Move APs to a Discord Forum Channel, archive them on Wiki, and get rid of Talk
Chiara
Public
Seen by 66
Proposer
Proposer (name, handle, etc.):
@Chiara
Proposer’s role:
Comms Lead in 2023.This idea mostly comes from the Comms Survey feedback and from talking to many people about what is blocking the flow of information in the Kiez Burn community and where participation gets lost. "There are too many platforms" might be the sentence I heard the most this Kiez Burn after "Let's burn the weather lead". I have talked to the comms team and to some realisers before posting this AP and got mostly positive feedback, even though there seem to be opinions on all sides of the spectrum from "Let's burn Talk" to " I would die for Talk, let's burn Discord instead".
I am aware that a proposal made on Talk to get rid of Talk might reach a biased audience, and I'm collecting input from realisers that do not use Talk as well.
The advice process
Advice Process ending date: 13.11.23
People/roles most affected by this proposal
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Everyone
People/roles with the most knowledge and experience relevant to this proposal:
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Robots @Kris @Sebilicious
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Communicorns and Discord moderators @Agata @selkiefae
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Talk moderators @Purzel @Kaliope (I think?)
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Past comms realizers @Giulia @Veroca R. Sala
Background
The reason why we have so many platforms is that they are all good for different things - for example, Telegram is good for announcements that should reach the entire community, Discord is good for transparent organization and direct communication between realisers but it's not an archive, Wiki is good for archiving. Talk is a nice combination between the two, cause it's a long-form discussion platform that doubles as an archive. We use Talk for Advice Processes, that are requests for advice on big proposed changes - and this advice is too precious to get lost on Discord, so a discussion+archive platform seems ideal.
Talk is a fine platform. However:
We have 11 platforms. That's too many platforms.
The most consistent feedback for comms this year was that so many platforms are confusing and off-putting, and that Talk is intimidating for many people.
Every bit of valuable knowledge for the community is archived on Wiki, EXCEPT Advice processes. Every important discussion for orga is happening on Discord, EXCEPT Advice Processes. It seems logical to simplify this.
If you look at who is posting and commenting on Talk, it's mostly long-time Kiez Burners and almost no new realizer (new = active in the last couple of years). This defeats its purpose of representation and we are potentially losing on a lot of valuable advice and good ideas to change things for the better from active members of the community.
We need moderators for Talk. This is energy they could be putting elsewhere.
The proposal
We have a platform for discussion and a platform for archiving. We don't need one that does both.
Make a Discord Forum channel for advice processes. Forum channels are a semi-new Discord thing that allows structured discussion: you can open a topic and people can comment under that topic. It looks a bit like simplified version of Talk (see for example https://discord.gg/g8knpsxn7m)
Once the Advice Process is closed, it gets copied into Wiki and archived.
Advantages of the proposal
Participation & Accessibility. Advice Processes will be happening on a platform that people open regularly and where all the other discussions are happening. And they will get archived where all the other information is archived.
Inclusion. Demystifying and simplifying the process means that new members of the community that are intimidated by Talk might feel more empowered to get community support to change things for the better when they have good ideas to do so.
Less platforms. Do I need to argue for this one?
Efficiency. One less moderator/realizer needed, who can put their energy elsewhere.
Disadvantages of this proposal
Archiving won't happen automatically - the initiator of the AP has to manually copy it into Wiki.
Less fancy formatting and interface than Talk, which is nice for long-form comments and discussions.
One less platform, but one more Discord channel - some people find Discord overwhelming already.
Potentially, more advice processes from people who don't know yet how and when to make advice processes - more moderation might be needed.
Some people really like Talk and some people really hate Discord (and vice versa). No solution will make everyone happy (surprise!)
Chiara Fri 13 Oct 2023 4:14PM
@Alex Kaos ooh I like the idea of trying it out on discord, I don't have time now but I'll give it a go tomorrow!
To me, forum channels feel a bit like reddit, with posts and threads originating under them. The Borderland Discord has been using it a lot and I find it quite easy to follow the discussion there, much more than regular discord channels. But we should keep a strict policy of one post = one AP, discussion in the comments of the post. It will still look a lot less fancy and nice than talk, no doubt - but maybe it's worth it?
