OSE Forum

2019

We have considered Discourse as the primary candidate for implementing the OSE Forums.

The main reasons for discontinuing Forums in 2018 were twofold. First, we had no dedicated moderators, so the quality of the discussion was reduced. Second, we needed 2 key features that would integrate the Forums better into the OSE infrastructure, which were not avialable in our self-hosted install.

The first feature is upvoting. This allows a Stack Overflow-like capacity of raising most relevant discussion to prominence. This means that we could then make the Forums more relevant to technical development - by crowdsourcing solutions to working issues. Imagine the increase of development effectiveness when you don't have to wade through long discussion threads - but instead - the most useful answer is brought to the top for you like in Stack Overflow.

See list of Stack Overflow Clones. Note that Vanilla Forums appears there, but Discourse doesn't. This needs further evaluation, as initial research by Michael Altfield indicated that Discourse is more suited to this function. Kudos and Voting are avialable in Vanilla - [1]. Voting - [2]]. Kudos - [3]

Second, OSE needs the embedding of individual discussion threads so that these can be ported to the Wiki under specific development pages. Thus, we would be able to use our own software instead of the current proprietary solution - Disqus. Note that Vanilla Forums appears to have this feature (embedding, commenting - [4]),

As we move into customer support, another feature that emerges is collaborative crowd support - which can reduce support costs by a factor of 10x. Vanilla Forums offers this - [5]

Actionable and Deliberation Items

• Decide on Q&A vs Forum (Discussion) format. Note that these are 2 different things - but a Q&A can include Answers which are effectively Comments - so it does not appears that a Q&A format is less effective at discussion. It appears that Q&A is more effective for effective development as opposed to discussion - which is less direct and in many cases can lead nowhere but could just support venting.

• Asking questions is in some way self-moderating - as a person is required to get to a point - both with the question and with the answer. Questions would be easier to moderate - as it is easy to determine relevance in a Q&A format.

• Determine which format is relevant for Crowdsourced Support, Development Discussion, Commenting, Upvoting.
• Upvoting - clearly Q&A is better.
• Downvoting - Interesting question on top of thread whether downvoting is constructive at all - [6]. Is downvoting nonconstructive? Negative and positive feedback should be given. It seems that a person who is truly interested in growing and learning is not afraid of negative feedback. Negative feedback should not be interpreted qualitatively as negative: it's just a statement that someone doesn't like a comment. YouTube is a bad example, with unmoderated content, where discussion quality can be low. But on a moderated site like OSE's - negative feedback should be welcome, as it can lead to growth. Our main concern is growing and learning. Furthermore, in a Q&A format, down and upvote is accepted - that is a proven industry standard for Stach Exchange. Downvoting is a natural part of a mechanism where the best rises to the top. The good part is that the worse responses still appear in the thread. It would be wrong to delete downvoted information - as dislikes are also good to know. Note that Stack Exchange is calling out for upvoting and downvoting of not only questions and answers - but comments as well - [7].
• Commenting - Isn't a question the best kind of comment? While we are used to 'discussion' - 'asking' is a more powerful, directed form of discussion. Discussion can include qeuestions. Questions can include discussion. Questions are more direct. Given the scope and focus of the GVCS - we should go to questions as our preferred way to comment. For example, instead of saying, "This is the greatest invention on earth, as I don't know of anything like it!", one would be forced to dig deeper: "This appears to be a great contribution to humanity. Are there any other inventions of a similar nature that are as relevant to human good?" Thus - we could be creating an inquisitive culture - not a commenting culture. This is consistent with OSE's proactive orientation - and this could help attract the people who ask good questions. Further, the trolls would not be given as much space, and would be forced to become more constructive.

Design

• Upvote and downvote on questions, answers, and comments
• Upvote and downvote on character - civility, knowledgeability, open-source culture. Can be summarized as number of likes or dislikes on comments.
• Crowdsource moderation like in Reddit

Crowdsource Moderation

• For a scalable project, moderators are not sufficient. Crowdsource moderation must be used - which is stated to be the reason why Reddit is so popular.
• Instead of Report Spam, use Downvote/Upvote - this addresses the spam issue. Spam flows to the bottom, but remains - while taking burden off the moderator.
• Downvotes on reddit are used for posts that are nonconstructive / completely offtopic, as a means of filtering them. It’s stronger than not upvoting, and I think it’s the main reason of Reddit’s popularity and it’s major strength…it crowdsources moderation. - from [8]
• Another great comment from the same source - I understand that the principal authors of Discourse do not intend to include downvoting in the core functionality, as per the May 13 discussion. My question is whether downvoting has or is likely in the near future to be developed as an optional plugin. Is anyone able to advise? the context is that while i am attracted to the Discourse design concepts i would like have the option of adding a downvoting system if necessary to sharpen the incentives to make quality postings and to help ‘steepen’ the reputational ‘curve’.

2018 - Forums Deprecated

In 2018, the forums were no longer moderated or maintained, and the decision was made to deprecate support for the site. The content is still accessible in as static-content; new content is not possible.

