Node.js Social Media Accounts

[bnb]

A bit ago, @RRomoff and I had a discussion about the possibility of the Node.js project taking over the presence of Node.js on various social media platforms now that we've moved into the OpenJS foundation and those accounts aren't representing the Node.js Foundation.

Effectively, this would mean that we the project end up taking over what's published to the Node.js accounts that exist. This would include:

• @nodejs on Twitter
  • 621k followers
• the nodejs-foundation LinkedIn page (planned to be renamed, the foundation part is outdated)
  • 97k followers
• Node.js Foundation Facebook page (planned to be renamed, the foundation part is outdated)
  • 21k followers

What we do with each of these platforms would be entirely up to the project. We could drop them entirely and never update them, or we could meticulously manage each of them however we want.

This does introduce an interesting challenge: the platform we build together has built a massive social reach - how do we actually manage that safely and effectively? Beyond deciding if this is something we should do (we could say we'd rather not), the next question is how to do it effectively.

I would like to propose that we follow a process similar to the current process we have for the Moderation Team:

• allow nominations to be someone who has access to / the ability to post to our social media accounts directly
• require zero -1s from TSC and CommComm for a predetermined nomination period.

Expanding on that for this specific work:

• have a repository nodejs/twitter that allows ALL collaborators to PR tweets on an as-needed basis, reducing the bottleneck of real humans having to write or copy/paste into a web UI and instead simply have them tap "merge". Appointed members would be collaborators of this repository. This could be implemented relatively easily with @gr2m's twitter-together GitHub Action.
• Perhaps limit to a certain number of members so there's not a too many cooks situation?

To close this out: This is something that I'd consider a good opportunity for us as a project. I've heard from ecosystem members that - under the Node.js Foundation - they wanted to see more technical- or project-focused content rather than Foundation-y marketing things. This is a good opportunity for the project to enable that and continue to grow the platform's impact and reach.

cc @nodejs/tsc @nodejs/community-committee

[gr2m]

Happy to help in any way I can!

[mcollina]

What about the "nodejs collection" on Medium?

What tools is the foundation currently using?

---

I think managing those accounts should be one of the responsibilities of CommComm, with an easy path for the TSC to announce new releases/new features/etc of the runtime.

I think there are 2 main responsibilities of managing such a big accounts:

1. plan content and decide what to promote, and schedule tweets
2. reply/retweet when people engage with the account

I think twitter-together almost fits the bill, however it does not allow for "scheduled" tweets, which I think would be better considering the async nature of OSS contributions. @gr2m do you think it would be possible to add this to twitter-together?

@bnb what would be the plan to manage the engagement from people with the account?

[Trott]

The Node.js Collection (https://medium.com/the-node-js-collection) looks like it's a RisingStack thing now more than a Node.js project thing. They've already got their own blog/Medium setup. Anyway, I had originally written this based on my experiences editing submissions via https://github.com/nodejs/nodejs-collection but it looks like that process has changed a lot since I last was involved. Here's what I wrote:

I'd propose that we stop the Node.js Collection on Medium. (It seems to be effectively stopped already?) There are already community resources out there that gather blog posts etc into weekly newsletters and whatnot [EDIT: such as the one produced by RisingStack!], and I never really felt like the Node.js Collection got significant traffic compared to those things. And while there was good content from time to time, overall, the quality of submissions was mixed. It lacked a single editorial vision and ended up being a hodgepodge of content that just didn't seem necessary. It seemed like a lot of effort went into trying to get people to review the submissions and there wasn't a lot of success there. And I think putting an official imprimatur on something that is really just a semi-random collection of blog posts is probably not good for the Node.js brand. It was an appealing idea, but not all ideas pan out, and that's OK. But let's know when to stop.

[Trott]

For Twitter, I'd be very interested to try what's being proposed here.

I have no opinion on what to do with Facebook and LinkedIn, but I imagine we'd want to do something, and it would be similar to Twitter. Maybe manage all three in one place?

[Trott]

By the way, and I hope this was obvious but just in case not: No diss on RisingStack or anything like that. They produce good content and their weekly roundup is a good one. If they're the only ones supplying good content on a regular basis to the Node.js Collection, that's great for them. In short, I'm a fan.

[gr2m]

however it does not allow for "scheduled" tweets

I'm working on a separate action to schedule a merge of pull requests:
https://github.com/gr2m/merge-schedule-action

Update: The action is ready now: https://github.com/marketplace/actions/merge-schedule

[WaleedAshraf]

@Trott You are right about Node.js Collection on Medium is not much active in the past few months. I have been in contact with @RRomoff and @bnb. We are trying to make it more open, easy to submit and a more community-driven blog. Gather more technical reviewers and make the submission process easier.

I want to give it a last push with the new process and see if it works. I suggest we keep Node.js Collection on medium active for now and for the next few months. I'll finalize the new process within a few weeks. We can evaluate it again if it’s worth maintaining the collection on the next collab summit?

@mcollina It's still maintained by @RRomoff with some help from technical reviewers.

[bnb]

@mcollina on what the plan would be to manage engagement with the account: I think it would still be vital for the individuals who we entrust with this ability to be able to engage directly from the account themselves without the forced proxy of GitHub PRs. Liking, retweeting, and responding would be a part of this responsibility.

[ahmadawais]

About Node.js Collection: May I also add that keeping it on Medium is sort of a blocker for many people. The biggest issue for me has always been the code blocks. Medium refuses to add syntax highlighter and we either end up with dead-looking text or code screenshots like the one below (which are a11y nightmare).

May I suggest migrating from Medium to Dev.to as part of "making it more open"? I'd love to help.

Peace! ✌️

[Trott]

we either end up with dead-looking text or code screenshots like the one below (which are a11y nightmare).

GitHub Gists import nicely in Medium with syntax highlighting intact. See, for example, https://medium.com/@Trott/using-worker-threads-in-node-js-part-2-a9405c72a6f0.

[bnb]

I will PR a proposal for this next week.

[bnb]

As an update to this, I'm working with Electron to set up Twitter Together as a way to prove it works and is something that can be integrated into our process before going ahead and PRing a document that may or may not include that.

[bnb]

While I'm continuing to work on this with the Electron team, I've also gotten a POC up that just tweets to my own account:

🗄 Repo: https://github.com/bnb/tweet
✅ Commit: bnb/tweet@f25187b
🟢 Action run: https://github.com/bnb/tweet/actions/runs/59001947
🐦 Tweet: https://twitter.com/bitandbang/status/1240653122625830914

Direct commits directly trigger the tweet, and PRs will trigger the tweet once they're merged. Additionally, on the actual commit itself the Action replies with the link to the tweet once it successfully runs.

Creating a Twitter App for this was trivial and took less than 5 minutes. My Twitter account already has API access, which is something we'd need to do for the @nodejs Twitter account.

[bnb]

Closing this since #494 is now merged.