What is your take on Bandcamp Fridays? Should be a thing in our context? What about pushing for a more neutral and broader campaign like FediMusic Fridays? For instance, what exactly could we schedule in Events, to see these Fridays coming and coordinate / celebrate around them?
(FediMusicFriday is already a tag on Mastodon, used by only a few people as far as I can see, one of them being @AxWax.)
FairTradeMusicFriday is more used, I think. It even has a website (https://isitfairtrademusicfri.day/), which says itās fair trade music Friday whenever @AxWax remembers to update it.
ā¦ which sadly hasnāt been in quite some time!
I keep on meaning to completely redoing that page, but life keeps getting in the wayā¦
#FairTradeMusic is a term that (AFAIK) @prinlu came up with originally (or at least popularised), and after a bit of prodding by Roberta Fidora I decided to make the equivalent of isitbandcampfriday dot com
Iād love to hear about ideas on how to revive FairTradeMusicFridays (FTMF from now on), how to improve them and when to schedule them.
Doing a FTMF every week or even every fortnight burned me out a bit, as the current system still required a fair bit of manual labour, as well as keeping an eye on posts to make sure everyone played fair (which they always did btw!)
Finally, after some discussion FairTradeMusicFriday was used instead of FediMusicFriday as it felt more inclusive of non-Fedi musosā¦
@AxWax - FTMF: Leave that with me - I have a spare two hours today and I promised you I could automate this with a bit of script and a Masto bot - let me see what I can do. Might not finish it in two hours, letās see 
I cheer for revival of FTMF! I this it is a brilliant simple system (not talking about backend programming), just this kind of ācallā and then if there are replies after the call it would appear on the page, and people would just look into the thread to get new releases in the community. Brilliant! Yes, please do partially automate this, if possible, that would be amazing, but maybe letās not loose the communical vibe of it.
Iām just learning about FTMFs. Are they supposed to coincide with Bandcamp Fridays, the opposite, or else?
Are they supposed to coincide with Bandcamp Fridays, the opposite, or else?
Well they have been a bit ad hoc, i.e. whenever @AxWax set one up. Sometimes coinciding with Bandcamp Fridays, often not.
There hasnāt been one in about 5 months as it was quite a manual process.
However, Iāve now got some crucial bits of it automated, so keep an eye open for something soon-ish when we get the last little bits sorted out.
As to frequency/dates - the new system can post automatically once a month but allows for ad hoc ones in between as well.
As I have it right now, the once-per-month ones will coincide with Bandcamp Fridays on the dates where those happen. We could choose not to, though, and move it to e.g. second, third or fourth Friday of the month..
Iām conscious this is AxWaxās thing not mine though, Iām just streamlining the process!
As Keef said - theyāve been a bit all over the place.
While I initially thought of them as the ethical alternative to Bandcamp Friday (with a significantly smaller number of staff laid off) I do recognise that Bandcamp is still the best of the bad bunch and can be a significant source of income for artists, so I resorted to actually boost Bandcamp releases on Bandcamp Fridays (provided they were submitted by people first)ā¦
I think running them once a month (including Bandcamp Fridays) is a good frequency. Like that they are still a little bit special (as opposed to eg weekly), highlight the fact you donāt have to wait for a Bandcamp Friday to buy your music, and there are so many fairer alternatives out there now, yet be still inclusive of artists that rely on Bandcamp for their sales.
Iād love to hear other peopleās views and ideas on this though!
Yeah, I still see the Fediverse getting in a special mood when one of these days approaches, and fwiw this is why I have added them to Events, as an opportunity to (as you say) boost and buy music from artists in our circles.
If you schedule new Fair Trade Music Fridays, they could be added to the calendar as well, and you could even use those topics for coordination before and during that Friday.
arenāt bc fridays usually on the first friday of the month (on the months that they actually happen)? what if fair trade fedi fridays (ftff?) hapoen every third friday of the month?or they could happen simply fortnightly (every second friday)?
The former could work, but itās a bit harder to remember, also I like the fact that every first Friday is a FTMF, not just some like for Bandcamp.
Iām not categorically saying no to them being fortnightly if people feel they need to happen more frequently, although it could get confusing once we get to months with 5 Fridays, eg in May. Again, might be a bit harder for people to remember / plan aheadā¦
Itās also a bit harder to automate every two weeks - easier to do e.g. 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month if we do go down that route! 
Iād offer to help, but I know better than to do any dev work that involves calendars 
Thanks for the offer - Iām sure I could figure it out but it just feels like a chunk of work for not a lot of gain 
Iāve already solved the ānth Friday of the monthā problem so much easier to do 1st and 3rd Fridays if we want it roughly every two weeks.
Or just keep the automation to 1st Fridays, and use ad-hoc ones whenever AxWax feels like it? (or I can trigger one..) - this retains a human factor and allows reacting to external events if there are any.
This Friday is the first Friday of the month. Are you organizing anything?
Note that there is no Bandcamp Friday scheduled. The next one is on May ā Bandcamp Friday May 2025.
Also, if you are interested, we can have a space for Fair Trade Music Fridays on Projects.
This Friday is the first Friday of the month. Are you organizing anything?
I couldnāt possibly say. But you could see for yourself to see if anything is looking likely!
Great! Does anyone want / can post the event on Events? It can be made recurrent for every first Friday of the month there too.
Iāll leave that question to @AxWax ā¦
If someone tells me how to Iāll oblige happily.
I had a go here, but no idea how to turn it into a real event, let alone a recurring one:
@icaria36, feel free to edit, otherwise let me know how and Iāll do it myself when I get a chanceā¦
@AxWax Thank you very much! I tried to document the howto on How to post events but I can edit it later after I finish [something starting in a bit].