do we use forum enough to warrant the expense of the move and monthly costs. thats the main counter to moving. would rather do “simple machine forum” than discourse myself lol but Ill work with whatever is decided… like tg.
hi nw!
@Giantkin hello good sir!
My main counter besides the cost is the reliance on the Foundation’s legal entity and the centralization is brings back for a core governance apparatus… as votes without discussions are not very meaningful (chat is nice, but way more ephemeral/forgettable than forum posts).
As I’ve said before, enduring the few rough edges of Metaforo seem like a small sacrifice in comparison, especially if we’ve had signs of Metaforo taking us more seriously and improving some features recently.
crud i gotta counter that. foundation was just offering to pay. its not set in stone.
It ought not to be up to the good will of a contributor to do it (if that’s what you suggest), the matter of fact is that it has to be a fiat payment for Discourse (unless I’ve missed crypto options) and besides the Foundation the DAO doesn’t have reliable means to do these.
If we aim to limit such dependencies to reduce centralization (one of the goal of the Foundation for the DAO actually), we shouldn’t use services that forces us to rely on the Foundation for that.
hmm i been paying for things under moderation, i was assuming discourse (or other)
I’m aware of that, the move to a forum service that does not require this has been a step towards more decentralization. And even more beneficial since it is a free service for now… if Metaforo ever decided to change their pricing I would think they’d support cryto considering their feature set too.
good point too.
The idea of moving back to discourse should also have considerations related to ip addy tracking, and other invasive tracking that was done via discourse when members would disagree with a certain narrative. @jonisjon @Giantkin and @willy all looked at user sign up information and ip address information when discourse was active any time a user would post a critical statement towards the dao. This was done to a number of users, not just a singular user.
as far as i know that didnt happen. i only looked at user if the user was acting strangly, to me ip is a weak method anyway, vpn’s etc .
i cant speak for others, ofc.
+1 @Giantkin. The point about IP tracking in Discourse is a fair one, but the accusation is false. I spearheaded the proposal to migrate to Metaforo and am not in favor of migrating back.
Quick update regarding the migration.
I have been in contact with Discourse and provided them the dump from metaforo. It is currently in their queue to determine the complexity of them being able to import out forum history in Discourse. As of today, they plan to have taken a preliminary look at all of this by early next week. Will update here as I know more and a timeline for migration is firmed up.
where would you like the screen shots posted of both you and other admins checking the IP addy of the ‘concerned fox’? This ip addy check evidence stems from/derives from that of the checking into the deleted/migrated post with a title to the effect of ‘shame on you’ critiquing the DAO for recentralizing.
I can post here if you’d like? I want assurance it will not be deleted once posted however.
- Some updates re: the migration process.
Discourse is able to facilitate the migration for us when we sign up for 1 year of their “Business Tier” which is $300/month
- Users with an email address will continue to have the same username. They will register with discourse and their previous posts will be tied to their new account.
Users who did not sign up with an email address will need to register for a new discourse account with an email address. We can manually
- merge their old account with their new account. This could be facilitated by @ModSquad or maybe also @W-Operations could help. I would imagine the number of requests for this would be low. We don't have a great way to verify a user is who they say they are, but we could pretty easily ask them to sign a message with the preferred email address in it before we agree to merge. If we don't want to support this, that is probably an okay option as well. No history is lost, these people would just end up with new accounts not tied to their old posts.
I know that this was voted on and passed, but still seems like a step backwards in a few ways, decentralization, user privacy, non web3, storage of data and so forth. I understand about the issues that the small amount of users were facing, but still seems like a step backward in my eyes. I personally don’t think that the forum is being utilized to it’s fullest potential, or at least as a solid information and data source for the DAO, yes it needs to be reliable but, how many users are consistently using it as a platform for comprehensive discussion and “discourse” or is it an afterthought with minimum effort being expressed and when only deemed so?
One year of the “Business Tier” ~$3600 returning to a email DB with the effort of manual import? The logic is still escaping me, but maybe on par.
i mostly agree. privacy is about same to, but mainly basing on reliability and usability. i liked that metaforo was free, worked good for me, i had no formatting issues, problems. easy to mod. more items were coming , but i didnt need them just QOL items. forum is under used. to me discourse might make that a worse issue. not as good as so many other setups. but conformity has benefits i suppose to.
You’re not alone, our voices unfortunately didn’t convince voters or maybe didn’t even reach them…
I think many voters do not even visit the forum and likely didn’t see any of the counter arguments, it does feels like most people vote only based on information displayed on SnapShot… that’s also why I wished that this Proposal to move back to Discourse (which implies Ideation moves back to SnapShot) would have included a much more clear invitation to people to discuss Ideation proposals on the forum (not just a link as it’s the rule now)… but this also fell in deaf ears and never got included in the Final Proposal.
Maybe I should have posted a counter proposal that included it, but in regards to the relatively apathetic discussion process with about 4-5 of the same people ever posting here, it felt like it was a waste of everyone’s time.
putting the ideation on discord weighted might work
Good point the current limitations within snapshot, specifically the description or word count limitations, requires a very good format to be presented in the proposal to offer and induce some interaction, but with the proposers goal and focus on getting it passed discussion/communication can become an afterthought. In magnitude of multiples when within a echo chamber or with a relatively few large controlling voting members or few members with vast voting capabilities. You can then see an added importance of just getting it through the process becoming a focal point. Though I rarely agree with the desired need for speed or even less with the distain for disagreement I will offer the following. First that I believe that the forum can have a pivotal role and important function within the DAO and especially the governance system, and secondly that the echo chamber is very real and present danger, we as a community if looking to strengthen ourselves need to be vigilant and willing to put the work in.