An alternative to Facebook Groups that can be used by specific local organisations and collectives, and offered to others - to support existing and emergent groups.

These groups exemplify our primary target user organisations. These can shape our evaluation and comparison of alternative platforms.

• Brunswick Tool Library
• Good Karma Network
• Gig Guide
• Radical Socialist Base
• Muslim Women’s association
• Radicle Roots
• Balam Balam
• Library services

We can prioritise these to identify core functionality and non-essential functionality (e.g. MoSCoW prioritisation)

In an emergency

• Community emergency announcements
• Organising / coordinating volunteers (e.g. community gardening, food parcel delivery)
• Alerting neighbours and groups to people in need of assistance
• Coordinating community response to requests for assistance

Business as usual

Being used regularly as part of everyday community activities will mean that the platform is familiar and useful to many in an emergency / blackout scenario.

• Advertising events, workshops and groups' initiatives to the community
• Offering and requesting items, services and assistance (per e.g. Freecycle / Good Karma)
• Requesting advice and recommendations regarding local businesses and services
• Seeking social connections with neighbours
• Discussion of local politics and current affairs ?

These could be provided by the platform itself or by supporting services and capabilities

• Onboarding plan and functionality
• Discoverability: pathways to find things (and the groups and people users new are interested in)
• Ability to manage multiple overlapping circles of community, e.g. micro-locality, specific interests etc.
• Options for sign-up, sign-in and account management (including provisioning and password resets)
  • using email and / or mobile
  • and when email and phone not available
• Initial user experience and visual appearance must be acceptable to non-technical users
• Needs to be FOSS, standards based, interoperable, robust