The Le Alternative forum is born!

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They have passed almost five years since the creation of the Le Alternative project. In the meantime a bit of everything has happened, fromRepubblica interview to the creation of a our server Lemmy with Polyverse. During these years a strong force has been created community on Telegram where every day dozens of people chat about privacy, alternatives and security. And it is precisely from here that the desire to create something new arises, that is Le Alternative forum!

Precisely because within the chat every day we experience many different situations and exciting and educational discussions often arise for everyone. Telegram, despite its shortcomings, is a good platform for communicating and exchanging opinions. But there is one thing that many people miss: the possibility of leaving something tangible even for those who are not reading the chat at that moment and the possibility of resuming even old discussions or not being disturbed by other conversations while you are having an argument with someone.

The Le Alternative forum is born

In fact, chat is a convenient and practical tool but at the same time decidedly volatile. The words that are written there come later lost in the depths of the internet. In order to find those discussions, or to have someone else discover them, there are many factors to take into consideration: you must have Telegram installed in the meantime. You must then get to know one of our groups. You should then try to search for a keyword e try to follow the conversation within a chat. All this is decidedly impractical seen from the outside and also seen by those who cannot keep up with a chat continuously.

The forum was created to try to bring the most interesting discussions to the web.

In our opinion it is important to try to also be present on the web, where discussions can be archived on archive.org And where it is possible to find them even after years with a simple search on your own Search engine favorite. Many of the people who know Le Alternative today know it thanks to a search done on the internet which then led them to discover this world. Here you are this is what we would like to try to replicate with the help of all of you.

A discussion on a forum it can go on for days and can bring new people to discuss bringing new topics and new interesting ideas. A discussion on a forum is separate from everything else and is not "disturbed" by other people talking in the middle asking for other things. You can follow via email or push notifications and a category or tag can be followed simply by using the RSS!

For this reason we want to try this new exciting adventure and to do so we have set up a forum thanks to free software and Open source called Flarum. We have choosen Flarum and not phpBB because we wanted a more modern and less "classic" platform (even if we are total fans of old-fashioned forums we know well that aesthetically nowadays they can be considered old and impractical by several people). Give a chance to Flarum and you won't regret it!

The Le Alternative forum: the categories

Thanks to the help and enthusiasm of other people on Telegram a simple was created Regulation (with the usual rules that have always characterized Le Alternative) and one FAQ for those who set foot in these places for the first time,.

A series of different categories were then designed within which to insert one's discussion. The categories created are:

• Alternatives and discussions, reviews, comments or reports of any kind on alternative applications
• Help and questions, requests for help and questions about smartphones and alternative applications. It is highly recommended to also insert a secondary tag (example: Android, VPN, Browsers) when the question is asked!
• News, news and general news on privacy, Open source and safety. It is also possible to insert updates and new releases of applications.
• Guides, within this section only messages that will be considered real guides for alternative software or smartphones will be approved
• Self promotion, if you have your own free project and Open source you can talk about it here. It is essential that the link to is inserted source code of your work which can be hosted on the platform of your choice.
• Discounts and offers, offers, discounts or even referral codes. Here you can find and report discounts for alternative projects and providers. Not you can insert links to Amazon, eBay or any other Tech giant.
• Ideas and proposals, if you have ideas, proposals, criticisms or anything else related to this forum this is the right section.
• Test area, in this area it is possible to test the various possibilities that this forum offers. If you need to open a test thread to try the RSS, markdown, links or anything else you can do here. Discussions opened here will not be seen on the homepage.

And the tags

In addition to these, which are defined as primary categories, tags can be added to better route and identify all discussions in the future: Android, VPN, Alternative ROMs, Linux, Windows, Apple, E-mail, Browsers, microG, Passwords and 2FA, Maps, TO THE, Instant messaging, Fediverse and social, Self-hosting, Office and finally Cloud.

We initially decided to allow the use of a primary category and up to four tags to open a discussion.

So how does this forum work?

During registration you can choose a username (which cannot be changed and will be needed for login) and a nickname. The nickname will be visible to everyone and you can change it as and when you want. This way you will not be tied to just one "face" on the web. You will also be asked for an email and password to log in and nothing else.

Once logged in you can open your discussion in one of the categories mentioned above. As mentioned, it is mandatory to insert at least one primary category and you can then insert up to four secondary tags to better direct the discussion. For example if you want to ask a question about Mullvad for Android you can put as primary category Help and questions and then add the tag Android and also VPN. This way your discussion will be seen by those who follow the category Help and questions both by those who follow the tag Android and by those who follow the tag VPN.

In the forum you can use both the Markdown that the BBCode.

There is currently no application for Android or Apple but we have enabled the Progressive Wheb TOpp or you can from yours Browsers to select "Install App” once you enter the site and it will be installed as an application on your smartphone and, if you enable them, you can also use push notifications.

And Telegram, Matrix, Signal?

We thought about it for a long time and also thanks to the enthusiasm of several people on Telegram it was decided to try this new adventure. The chats will remain as they are for now, later we might think about a downsizing or a Union of the Telegram and Matrix chats but for now everything will remain as it is. Discussions in chats will not be discouraged the use of the forum instead of the chat will not be encouraged. This is because we think that the methods of use are completely different and absolutely compatible with each other: those who want a quick discussion, perhaps a quick suggestion or a quick question will prefer to use the chat. Those who want more thoughtful, less instinctive answers and do not want to be "disturbed" by other interventions that have nothing to do with their topic can then choose to write on the forum.

And Feddit?

Also in this case the decision came after a long reflection but it was chosen in this way because in our opinion Le Alternative needs a forum and Feddit, or Lemmy, is not a forum but is mainly a link aggregator. So even in this case everything will remain the same and Feddit it remains the gateway into the fediverse of Le Alternative. The Le Alternative Feddit community will continue to exist and will have its place in the fediverse as a link aggregator. Those who prefer can open a discussion there and receive replies from Mastodon, Lemmy, Friendica and so on.

Link to the Le Alternative forum

We therefore look forward to seeing many of you, hoping that you will like this idea at least as much as we do (who have grown up with the forums).

This tag @loyal alternatives is used to automatically send this post to Feddit and allow anyone on the fediverse to comment on it.

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