Thanks for setting this forum up for us @Inevitable360, I had tried last year to establish some mailing-lists but they got very little uptake, however the need for a place for open and honest communication for the whole developer community is sorely lacking.
Purpose
Problems with Reddit: Unfriendly for new devs, there is a barrier to entry for folk who are not long-time redditors, that you need to farm 'karma' before you can join the conversation, this is an unacceptable barrier for someone who is just curious or dabbling or is trying to write some code and needs some help, but first they have to go find r/kittens or something and farm up karma. CoC does not apply.
Problems with X/Twitter: No real persistence, X is designed to be a live stream of activity, we need to be able to easily refer/search/continue/etc conversations for a long time, the payment feature for a blue tick is also unacceptable for an opensource project to require. There is also no moderation, CoC doesn't apply.
Mailing lists: Traditional means for opensource projects to communicate, back in the day ML + IRC was 'the way' to do opensource but times change and as much as I'd love it to be that way, younger people are not going to use these tools sadly.
So a fresh forum, why not? it's web-accessible, we can set a very small bar of requiring a GitHub account to stop some degree of bot-spam and make it clear this is a developer focused space and not for users to talk about price action. I note we've already got categories set up for some Fdn projects, it should be made very apparent that folk can get their project added as long as they are happy complying with the CoC and it's opensource.
Moderators & Moderation
We should start with Oona, Michi, Jens ? but seek others from the community who can separate emotion from following the rules enough that we have a good group of shibes who can ensure that conversation stays developer / software related, avoids 'personal attacks', 'doxxing' etc. and generally stays civil.
The CoC (Code of Conduct) should serve as the fundamental backstop for moderation, but we should develop a clear set of rules that moderators can follow, about what content is appropriate, what to do in the event that someone doesn't abide by the rules etc.
Fundamentally we want this space to be a USEFUL resource for anyone developing on or around Dogecoin, not a place for people to attack others in the community as has happened elsewhere. Conversation should be related to opensource software, be civil, allow for disagreements, even sometimes hot ones which are necessary in opensource projects, but it needs to stay respectful.
We need to understand that people get worked up, and so a system where there can be a moderator call a 'T' timeout for 12hrs perhaps if things are getting out of hand could work, including a system where multiple warnings over time would result in moderators discussing an eventual ban. (I personally believe it would never come to this, unless we're talking about actual trolls, not engineers talking about disagreements).
Here are some rough ideas then:
- All topics should be focused on the development of Dogecoin, L1 and ecosystem projects.
- Code is king, talk is cheap.. if you have an idea, YOU build it! you don't need anyone's permission, but you might like feedback, collaboration, etc. this is the place.
- This is not a dumping ground for user's project ideas they hope other people will build for them.
- This is NOT a place for price talk, memes, etc.. there are plenty of other places for that, try r/dogecoin
- You MUST read and agree to abide by the spirit of the Code of Conduct.
- Moderators are volunteers, deserving of respect for their time.. just like everyone else here.
Moderating a heated topic:
- Topics that are getting heated are often important, don't squash positive/constructive discussion.
- If people are getting rude, a moderator should call for civility, with nuance. Anyone can tag @Mods
- If people continue to be rude, a moderator should call a Timeout of 24hrs on the topic with a reminder to see things from eachother's sides, etc.
- If someone persists in posting to a topic that's in a timeout period intentionally.. they get a warning/temp suspension from posting.
- If this is repeated behavior over time, moderators will get together and discuss a perma-ban for an identifiable 'person', not just their account. Any such ban would require a public post from the moderators outlining (with references) the ongoing CoC violations and eventual decision to ban.
- Intentional Doxxing, hate speech, personal attacks etc. should rapidly be moved toward this solution also.
Thoughts?
