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dreymoreau authored Aug 19, 2024
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Expand Up @@ -15,44 +15,38 @@ We have a new home! Expect more frequent content and more of the nice and quirky

![A gif of a TV test image saying "Please stand by"](./assets/giphy.gif)

It is very much needed a sorry for all the time that it took us to put the blog together, but also an explanation of everything that happened.

## The why

Last year we were writing the TL;DR newsletter in a very nice trio using the substack platform. In a turn of events we found out that the platform was _supporting neo-nazi propaganda_ by keeping newsletters up and running and even monetizing them!

As hate speech goes against our [Code of Conduct](https://torontojs.com/code_of_conduct) and two of the writers are queer, continuing to use the platform created an ethical problem. To resolve that we wrapped the content for 2023 for the newsletter and went searching for another platform.
As hate speech goes against our [Code of Conduct](https://torontojs.com/code_of_conduct) continuing to use the platform created an ethical problem. To resolve that we wrapped the content for 2023 for the newsletter and went searching for another platform.

## Combining ideas

At the same time two other things happened in parallel:
- Discussions about a blog for general posts from and to the community.
- A RFC style proposals system for improvements.
- Discussions about a blog for general posts from and to the community
- A Request For Comment (RFC) style proposals system for improvements

On the organizers group, we started discussing that it may be very nice and useful to have a blog to post the newsletter there and then fire email notifications to people.
On the organizers group, we started discussing that it may be very nice and useful to have a blog to post the newsletter as well as a way to send emails!!!

That also gives us a venue to post community content, from anyone that is interested in writing something cool and sharing that with others. Basically a more permanent and longer form version of the `#show-and-tell` channel on Slack.

The blog also opens up space to post reports and pictures of events that we run, along with summaries. Very old school and [Indie Web](https://indieweb.org/) style. (Keep an eye out for a webring haha)

Along side to that, the organizers group changed, we saw the departure of Jen Chan as the main organizer and the succession by Dann Toliver on that role. At the same time we saw an influx of people who were _de facto_ organizers getting the title.

All the change brought with it exciting new ideas and we wanted a way to organize and be more open for improving the community. Because we are very influenced by the engineering side of things (although it is changing) the best idea on how to implement "proposals for improving the community" was a Request For Comments (RFC) process.

To test out the proposals system, we thought it would be a good idea use the blog. So we could have a first proposal and see it to completion.

## Writing a blog
All the change brought with it exciting new ideas and we wanted a way to organize and be more open for improving the community. Since we are very influenced by the engineering side of things (although it is changing), the best idea on how to implement "proposals for improving the community" was a RFC process.

Based on the experience I had building my blog and testing tools, we decided to go with [Astro](https://astro.build/) for two reasons:
1. It builds statically, so no JS on the client (ironic that we are Toronto... _**JS**_ and try to get rid of JS).
2. It has nice components so we are not maintaining a thousand times the same lines of code and repeating ourselves.
To test out the proposals system, we thought it would be a good idea use the blog.

To make things easier, we used the structure and some code of my personal blog and then went to design how the TorontoJS blog would look like. Turns out it is very hard to design things and our shade of red is _very difficult_ to pair with other colours. To make things even worse it is not a very accessible shade.
## Building a blog

With all of those problems, actually building the blog took some time.
We decided to go with [Astro](https://astro.build/) for two reasons:
1. It builds statically, so no JS on the client (ironic that we are Toronto... _**JS**_ and try to get rid of JS) hehe.
2. It has nice built in components, so we are not having to maintain the same lines of code.

## What now?

The blog is live, welcome to it and enjoy!

Now we have an open place to share ideas and write articles. If you would be interested in doing so, please reach us on Slack!
Now we have an open place to share ideas and write articles. If you would be interested in doing so, please reach out to us on Slack!

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