TL;DR: proposal to update the main forum page into a more compact and useful layout. Mainly: removing the top big banner, removing the left column of categories, and using more compact last-post-titles list.
Result: showing much more posts in the first view of the main page.
Commented this IRL with some people, but feels the correct path to propose it in the forum itself.
Context: Screenshots of the main page
Next is shown 3 screenshots (all of them taken in the same device with the same level of zoom). One screenshot is of the current layout of the Aragon Forum main page and the other 2 are of other existing Discourse (the same tech used for the Aragon Forum) deployments of two other projects:
The proposal is to do the following update in the main page:
Remove the big top banner
Remove the left column of categories
Use more compact last-post-titles list, also showing the avatars of last repliers
The reasoning for 1, is that it does not bring useful information other than a sentence saying welcome, which already is later in the always-pinned post of “Welcome to the Aragon forum”.
The reasoning for 2, is that having all the categories listed with those big paddings means that in order to see all the categories the user needs to scroll all way down. And in most of the cases, when somebody goes to the main forum page just wants to see the latest updated posts.
The reasoning for 3, is that we can provide more info of each post at the main page, such as the avatars of latest repliers. And also on the same time, having a more compact box for each post title will allow to show more posts within the same space.
Next steps
I don’t know the concrete steps for doing this, like, we need to do a DAO vote, or a forum poll? or who has power to do that change if gets accepted? Or if there are any potential issues with the Discourse templates.
In complete agreement we should update this. I remember discussing it once with someone and there was confusion over who should be doing it! I don’t see why the Ops team, when they have some time, can’t improve this?
In light of the discussion about almost non-existent engagement on the separate support forum, maybe we can consolidate the forum as part of the revamp?
Have made a small change where the latest screen now shows up on opening rather than Catagories; users can still find the old view by clicking categories:
This is probably the best place to show some of the data I have been gathering from metaforo. They have some very interesting features DAOs could take advantage of. They have some built in token voting features however Aragon wouldn’t be interested in that. What is interesting is their token gating and tipping capabilities. You can set thresholds for writing a proposal or even posting based on having ANT token. Additionally you can authenticate with your wallet through Metamask and other wallets through walletconnect. All that is needed is an export of Discorse and it can all be imported to Metaforo.
Some questions do come up with Metaforo: User data, availability, privacy, security. Those aren’t questions to easily brushed over when thinking about what to do with out platform. However, it might be something we want to play with a little more, maybe push Discorse to implement some more web3 features.
I would second this. Prior concerns of users spilling over into other sections of the forum and disrupting governance threads etc I don’t think will be an issue as some other pointed out previously, so having it under one forum could work.
The point of that forum is not engagement but a place for self help, where hopefully people will land when searching for answers rather than making a ticket just like a developer would land on stack overflow when researching a development issue.