would eventually get disgusted over things facebook was doing, such as..

1) Putting you in a filter bubble.
2) Filtering out your reach to your 'friends' in favor of chucking ads and other BS on your feed; creating a sense of alienation.
3) Psychological experiments ( and a former CIA guy is on the board, so.. )
4) All the privacy issues - too many to list.
5) Selling your private messages to companies and even letting them censor them!
6) Concern trolling over fake news, which is just an excuse to control what you get to see.
7) Removal of tons of pages, groups, and people for arbitrary and/or shaky reasons.
8) The fact that using facebook on a mobile device turns it into an awesome spy machine for governments, marketers, and other questionable actors; handing them data about where you go, who you were with, what times you were there, what you did on your mobile phone when there, etc.
9) Horrifically bad censorship algorithms - i got flagged for posting a bicycle ad in a group i ran; and facebook has given me mysterious errors and failures when posting harmless things.
10) Allowing bad state actors to run political ads.
11) Using the site as a testing ground for facial recognition to build a national database. Which they achieved.
12) Real name policy and checkpoints that require submitting ID.
13) The format of the site encourages shrill low quality posts and shares.. attracts a lower IQ person in general..
14-99) A couple dozen other things that slipped my mind

I thought eventually people would get tired of this crap, so i spent many years looking for something better.
gab.io? full of alt right people..
minds.com? bad format and pay to play design..
tsu.co? this was a great idea, but fell apart somehow..
steemit.com? mostly a blogging platform for crypto activists..
ello, diaspora, etc - all seem to be abandonware with lots of useability flaws..

But i was wrong about people getting disgusted enough to leave. The only people i know who left are the more intelligent and privacy conscious type. For everyone else, the objection to going somewhere else is that everyone else is on it. I made many pushes for friends to move somewhere else to no avail.

So i decided that I would leave and be one less person that was on there that people couldn't miss out on, and deleted my account.

And i lost contact with tons of people who don't use anything other than facebook to communicate with each other digitally, but that's okay. I'm not hard to find.

I lost tons of reach in the ebike community, but that's okay, i'd like to build a crowd of interesting people on a better platform.

MeWe stands the best chance of being a facebook alternative that doesn't suck. Right now, it's verging on still being a ghost town, but growing pretty fast.

 

[GP-tech]

Looks great, never heard before and happy to give it a go!

Have the same problems with FB, but cant leave after 4 broken phones and 2PC sh:t them self. only contacts where there and to keep in touch with my international friends there.

did you guys hear of "Humanconnection" ? but they are still beta unfortunately. crowdfunding looks like the problem if dont sell the idea and its open source.

Great thanks by the way to all guys here!!!

 

[neptronix]

I've never heard of human connection. Based on all the sites i've seen, i think MeWe and Gab, maybe even Minds are going to continue growing marketshare.

I also run a little ketogenic diet group on mewe, and it went from a ghost town to 3 add requests a day in the last 2 months. I think facebook did some things that finally got under their users' skin recently, and a lot of people are dipping their toes in other waters, which is great, because facebook is horrific in how bad it treats it's users.

Magnetic Motion MeWe is still a bit of a ghost town, but the EV scene is a little tumbleweed-y at the moment.