No idea on your last suggestion but it could be best of both worlds, let's see if any robots have suggestions. Borderland has a discord channel that cross-posts APs from Talk, but you still have to contribute via Talk.
Kris Fri 13 Oct 2023 8:26PM
We have a bot that posts in Discord when you post here too, it's in the #kiezernet channel.
Also yes let's get rid of this platform.
CJ Yetman Fri 13 Oct 2023 5:38PM
@Alex Kaos I was going to suggest the same thing… experiment with doing this on Discord. 👍🏻
Caro T Mon 16 Oct 2023 4:26PM
@CJ Yetman Third here! Let's do a test run - though maybe not with this advice process because of the "biasedness" of the topic.
Open question though, because I don't remember: is the entire community part of adcice processes or are decisions made by Vereinsmembers? If I remember correctly, whenever actual Vereinsmoney is involved, it's a Vereinsmembers decision...? Anyway, my point being is, will we be able to make those distinctions on Discord?
Chiara Mon 16 Oct 2023 4:36PM
@Caro T is there any filter here on Talk that shows whether people are Vereinsmembers? Cause if not I think we have the same issue on Talk!
I'll copy this AP into Discord asap - don't think it should be a competition on what gets more reactions, but mostly for us to see how it would work and if it's comfortable enough to follow a discussion there :)
Cris Tue 24 Oct 2023 1:22PM
@Chiara There used to be a closed Group for Vereinmembers, which was not the general group. But is true: keeping this group updated is in the reality close to impossible, and at the end all the AP would end anyway in the AP group..
So, no. I don't think there's distinction.
CJ Yetman Fri 13 Oct 2023 5:46PM
Also relevant, the last AP about getting rid of Talk https://talk.kiezburn.org/d/6ceL1XId/-closed-proposal-to-switch-from-loomio-to-reddit
walto Tue 17 Oct 2023 5:14PM
Advice processes are meaningless unless the community interacts with it + it gets codified. Therefore, I love the initiative here.
However, Discord has its challenges... Loomio/Talk was made explicitely for handling community decision making, which shows. Structured thought has a tendency to get lost in Discord, while it offers more potential for strengthening personal connections and direct conversations.
Personally, I would see a lot of value in experimenting with another tool to replace Talk, that is more 21st century, something like Discourse. With Discourse, you also have the option to integrate with Discord, so that messages get synched. Here is an interesting article about it: https://blog.discourse.org/2021/05/discord-and-discourse-better-together/
Chiara Tue 17 Oct 2023 9:37PM
@walto I don't have any issues with Talk as a platform and I don't think we need to replace it with a new one - my main issue with Talk is the fact that it's not being used, because people don't have the capacity to regularly log in and stay up to date on so many different platforms (especially now that our login system is a bit of a pain). So this is most of all an attempt to remove a platform - I think adding a new platform might make it worse.
However, if messages get synched with Discord so that people can just use Discord and participate in APs without ever needing to log in on Discourse, it might be very worth checking out!
Alex Kaos · Fri 13 Oct 2023 4:07PM
Thanks for raising this topic and making a suggestion for improvement, it's the core reason behind the advice process in the first place.
As a Talk user, I find the interface and following a conversation much easier here. After checking out this little introduction to Discord Forums, I'm a little nervous that posts basically operate as discord channels, which I can see being a very messy space. Nonetheless I think your other points of motivation are very valid and we should experiment!
My advice would be to perhaps run this very AP on both channels as an experiment. We can see how engagement might differ, and make a direct comparison.
Creative Coding Berlin have a discord/telegram bot that posts from discord to telegram and vice versa. So it doesn't matter which platform you want to use, all the same information is there. I find it very interesting, as it gives easy access to both platforms, through your prefered platform. I doubt this will be possible for Talk/Discord, but perhaps it's not so hard? I'll just leave this here in case any Robot legend finds it an interesting enough endeavour to expriment with.