You can track the main post on our community while it is still up (https://forum.unfinishedprojects.net/topic/46/unfinishedprojects-will-be-closing-down.)
But essentially our community that was started not too long ago was an experiment by myself and two others who were hoping to create a space on the fediverse that acted as a sort of Commons for people to iterate and work on various Openly licensed projects together (of all types, to include not only software but all various disciplines). See here for more on what our community hoped to become: [ https://unfinishedprojects.net/wiki/About/Vision ]
In short, it is a combination of a federated forum and a public Wiki, where individuals can collaborate and contribute to a wide array of projects - using their diverse skills, knowledge and experience - to create a hub of open projects... and allowing individuals to make small contributions without needing to commit long term to any one project.
The reason I am posting this is not to promote the platform (because I have already tried and mostly failed), but because I truly still believe in the ideas and vision that we had for it. Ultimately, I just realized that I am not able to be the one to bring this vision to life.
Although I know it's unlikely, it would be nice if someone else saw the same potential for this platform to create a space on the internet that fights against the internet that "big tech" has been pushing for it to become.
So all that to say, I hope that this short lived experiment can either inspire someone else to iterate and improve on our failed attempt, or maybe even "take over" the already existing platform.
Either way, it was a short lived experiment, but I enjoyed the journey and the few connections I made along the way! If nothing else, it helped me reflect on our current standing of internet spaces, and what they might someday be able to evolve into given we have enough buy-in from like minded individuals.
I know most of you have probably never heard of our platform, but for those of you that have and engaged with it in any way, I appreciate your time and I apologize for any wasted time or effort in our shutting down after only launching recently.
- Anthony and the Unfinished Projects Team
How about making it live on in a smaller form as a community on an existing instance, no additional hosting needed? There's already one with the same name on LW. Or we could create a new one for people to move to.
This could possibly work. One of the main priorities of the other platform was to have a "slower" and more "old school" internet, and to try and foster genuine and lasting connections and collaboration - and while it's not impossible to foster that community within lemmy or piefed, it is a lot harder just on the way that threads and discussions are structured and buried over time. But something is obviously better than nothing.
I scrolled a bit through the communities. We already have several "DIY" communities. But they're mostly somewhat inactive, except the slrpnk.net one. Not sure where to go with this. Eiter we just use that one. Or make a new one. I think I could mod some community on piefed.social. But the question is whether that should be some more general maker lounge. I like the unfinished projects idea. But maybe it's just too much niche of a niche... But if it's just another DIY community, maybe we rather post a bit in the already existing community... I'm really not sure what's best here.
Well, I cross posted this to the !opensource@lemmy.ml community, and one person showed a possible interest in continuing it, so I guess we can give it a small amount of time to see if someone actually wants to take on the platform, and if not - likely just do a single standalone community as you suggested.