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

•  

  Everyone

People/roles with the most knowledge and experience relevant to this proposal:

•  

  Robots @Kris @Sebilicious

•  

  Communicorns and Discord moderators @Agata @selkiefae

•  

  Talk moderators @Purzel @Kaliope (I think?)

•  

  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!)