Crane

What is Concordia?

Concordia is being developed as a foundation-style project whose goal is to support the development of plural tools — including apps, websites, and other resources.

Instead of being just one app, the long-term goal is to build a sustainable ecosystem where multiple tools can exist, improve, and continue to be maintained over time, as well as being easily accessible to all plural.

What this means in practice

One way to understand this idea is to look at projects like Mozilla.

Mozilla develops Firefox, but it also acts as a foundation that supports technology that benefits the wider internet. It provides structure and support that helps important tools continue to exist and grow.

Another example is the Blender Foundation. The Blender Foundation maintains the 3D software Blender while also supporting the long-term development of the project and coordinating the community around it.

Similarly, Concordia’s goal is not only to develop a plural app — but to create a structure that can support ongoing development of plural technology as a whole.

This includes things like:

• developing new tools

• supporting developers who want to build plural resources

• helping projects stay maintained long-term

• amplifying existing tools so more systems know they exist

• connecting developers and creators to each other for support and collaboration

One of the first projects under The Concordia Project will be a new plural app and website, Concordia.

This app will be a system management tool, similar to tools like Simply Plural. It will allow systems to organize and keep track of information about their system in one place.

This will include things like member profiles, switch tracking, friending systems, system notes, a calendar and other ways to organize system information.

A major goal is to make sure that existing data from tools like Simply Plural and PluralKit can be uploaded, so systems don’t have to start from scratch if they choose to move between platforms.

Under The Concordia Project, this app will be continuously maintained and cared for, with the goal of providing a stable tool that systems can rely on long-term.

Why this project exists

Plural tools are extremely important for many systems, and something we rely on heavily in our day-to-day lives — but there are very few of them, and many rely on small teams working under a lot of pressure. Because of this, projects can sometimes slow down, struggle to be maintained, or even collapse entirely, leaving the systems who rely on them without stable tools.

The Concordia Project hopes to help create a future where plural tools are:

• easier to maintain

• easier to develop

• easier for systems to access

• and not dependent on just one or two projects existing

Another goal of the Concordia Project is to create tools that are free from system discourse ('syscourse'). Rather than participating in debates about who should or shouldn’t use plural tools, Concordia’s focus is simply on building and maintaining reliable resources that plural systems can use regardless of where they fall within community discussions or labels.

This is still an early-stage project.

Right now we are focusing on:

• researching community needs

• building a development roadmap

• connecting with debelopers and creatives

• and laying the groundwork for the project

If you’re a developer, designer, researcher, or someone interested in helping build plural tools — we would love to hear from you.

And if you’re a system who simply wants better tools, your feedback is incredibly valuable too.

More information and updates will be shared here, as well as our discord server, as the project develops.