Have been approached by a few folks so far asking for a couple of new forum categories and wanted to get feedback on the following.
Proposed new categories for Agora:
Ecosystem Updates : updates about ecosystem projects. Expect this would typically entail linking to content in the vein of the recent TezTech blog post or the launch of TezBlock). Not a “news” section. more about periodic updates from a given project that might benefit from discussion or engagement.
AMA: Periodic AMAs by major ecosystem entities, projects, startups, etc. (will overlap with the posters in the proposed category above)
Also, I don’t think there should be a bias towards creating new categories just because someone asked for it. That said, we could also introduce a sunsetting rule and deprecate categories with low engagement over say 3-6 months.
Open to the idea of experimenting with an AMA category. Regarding Ecosystem updates is the idea we would be limiting projects to a single thread for discussions or would the author create a new thread for each update?
The idea in mind was to have a new thread for each update, but with tags for diff projects.
One issue with such a section is that as the community grows, there could be an increase in updates from noisier / lower value projects as well as content which blurs the line between advertising and informative content.
An ecosystem updates category seems a little redundant given the multiple outlets that already exist for that kind of content. I imagine that any new developments from a specific project that warrant discussion would fall into one of the existing categories. If that doesn’t pan out to be the case, maybe a “Projects” category makes sense (I don’t think it needs to be framed around ‘updates’).
What about a category for newcomers? Something with a pinned post that has the getting started links (maybe highlighting a few articles from the Wiki and some blog posts) and is friendly to questions from people new to the ecosystem?
I agree with having a Projects category. I think it should be limited to 1 topic per project to help ensure that it’s being used more for informative content than for advertising.
I also agree with experimenting with an AMA category.
What about questions from developers just starting to learn about Tezos? Should we try to have an area of Agora where they can ask questions rather than direct them to reddit?
I am thinking about questions that aren’t a good fit for the Tezos StackExchange, especially questions asking for opinions. A recent example of such a question that will be moderated off of the TSE is https://tezos.stackexchange.com/questions/1577/choosing-a-language
A Getting Started section is interesting, but perhaps the same could be accomplished by linking to a getting started site at the top of the page?
The “project updates” category is growing on me. Could have projects create specific accounts on the forum and then have them post from those. It would start small initially so I’m not sure that I think there’s much risk of advertising for a while.
I think we should launch AMA category later this month. Just would have to line up a bunch of projects to do the AMAs.
The TQuorum global summit in NYC has been excellent, and it was so great to get to meet everyone! Thanks TQ. We’re fortunate to have a beautiful community. During the Global Leadership get-together discussions, the idea came up to establish a channel for conversations among global Tezos communities to continue.
Whilst chat apps can be good for high quantity of engagement and to quickly reach out, I see Agora as a great fit for these discussions. Be it the sharing of best practices or the exchange of experiences and opportunities, here we could keep on producing ideas and solving problems together – over the long term. I’ve been talking to @frabrunelle about adding a private category for Global Leadership here on Agora. What do you think? On top of that, I like the idea of quarterly video-based conferences. This could be one of the first topics to be discussed in this new category.
