I will post several concerns and information on several issues, but the first
is this platform itself.
There are few problems with the AU forum that leaves that impression that is it
not scalable.
- The UX is archaic. People have got used to user-friendly apps for their
smartphone. The AU forum is not familiar and alienating. Many who could
contribute would not get past the registration. I am interested in setting up a
forum for discussion and distribution of information on another non-OSM related
topic but have decided against this UX. I believe that the majority of
non-technical and older users be happy with this platform.
- It is too difficult to navigate multiple threads and as a result, much of the
good information gets lost. For each discussion topic, you need a
distinguishable thread and the possibility to read just that one. With multiple
threads and people in each thread, confusion would otherwise reign. The current
UX is in that sense not scalable. It limited by its very design to stay small
as with size it strangles itself.
- There should be a sub-category for every state of Australia. It is also
useful for categories for specific topics. Folder structures with unique
associations are better than nothing but really, what you need is tags that
allow the person posting the message to assign categories relevant to it, and
then filter by tags.
- For more complex information and longer texts, you need some formatting to
make the text more understandable. A good example of a forum that allows this
is the Joplin user support forum on GitHub (here
https://discourse.joplinapp.org/). One option used here is a markdown editor
but basic RTF features would be sufficient. When copy/pasting text from other
website and links, it is important that the information does not require
further editing to be legible. One of the advantages of markdown from GitHub is
that in translating HTML, the formatting is rarely lost.
- I would be best if the platform is supported by a good app. This may seem
like repetition but often I often find good things browsing my phone and can
post or forward the information to others from the share function in the
browser: choose the app and add the post. Completed in seconds.
- An idea from the OSM support pages is Discord, which appears to be a gaming
chat website/app but has many of the features that are discussed here. Not
surprisingly gaming creates an environment that allows quick changes between
game and community for discussion. Even if you are NOT currently playing the
game the app allows easy and ubiquitous engagement with the community. This
makes sense.
- If you have one repository for all knowledge it needs to be easily
searchable. The discussion about the topic of interest may have been months
ago. A search function is required that allows you to narrow down the posts,
without scrolling through months of discussions. This I miss the most.
- Finally, and the only reason for discussing this here is you would want to
migrate the community to the new platform. The community is the source of the
information. The lack of a knowledgable and respectable community has been the
failure of many social media platforms. We want to preserve that aspect of this
forum.
_______________________________________________
Talk-au mailing list
Talk-au@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
