Hi 
Long post is long again.
There are currently 45 user signups. About half have made an introduction. No conversations have started in the introductions thread, even if I pointed out that might be desirable. Maybe I pointed out wrong.
Iâd expect user count to easily double. If it does, and then keeps growing, this would mean this space, even now, exists less for the sake of us early birds, and more for the sake of all its future users.
So⌠why not let them tell us?
Why not look, and let them show us?
Well, because theyâre not here yet, obviously!
So, why should they come here? Consider what the âwhat we offerâ topic says.
First, itâs locked. Making on-topic discussion of it not possible â at least in the presumably proper place for such discussion: the topic itself. Thus signaling (hopefully falsely!) that conversations on that subject are undesirable.
(I, for one, wouldnât presume I can just DM the admin with suggestions â had you not yourself broken that ice 
â and a lot of things are better kept public anyway.)
Anyway, that was the meta, now for the data on that post.
The text of âwhat we offerâ presently states a mix of:
- things that the Discourse forum software offers
- things that we permit on this particular instance of Discourse
- things that users are encouraged to do here
I mentally overlaid these three atop each other, and looked at possibility-space through the resulting pattern.
It was not entirely opaque.
Still, I was unable to discern anything being offered there.
Not in the conventional sense of us giving something to another, or doing something for another. If that topic was a list of âwhat you should bringâ, it would be aptly titled!
But, as it stands, the only thing that âwe offerâ so far, continues to be the existence of the space itself. (Thanks! 
)
So, again I find it appropriate to prompt you to reflect: is an implicit goal here to limit the rate of activity itself, so that things donât get too overwhelming to those responsible for maintaining the civility of (hypothetical, future) discourse? If so, please state that constraint explicitly somewhere, so that people wouldnât need to be told that post factum.
Because, as youâve pointed out previously, there already exist many spaces to post in.
Many of them already have greater reach. Most of them have much more relaxed constraints.
The offering of a better sense of context is something I happen to greatly appreciate. But thatâs just me being neuro. I donât think every legitimate participant in a fair music ecosystem would necessarily be able to grasp the value of that particular offering before they even participate in the space; and especially before the space is extensively populated with content.
So⌠even if the first week is over, in my view âbootstrappingâ remains a valid way of describing what weâre doing â in the original sense of solving a âchicken and eggâ type of problem.
So, whatâs next?
First, whatâs not:
You may remember how in my very first post on here I acknowledged the necessity of establishing baseline safety principles, before being nearly pounced upon for trying to point out what I consider to be the elephant in the room 
Even if my tone mightâve been too abrasive, our pachydermic roommate remains in place:
I continue to hold the opinion that, after setting the ground rules, the next thing that we should do is definitely not to defend ourselves from hypothetical contingencies that may or may not occur â just so that we would be prepared to nip them in the bud before we could even know how they couldâve turned out.
Music exists to be listened to. And the least we could actually offer, in order to continue attracting users beyond the initial hype of âhey, a new forum!â, is a welcoming, judgment-free, no-strings-attached space for unassuming good-faith promotion of newcomersâ music.
Itâs more easy for me to imagine how this can benefit us, than how it can harm us. If it does in fact turn out to be a loss for the community? Weâd be absolutely free to change course. As it is, itâs a potential loss-leader that increased participation by a maximally diverse crowd would absolutely make up for.
Either way, it is not right to decide in advance without observations. The most that would accomplish, would be to effect that dreaded confirmation-bias-driven self-fulfilling prophecy sort of thing which sinks many good initiatives, and twice as many good responses.
Hereâs a hypothetical visitor. Letâs call them Newb.
- Primarily sees themself as a music maker â not a builder or organizer.
- Pouring their heart into their music â wants to show it to people, but might be feeling a little shy about it, or not instantly familiar with the norms of a new space theyâve just entered.
- Theyâre not already buddies with anyone whoâs on here.
Hereâs one way things may turn out for our hypothetical friend.
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Newb signs up.
