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?
Robin Stent - Outreach Tue 22 Apr 2014 9:11PM
Yes yes yes yes! Since I started using Diaspora I've been frustrated that this site was abandoned as it seemed like a great idea to have forum for end user discussion outside of D itself. When I asked about this in the google group way back the only response I got was an unhelpful one that I should ask the site owner (I had no idea who that was). So yes would be great to see this resurrected.
Rich Tue 22 Apr 2014 9:39PM
@juansantiago Contributions / forum members in languages other than English would also be a great help!
@robinstentoutreach I've used the googlegroups once or twice myself in the past (recently too) with such little success :( Again, it seems there's no one central place a user (or podmin) can go for a wider support audience.
Juan Santiago Tue 22 Apr 2014 9:46PM
Have you thought about using wordpress for run forum?
Hans Fase Wed 23 Apr 2014 12:32AM
Oh god, please don't use WordPress...
IMHO IcyPhoenix is good-as or maybe even better than vB...
RAM518 Wed 23 Apr 2014 3:33AM
A revived forum site would be great. A wiki would be charming also.
Pablo Cúbico Wed 23 Apr 2014 5:00AM
We started using Discourse in Mozilla, I'm very happy with it, very usable and readable!, from the guys at StackOverflow.
You can try it here:
http://try.discourse.org/
Johannes Wed 23 Apr 2014 6:05AM
I second the idea.
Regarding Google Analytics: Why don't we use PIWIK analytics? I'll happily provide the hosting for that. I use this for analyizing the traffic on my server anyway and this data won't go to google ;-)
As Forum Software i'd suggest something like SMF (SimpleMachinesForum http://www.simplemachines.org/)
goob Wed 23 Apr 2014 12:50PM
The original forum was great, although use died off towards the end. I'd be happy to see a revived forum if you're happy to maintain it, Rich.
Do you actually need an analytics tool at all? You could just allow users to communicate without being analysed...
@ram518 , there is already a Diaspora wiki on the main project site: https://wiki.diasporafoundation.org/Main_Page
Rich Wed 23 Apr 2014 2:26PM
No, I don't believe analytics would be required. I was thinking from the point of view of aiding and raising awareness re search engine result rankings but there are other ways to do this.
As all my web and database servers are Microsoft Windows based (as too is my +15yrs of hosting experience) I intend to use the open source YAF forum suite - http://www.yetanotherforum.net/
I'll let this discussion ride out a few more days, then I'll create a proper proposal.
Juan Santiago · Tue 22 Apr 2014 8:50PM
Hi, your proposal seems very good, very necessary, unfortunately when you read what I write you see my English level is very bad, that's why difficult to collaborate moderator, but yes I can do it in Spanish or Galician. (In Spanish we have a forum, wiki and more: http://diasporalibre.com.ar/
Now that I know I learned English in the jungle and Tarzan was my teacher, just tell me what I can do.
PS, about the use of Google Analytic, please no!