First off, I am super excited about this community and connecting with others who care about the topic.
For me, it’s pretty hard to make sense of the discussions so far, there seems to be a challenge with this style of forum, in that it is not really “conversational” (compared to something like Slack) but also isn’t really “informational” like a Wiki. I don’t advocate creating a distraction-prone community, per se, but it would be great if there were more intentionality in terms of what community members can expect and contribute. For myself, I would like to a) discuss the situation we’re thinking about and get a broader picture by hearing other people’s thoughts and experiences, and b) help to take actions that support the ideas of humane tech.
Could it be that this community would work better in another medium? I don’t want to dictate what that is (and I’m guessing each person has a different belief about what mediums reflect the goals of “human tech”). For me, the best communities involve being able to have great discussions, connect personally, have respect for each other, and ideally have some idea of who people are, so context is a part of the picture. Maybe part of the process of building this community is to understand how the forum’s structure could better reflect our goals? Thanks for your work on this, everyone who is participating!
I think there needs to be a focus in this forum system on initiatives and projects. Too easily things can devolve into back-and-forths over old chestnuts like ‘anonymity, is it good or bad?’ to no meaningful impact on the world around us.
To this end, we might pin a topic (called, e.g., ‘Current Projects and Initiatives’) in which users describe initiatives and projects that people are currently engaged in and in which to join.
I also suggest that the board be put into read-only mode periodically.
A wiki could then be set up. During read-only periods, users are encouraged (maybe by a conscpicuous banner on the front page of the forum) to use the wiki to document/summarise the ideas, strategies, and actions taken in the most highly-rated posts on the board.
Putting the board into read-only mode periodically would give people time and the incentive to review what individuals have been saying on it (and also the general state of the group).
When the board re-opens, a new topic could be made which summarises the additions to the wiki.
While this Discourse forum can serve as a means to find / initiate valuable humane tech discussions, we should take over with other tools to get real work done. I was thinking that this forum was just the first step in a larger plan to be unrolled by the founders as hinted at in The Way Forward:
In the future, we will look back at today as a turning point towards humane design
There is momentum now, the iron is hot, please tell a bit more of the plans
