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Joining the DSF Social Media working group

Here are my notes on Django’s social media and why I want to help.

Application to join the DSF Social Media working group

As per the proposed charter, this is my application to join the working group.

Eligibility criteria: Members must have demonstrable experience with social media platforms, and be registered as a Django Software Foundation Individual Member.

Why I want to join

There’s a lot of untapped energy in the Django universe on social media. With more community-led organization, there is a lot of potential for Django as a project and community to become much more visible and active than it is currently. I believe this will directly benefit the long-term viability of the project, and I’d like to help with my skills and connections.

Social media also isn’t a big part of my day job so this will be a very interesting challenge for me, I’ll have a lot to learn from more experienced contributors.

Finally, I’m a Django Software Foundation Board Member for 2024 and 2025, and current Secretary of the Board. As part of those roles, I have a mandate to further the DSF’s stated goals, which align well with this working group’s goals.

For the group, my plan is to help with a process that will make it easy for others to be involved, rather than me coming up with specific ideas:

  • Do a review of the current state of Django on social media, figure out what’s working and not working.
  • Look into how other projects do this to determine what seems to work / not work.
  • Based on said reviews, and major milestones in the year, plan actions for 2024.
  • Do it!

Experience and skills

I have a small personal social media presence, and professionally I help maintain social media accounts for the Wagtail open source CMS: Twitter/X, Mastodon, LinkedIn, YouTube, Reddit, and a few others. I also have expertise in web accessibility and awareness of what best practices to follow in this area on different platforms.

Social Media working group notes

Twitter

@djangoproject

  • Currently, the account is shared via password sharing managed by the Operations team. Password stored in 1Password, which some people have access to.
  • Delegate feature is probably a better fit for the Working Group
  • Delegate – Contributor: Contributors can send Direct Messages, publish posts, and create Lists. Contributors can also view the account’s Direct Messages, posts, and Lists.
  • Delegate – Admin: Admins have the same permissions as contributors. They can also invite or remove contributors and view post analytics.

Current guidelines:

We try not to oversaturate or give too much favoritism on social media, but we definitely want to increase our social media presence and make it more worth it to our sponsors

Steps:

  • Click “View delegate accounts” under your profile switcher in bottom left.
  • In the list of Pending invites, accept the relevant invitation.
  • That’s it! Now the Django account will be available in the account switcher, and posting will show a clear “acting as…” reminder in the tweet composer.

Mastodon

@django@fosstodon.org

  • Currently, the account is shared via password sharing managed by the Operations team. Password stored in 1Password, which some people have access to.
  • Posts automated with djangoproject.com RSS feed
  • Doesn’t support multi-account workflows or delegation, but OAuth apps can toot
  • OAuth app scopes are granular enough to only allow people to post

Reddit

/r/django

  • Unofficial / no DSF involvement currently?
  • Very active: https://subredditstats.com/r/django
  • Contacted mods on 2024-01-06
  • No organization accounts there? People post individually + possibly mod duties?

LinkedIn

DSF account managed by the DSF President, no social media. TBC whether Social Media WG uses this, or sets up separate account, or we use individual accounts