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, and a line about what it gathers.
• A map of where its events happen — the clearest single view of a network's reach.
• Events from across the ecosystem, soonest first, past ones below the line.
• The communities in it, each with its member count.
• Links — the network's own site and social accounts.
• Three figures: how many communities, how many events, and how many people. 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.

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 whoever runs the ecosystem decides. 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.