MS Forum: Community Review Report

Site Feedback
, ,
5

What goals should be set to consider this forum successful?

[Forum thread]

There were many interesting discussions about what would make the MS Forum successful, what should be the goals of the forum, and how they can be categorized within themes of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. In summary, if the MS Forum can maintain and improve the suggested components, it will be deemed successful, irrespective of the number of users. [For metrics of progress, see Metrics below.]

Diversity

  • Different perspectives and experiences are encouraged to collaborate and contribute to the Movement Strategy.

Equity

  • All types of contributors are invited to participate in the MS Forum, and everyone is given a platform to share their ideas, feedback, and problems around Movement Strategy.
  • There is no bias toward specific projects or languages, no matter the size of the project or the language. The multilingual plugin gives everyone equal opportunities to participate.

Inclusion

  • With the multilingual plugin, translations are quick and easy, allowing everyone to participate in the discussions, regardless of language and location.

Accessibility

  • The entry barrier for participating in the MS Forum is lower for newcomers and community members who are not code-savvy. It is simpler to follow along with Movement Strategy discussions and to participate on the MS Forum than it is on Meta and other channels.

There were discussions about how the MS Forum should interact with other channels of communication. The consensus is that the MS Forum would complement (not replace) Meta as a place to host topic-specific (Movement Strategy), multilingual (due to the translation plugin), and global (not project-specific) conversations. As long as the MS Forum serves as a place to have substantive and collaborative discussions around Movement Strategy - specifically in regards to the Movement Charter, the Global Council, and Hubs, all of which impact the entire movement - it will remain relevant.

To extrapolate from the feedback more explicitly: the MS Forum is a platform for all those who are not active on Meta - for whatever reason - and between the two channels, we should be able to support, inform and equip a greater percentage of Movement Strategy participants.

Metrics

These are the data points that will be collected and reported monthly to measure progress towards those goals:

  • number of active users (in total: by region, by language)
    • “Active” as defined by Discourse is anyone who visited and read at least one topic in a given timeframe.
    • “Language” as defined by Interface Language setting in user’s preference.
  • Top 10 topics with the most replies and views (to measure the diversity of content)

Every 6 months, starting with January 2023, a survey will be conducted among users to collect qualitative data about forum use, specifically around these questions of impact:

  • % of users satisfied with the ease of use, accessibility, safety, and platform utility
  • number of MS-related problems solved on the forum
  • number of new collaborations as a result of the forum
  • number of new grant and funded proposals organized from the forum

Feature Requests

[Forum category]

Community members can propose improvements to the MS Forum and vote for existing proposals. This activity fosters co-creation and co-ownership. The MSG team was able to implement some of these requests during the community review period. They are:

The Forum Improvements category continues to be active after the community review. Participants can suggest new proposals and vote to help the MS Forum evolve.