Revive DiasporaForum.org in order to properly support users and podmins
I have been debating reviving the old DiasporaForum.org discussion forums, with a view to them providing support for both users and podmins alike.
Currently there is no one central place people can go for support - and this includes users and podmins. New users either depend on their contacts or they seemingly go without and podmins are often referred to IRC but 9 times out of 10 there is no one available on IRC at the precise moment they log on and they end up leaving without having received any support.
A discussion forum could be the first port of call for support for both user types as forums can alleviate these issues.
Ryan (KOH) who currently owns the old domain name has previously declined offers from people not related to D* to buy the domain name from him. He will however kindly donate the name to us free of charge.
In terms of hosting, I will happily host the new forums (the old forum DB is now gone) and provide the maintenance and management of them. I'll probably need a few moderators to help out if it gets real busy.
As you are no doubt aware, a discussion forum is only as good as the members' contributions and with that in mind we would need podmins to contribute and assist each other - along with seasoned D* users willing to help new users with their (sometimes really easy) questions.
In order to succeed, the forum would also need some promotion in the form of a mention and/or post reshare by DHQ, plus relative links from the foundation web site. It should also have a prominent link in the right menu of D* under the "need help" section.
The forum should not have third party banner adverts (unless D* wish to use it for fund raising, but that's a whole other subject). I'm undecided as towards the use of Google Analytics on such a forum so again, that's probably one for a separate conversation.
Your thoughts?
Poll Created Fri 9 May 2014 2:49PM
Create a discussion forum to help support users and podmins Closed Tue 20 May 2014 8:10PM
I propose creating a forum as a visible online presence for Diaspora community members to support each other. Properly run, a forum could complement the current channels for help and support and I believe that a forum would improve the levels of support offered to both users and podmins.
It will also enable users to search the archive for previous answers to their problem before asking for help.
I would be happy to host this forum myself using the open source YAF forum suite on my existing enterprise level Microsoft servers, with no third party adverts and no third party analytics.
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Agree | 52.2% | 12 |
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| Abstain | 13.0% | 3 |
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|
| Disagree | 30.4% | 7 |
|
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| Block | 4.3% | 1 |
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| Undecided | 0% | 253 |
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23 of 276 people have participated (8%)
Balasankar C
Fri 9 May 2014 2:52PM
Nice idea!!
Trolli Schmittlauch
Fri 9 May 2014 2:58PM
In contrast to Diaspora forums are searchable, so we don't have to answer some questions again and again
Maciek Łoziński
Fri 9 May 2014 6:14PM
But only if Diaspora drops Google mailing lists. It's a nonsense that opensource, privacy and decentralization concerned community uses Google's products.
Karthikeyan A K
Sat 10 May 2014 2:41AM
host a discourse
Christos Koulaxizis
Sat 10 May 2014 1:48PM
That's a great idea! Totally agree.
Jonne Haß
Sat 10 May 2014 3:33PM
I'm open to restructering the mailing lists but I'm against an official forum for the reasons I've outlined.
Seth Martin
Tue 13 May 2014 4:13PM
I think this would be better than the Google mailing lists.
Replacing the mailing lists would probably be a better proposal.
David Morley
Wed 14 May 2014 3:52PM
We had a forum for a year or so, no one maintained it and it died off just like uservoice and the horde of things used before. I think between a wiki, IRC, Loomio, emaillists, its still so spread out, everyone is lost. Make Diaspora do this no?
Jonne Haß · Sat 26 Apr 2014 11:41AM
No, mailman doesn't allow replies via a web form.