What an ecosystem is

Some things are bigger than one community. A student network with a chapter in every city. A federation and its branches. A company and the user groups around its product. Each of those chapters is a real community with its own members and its own events — but together they are one thing, and that thing deserves a page.

That page is an ecosystem.

A community page answers "what is this crew up to?". A venue page answers "what's on at this address?". An ecosystem page answers "what is this whole network doing?" — across every community under it, in every city.

What's on an ecosystem page

• Cover and logo, the name, a line about what it gathers, and below that icons for the network's own site and social accounts.
• Three figures: Communities, Events, and Attendees. That last one counts a person once, even if they belong to five of the communities — so it is smaller than the sum of the parts, and it is the honest number.
• A map of where its events happen — the clearest single view of a network's reach.
• Two tabs:
• Events — the events of the communities in the ecosystem, together with any events added to it on their own. Soonest first; past ones below the Past Events line. If the list is long, Load More brings the rest.
• Communities — every community in the ecosystem, each with its member count. Click one to go to its page.
• At the side, About — the ecosystem's longer introduction — and Top communities: the three with the most members. See all, beside it, takes you to the Communities tab.

The app shows the events, the communities and the introduction on the same page too; the map is on the web only for now.

Who can see it

Anyone with the link. There is no public directory of ecosystems, and an ecosystem page does not require an account to read.

Getting into one

Nothing joins an ecosystem without asking. A community or an event applies from the ecosystem's own page, and the people who run the ecosystem decide. Once a community is in, its events show on the ecosystem's page too. See joining an ecosystem.

Getting one

Ecosystems are opened by Gathin at the moment. If you run a network that should have one — a student organization, a federation, a campus — write to us; we will set it up and hand you the keys.

If you already run one, running an ecosystem walks through the panel.