I see the thin line Discourse has to walk here. And I do agree this has to be carefully weighed and probably be the job of a plugin. However, I think there is another, more overarching challenge that Discourse should consider and weigh in as well. It’s that of an overall shift in the web that happened over the last many years, away from websites, blogs and message boards on to Facebook and other proprietary platforms, which have come to shape and form users’ expectations as to functionality and usability. These platforms have become the home for people, their view of the web and unfortunately more often than not a golden cage. I do not think that Discourse should ever try to copy that or become kind of an open source Facebook clone, don’t get me wrong. However, and that’s why I brought up Buddypress’ timeline view as an example, I don’t see anything wrong in offering an optional view to Discourse users (in addition to top, latest, unread, categories…), that depicts, without any algorithm and whatnot, a linear, reverse chronological, feed timeline of what is happening in that particular discourse community, and a more “familiar” entry point for some and also a useful indicator to visitors of the activity that is going on. Such a feed would not only list things like “XY posted in topic Z” or “Topic X was moved to category Z”, but also “X, Y and Z joined the forum today” or “A was rewarded Badge soundso for his excellent post in topic D” etc. So much activity types that such a feed could display that would trigger a lot of interaction and help build a community… I think for those of us struggling to get people back into message boards like Discourse, this would be a huge step up.
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