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Newb writes a hello post in the introductions thread.
- I wanted to see what would happen with that one â well, no conversations started, even though I tried to point out that such a thing is desirable. Maybe I pointed out wrong.
- Newb may think of posting a link to their music in their introduction â or they may not.
-
Newb may or may not find some ongoing conversations to participate in.
- If they find some exciting conversations to participate in, they may be bummed out by the new user post limit just as theyâve started finding common ground with anyone, and bounce right off.
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Time passes. Newb finds a summary of forum activity in their inbox which may or may not mean absolutely nothing to them.
- They might not be aware theyâve automatically signed up for a newsletter by registering here, so they may ignore it, trash it, mark it spam, or be left with a bad vibe.
- They may read it, and it may catch their attention â or may be seen as containing a summary of names and conversations that have nothing to do with their life.
-
Newb permanently bounces back into the void, being insufficiently enthused by what weâve offered them.
- Theyâll just find something else to do.
- We, on the other hand, lose out on what mightâve grown into valuable community participation.
Hereâs another scenario.
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Newb signs up.
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Newb posts a thread promoting their music in Members - Social Music Network, then just bouncess off to wherever.
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Nobody notices Newbâs thread for a while, except in passing. It stays up until itâs bumped below the fold by other usersâ unprompted self-promotions.
- We offer a couple kilobytes, a few hundred square pixels, and waste exactly zero seconds on telling people they are being unwelcome here just for sharing with us the main thing weâre here for â music.
- If some existing member notices the thread and listens to the music, they can just say something. Newb will get an email and come back. Goto 7, collect
-
Some weeks/months/years later, a second new user signs up.
- Maybe theyâre looking for a browsable space with categorized content â exactly what forums excel at, unlike feeds â and come across that thread.
- Maybe theyâve heard of Newbâs music from somewhere else and search engines have led them to Newbâs thread on here â we should also be welcoming of ânecropostingâ!
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The second new user finds Newbâs stuff and writes some words of appreciation.
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Newb gets a notification that someone is interested in them, comes back on here, chats to their new fan, then decides to see what elseâs been happening in Unread (245) since their last visit, finds many other Newbs saying many new things, and decides, in turn, to talk to some of them.
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Both Newb, and their new fan, stay on here, because the opportunity to find and share something of value to them is what the space has offered them, and theyâd like to participate in the autopoesis of that.
- We gain new users, who attract new users, who attract new users⌠Some of them may be bad apples, but the CoC is already pretty unambiguous about all that.
- The forum itself becomes a space for music discovery, listening, and contextualized discussion â a shared collection and a shared audience, a self-sustaining living thing.
As far as ways to encourage varied participation go, allowing people to get the self-promotion out of the way is pretty high on the list. What else would be they here for? They can only know the answer to that once theyâve been here a while; but the need to share their music is most pertinent.
This is not a physical space. There can be as much space here as we allow. We should be making best use of the capabilities provided by the forum to organize that space, so that users can self-promote without interfering with each other, and do other things besides â not try to come up with axes along which to constrain the space of potential expression by individual actors in possession of an intention and a goal to reach like-minded fellow music lovers!
And if someone actually begins to abuse the space, we can always kick them out â or better! we can totally strip them for parts. Iâd be happy to read someone elaborating on adversarial scenarios about how this space could be abused in a way that we wouldnât be able to prevent and/or recover from, because I canât come up with any. OTOH starving ourselves for air by expecting too much of new users â who in turn canât know what to expect from us â I can see pretty clearly how that can be an actual existential threat.
As they, say, letâs burn that bridge if/when we get to it.
) I would establish a clear ânewcomerâ rule set or orientation list that identifies specific areas/threads, etc. for sharing projects and how frequent it would be allowed (like no more than 2 posts a day). I donât know if the platform has this feature, but (if it became a problem) maybe restrict new registrants from posting in those threads for 1, 2, or 4 weeks to ensure theyâre serious about being here and participating in the community.
)