Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: community software

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Dec 8, 2025, at 9:34 PM, fernselzer--- via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
> cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
> What do people recommend for community software? In the past I have heard 
> Mosaic and Gather. 

I totally agree about cobbled together programs that are not synchonized, 
duplicate capabilities, and are managed, if managed at all, by several 
different people across many websites using several applications, etc., are the 
worst option.

New people will always have better ways to do things. “Better” means you will 
end up restarting, reeducating, and losing things. Think about all the people 
you will have to educate in the next 10 years as well as the time it will take 
just to get current residents up to speed.

You need system that matches the skill levels and interests of your community. 
Not everyone will be interested in using and helping maintain a complicated 
program. Choose one that at least 80% of your residents can understand and 
everyone can use. High tech people will think high tech solutions are best, but 
if you go high tech, you will be dependent on them to maintain the system.

This is a social values issue, not just a tech issue. Inclusion and 
transparency build stronger communities. History is important. You will neeed 
to save it and refer back to it.

Between Mosaic and Gather, my personal preference is for Mosaic because it is 
one program that has been developing for years in direct response to cohousing 
community requests. It uses standard open source software and a consistent 
interface. It is designed in modules that you can choose to use as you develop 
those programs. Accounting, Small Cash, Workshare, Meals, Teams, Document 
Storage, a social feed like Facebook, Lost & Found, Lending Library, etc. It 
has a wonderful module for tracking workshare by teams.

Gather is designed to use the best pieces of free software and services — it 
incorporates the Google programs, for example, when they are a good solution. 
It uses Google Drive for storage. It brings these into one dashboard so it is 
easier for users than a hodgepodge of the same programs set up and used by 
different teams. Some features are more developed than others. It has a highly 
developed program for analysing meals because early users wanted to know 
percentages of vegetarian meals, etc.

I studied both these programs a number of years ago and have kept up with what 
is happening in each of them but frankly, I have to use Google to translate the 
references in the Gather forums to the abbreviations and names of the 
underlying software, etc., that are being considered for incorporation. If your 
community has several techies who can speak the language, this may be a good 
program for you, but it will limit who will be able to provide support. 

A useful system is better than one that has all the bells and whistles. Some 
people will be amazed by the opportunity to use all the bells and whistles but 
the true test is control over the content and ease of use by all members of the 
community.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Riderwood Village, Silver Spring MD
Following 25 years in Takoma Village, Washington DC