Quirell is a social network currently in the planning stages being developed by queer/trans collective CollectQT. Quirell differs from traditional social networks in that it aims to be a place for marginalized community members and others to escape the noise and over-saturation of traditional social networks. This project is needed because as users of social media, we are affected by the lack of privacy measures in place on current social networks, ‘real name’ policies, and the way that new features are implemented and security is handled within most social networking sites. Our fundraising campaign is important because of the scope of what we hope to accomplish. A social network for marginalized communities with its level of customization is unheard of, and we aim to deliver a platform that serves the needs of marginalized micro-communities searching for a place to call their own when mainstream social networks are overrun with hate campaigns, stress, or you simply want to connect with others like you.

Funding that we achieve will go toward paying for server space, our project managers, and the team working to bring you Quirell. To build a social network takes time and resources, and this funding will ensure that we have the tools in place to enact the features in Quirell that are the most important to the communities that we are serving. We want to be a safe place where people can connect, share experiences, and know that they’re free to speak without fear.

Funding will go toward paying programmers, web developers, designers, and maintainers of Quirell. We strongly believe that no-one should ever be asked to work for free or to, “Think of the exposure.”

Funding Goals

Every memeber of the Quirell community (that being anyone who uses or interacts with Quirell) gets a say in the way that Quirell develops, and features will be added based on community need / desire. But ! priority feature developement allows people with the money to pay CollectQT to get their feature added sooner. Said features will have to be accepted by CollectQT and the Quirell community at large, but once they are, you can get this perk to essentially buy the time of CollectQT’s developers / designers.

Quirell has already impacted many marginalized community members, offering them a means of supplementing their income, connecting with others, and building an impressive database of potential site improvements on GitLab. Quirell aims to offer those in minority communities an alternative to mainstream social networks, and provide a safe and inclusive space for a variety of discussion. We support a variety of communities, including the sex-worker community, transgender community, nonbinary community, and the MPD/DID community--to name a few. Often, these voices are erased from within mainstream social networks, and even from within their own communities. Quirell aims to provide its users with a place to communicate, share ideas, and connect with one another.

Development scale - Scaling Quirell’s development in relation to our funding in order to pay our contributors a living wage and getting features added quickly

Project scaling - How fast the site takes off and users join/sign up/are invited

Project interest - Will enough people be interested to sustain Quirell long term? Goals vs. Time - Our goals are ambitious, but not overly so. We know our limitations, and are working within them to not promise more than we can deliver.

Overcoming objections - Some may not see the need for this service. Though we are not required to educate others on why Quirell is needed, the interest in the project speaks for itself. We are able to handle these challenge and risks due to the diversity of our team and our background. We all have very different skillsets which enable us to work flexible hours while building and maintaining Quirell. Our team hails from computer science backgrounds, public relations, sex work, communications, marketing, and more.

As members of marginalized communities ourselves, we understand how difficult it can be to work long hours, and have assessed the risks and challenges required to build Quirell with the features that we have listed on our GitLab repository.

Q: Why not just run an instance of an open source social network? Like diaspora, rstatus, or pumpio?

Our current lead web developer feels that the technical aspects of the project are best served by learning from, but not being directly reliant on, many of the currently existing social networks.

Q: How do you plan on doing so much with so little? (with regards to our funding goals)

The biggest factor in this is the demographics of the people working for CollectQT, that being a bunch of very politicized young queers. We're all willing to take a bit of a pay cut for the sake of working with and for each other. The are a few other contributing factors, including Quirell getting funding sources that that outside of this Indiegogo.

• Help spread the word about Quirrel on social media
• Write an article, blog post, or tumblr post about the project to help people hear about us
• Use the IndieGoGo sharing tools to help us extend the campaign’s reach
• Go onto our GitLab issues list and share your thoughts on how Quirell show be developed

Lynn - Project Manager / Web Developer

Ophelia - Culture and Community Organizer

Rin - Writer

Annie - Designer