For more information, please see CHG-2018-02-04

Overview

The OSE Forums (forum.pensourceecology.org) are currently unmanaged. OSE Forums have been around since 2008, but we never installed a formal moderation process. Elifarley Cruz was a volunteer administrator for some time. Since then, updates on Facebook have served as a regular communication channel. Currently, Facebook is the main news and update outlet for the organization, such that anyone wishing to find out news and workshop announcements should follow the OSE Facebook Page.

We have found that the main need of a forum is to maintain constructive dialogue, and we are absolutely committed to maintaining a safe and constructive atmosphere, and a Zero Tolerance Policy for violators. As we go into the future OSE's goal is to upgrade the forum so that it can also be a part of our technical development process. Further, as OSE moves into the future and OSE chapters are started around the globe, our goal is to provide a model for how other chapters can start their own forums, especially if the forums are in a different language than English. To this end, here are the features and requirements that would help us meet these goals:

Implementation

General

1. Clear and open source protocol for setting up, administering, and managing a forum. This would also serve as a manual that would facilitate the startup of forums by new OSE chapters, including a shared standard and the ability to share data. So that OSE maintains control of its data, ooen source software must be used.
2. Forum Moderator, and Moderator Team
3. Clear User Agreement and Contributor Agreement to protect the open soirce nature of the community
4. Easy login procedure and user permissions management
5. Integration with Wiki regarding user login and profile, such as a contributor's skill set

Requirements

Essential

1. A good search feature
2. Embed code generation such that forum threads can be pasted elsewhere, as individual threads - such as the OSE wiki
3. Upvoting Mechanism for threads and specific responses within threads. This would turn the Forum from a simple discussion to a powerful selection and distillation mechanism for valuable content. For example, a Forum thread can be used as a technical question or a review request, and the best answer would be upvoted and would be most visible. This would allow the gems of knowledge to rise to the top of a much larger sea.
4. User friendly, rapid posting interface
5. Viewing of content by most recent or most upvoted.

Information Architecture

1. Good structure of forum itself. Structure consisting of only a few subject areas, such as Discussion, Development, Distributive Enterprise, and Community. Clear guidelines regarding each section are required, as well as at least one full time Moderator for the Forum. The funding mechanism for the Forum Moderator should be an OSE Distributive Enterprise, in order to further dogfood our products and community development process.
2. Viewing by thread or message.
3. Display of link content from the OSE wiki only, and viewed as links only for any other content.
4. Upload of images, resized automatically to 100k or less
5. html code embed for displaying any html content
6. Tight control of front page display - 4 main Forum sections. Each has an explainer video with it.
7. Theme clarity: Open Source Ecology, open source economy, via open source product design towards Distributive Enterprise. Explainer video to unravel this.

Secondary

1. 3D viewable/rotatable display of FreeCAD images from OSE wiki. This may be done using html embed codes, but using local processing power. If we evolve our WebGL capacity - we could do this via WebGL - a preferred and open source route.
2. Map of contributors
3. Badges
4. Link to person's wiki profile and wiki log
5. Tagging threads.

Forum Structure or Information Architecture

The main current purpose of the OSE forum is to promote technical development of the GVCS. This includes all the tech ical developme t leading go robust product design - as well as to the creation of Distributive Enterprise related to the GVCS.This must be reflected in the forum structure. There are several supporting functions, including orientation of new participants, helping people find contributors in their area, development of new OSE groups and chapters, technical development per se, and development of Distributive Enterprise, etc.

Annual Budget

• Setup (one time)
• Regular maintenance
• Hosting fee. Traffic requirements. Annual cost per GB ? 10 cents per gigabyte. Recruit http://www.mkomo.com/about for assistance.
• Moderation

Links

• See initial Forum design notes from 2011 at Forum Policy, which has a link to an Essay on constructive criticism.

Work Product

To be developed.

• OSE Forum Guidelines
• OSE Forum Moderation Guidelines
• OSE Social Contract
• OSE Forum Information Architecture
• OSE Wiki Registration Template - questions that are asked during registration
• OSE Forum Registration Template - questions asked for Forum Registration.
• OSE Forum Requirements
• OSE Forum Specifications - platform used, hosting, traffic, growth plan, management, moderation.
• OSE Forum Operations Manual section - hosting, setup, speed, memory
• Comparison of Open Source Forum Software. To include analysis of support availability, software maturity, features, cost, integration ability.
• OSE Contributor Agreement Intents (same as wiki)
• OSE Contributor Agreement
• License. Same as all OSE. Write the intent, and have it rewritten in legal language.
• OSE IP Guidelines

Platforms

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software
• https://www.phpbb.com/about/features/

• Lulzbot uses it - [9]

• http://vanillaforums.com/info/plugins
• See Forum Software
• Vanilla Forums
• e107
• Discourse - https://www.discourse.org/
• Vanilla_Forums/Evaluation

See Also

• Vanilla Forums
• Forum Policy
• CHG-2018-02-04
• Discourse