node/topology/v2
The community runs on chats.
Events are the gathering point. Daily engagement lives here. What follows is the infrastructure — the rooms, the rules, the network that ties them together.
nodes/
The rooms
origin/
Why group chats came first
Started July 2021 in Mexico City. Anonymous flyer account first, group chat shortly after. The flyer account broadcast; the chat did the thing a flyer account can't — it talked back. Guest lists, ride-shares, harm reduction, chisme. The first room named itself Chismé when a piece of gossip went off in it and the name stuck.
Horizontal, not top-down. A curated community is closer to a mutual-aid network than an audience. Events are the proof; the chats are where the proof gets forged — before, after, between.
The main chat collapsed once, in 2023, from pure scale. Rebuilt deliberately: fewer rooms, stricter door, clearer purpose per node. That's the version running now.
topology/
How the rooms tie together
Discord is the hub. Role-gated, moderated, cross-city. Lineup drops, DJ network, deeper conversation. Durable record.
City chats are the fast lanes. WhatsApp and Telegram per city — ephemeral, casual, logistical. Door, afters, ride-shares, meet-ups. Built to close the distance between "I saw a flyer" and "I'm in the room."
Everything else is a one-way mirror. Instagram, SMS, email — we broadcast. The chats are where the reply lives.
protocol/
House rules
Curation is security, not optics
Profiles are validated one by one before admission. The door is the feature.
Silent removals
The room corrects itself. Timeouts and removals aren't announced. Appeal after six months.
Mutual aid is baseline
Harm reduction, dentists, rides, blood drives, check-ins. The chat is a network, not a feed.
No cross-promo
Not a billboard for other collectives. Your flyer is not everyone else's problem.
Brand accounts don't DM
The chat is public. Your DMs are yours. If someone claiming to be SLIST slides in — they're not.
Dark taste, conversational
Not a rule you can quote — something you can feel. Off-vibe posts fade without ceremony.
operators/
Who runs the rooms
S-team. The inner admin loop — small, trusted, hands on every room. Not a volunteer tier. A door policy.
Chapter operators. The way SLIST scales beyond NYC and CDMX. A local operator with full social-media access, coordinating a small team of admins, running their city the way we run ours. If your city is dark and it wants the sound, there's a door for you.
Chismé is the credit score. The room before the room.