Platform Clarity: Streamlining the 2TonWaffle Ecosystem

When I started the 2TonWaffle Community many moons ago, one thing that I had on my mind was how this would be organized. This is something that is still being worked on as I am always in a state of experimenting. From using Invision Community to Ghost and with the recent addition of NodeBB. My goal has been to find the resources and software that would help bring the articles and communities together within the Fediverse in some way shape or form.

With the way Invision Community functions, it's more conducive for much larger communities or for those that are seeking a better way for organizing their organization. I'm still a huge supporter for Invision Community and everything that it's capable of but, for my needs it sways into being a bit much.

For this, I decided to move into more of the Fediverse connected aspects of NodeBB and Ghost. For a community as tiny as ours currently, this would afford our growth to coincide with our current needs. Add on to the fact of being connected into the Fediverse with ActivityPub. I could easily have our posts and threads from the NodeBB forums show up in places like Mastodon and Lemmy. This would also allow others to share, interact and follow the content from its source, without having to sign up on the forums.

For Ghost, this was the same approach. The posts and even newsletter can be sent out to the Fediverse as Ghost opened up their ActivityPub integration for those using the GhostPro Hosting plans. I've been using GhostPro as it allowed me to focus more on creating the content than worrying about whether the server was up to date.

This brings me to what the future is going to hold for us. For the 2TonWaffle side, there really isn't going to be any changes. The forums are still the community home for all things indie gaming, alternative platforms, and more. What will be changing is the type of posts that would normally be posted on the main site. Moving the news articles on software, hardware, and alternative platforms to the Indie Creator Hub site.

I know that this really isn't that new as I had previously had these sites separate years ago but, I've been seeing in that results of how the content is received between the two differs with more interaction taking place on the Indie Creator Hub's YouTube channel. This isn't to say that one site is more fun than the other - far from it. Rather, it shows me that more people are interested in learning about one niche than another.

For the 2TonWaffle Community it will continue to be the same as it was with some slight changes in content. I'll be posting more within the indie gaming universe. Posts from both sites will be linked into the 2TonWaffle forums to facilitate ongoing member discussions.

Moving on to where you can watch our live-streaming content. I've been really enjoying the time I've been spending with Moonbeam and its viewer and creator experience so far. When they open up realm creation to more creators, I will be setting up a 2TonWaffle realm within Moonbeam. I will be continuing to stream to Twitch, Owncast, Beam, and Moonbeam. For live streams on YouTube, I will be still running these as well with continuing the First 2 Hours series.

Going into 2025, I wanted to keep the experimenting I had been doing previously to slow down or even suspend them altogether. Already going into the fourth month of the year and failing on that promise to myself, I've been working on staying on a workflow that doesn't change every other month. This allows things to settle into something quite stable for myself and for the community.

Looking ahead, I'm excited about this more focused approach for both 2TonWaffle and Indie Creator Hub. By clarifying the purpose of each platform, I hope to better serve both communities while maintaining the interconnected experience that's always been at the heart of what we do.

I want to thank everyone who has been part of this journey – whether you've been here from the beginning or just recently joined. Your engagement, feedback, and patience through all these experiments and changes have been invaluable. Community building is never a straight path, and I appreciate you walking it with me.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and suggestions. Feel free to share them in the forums or reach out to me directly. The beauty of being independent is that we can adapt and evolve together.

Stay creative, stay curious, and I'll see you in the Fediverse, on the forums, or in the streams!