Another small piece of feedback regarding the channels pencil icon on the focused sidebar theme: I think it would be helpful to have some icon to show if there are channels available that the user doesn't know about
for example, right now, if I see the pencil, I don't know if there are other chat channels I can join without clicking on the pencil, so maybe something like a little red circle or something to show that there are more channels available to me to which I don't currently belong
this could help let users know when new chat channels are created
I would actually fundamentally question why chat is treated as “visible only if you actively go looking” in the first place. Categories and Topics are not treated this way and I kind of feel like neither should chat be! Chat should be, as I’ve just said elsewhere, “a first-class citizen” in Discourse. That means it should, IMO, be visible by default in top-level views (e.g. category list, etc.).
Now certainly this has to be considered in the context of whether “chat on topic” actually ends up existing in the initial implementation or not. Last I heard they were considering dropping it as a launch feature, which I think may be a good idea as the UI/UX considerations are challenging, and chat is by its nature most often less laser-focused in topic. A category is a good balance of focused-enough, but not too focused to define a chat.
If chat on topic does get included, then obviously making all chat channels visible (but not joined) by default makes less sense, but at the least I think category-level chats should still be just… visible… all the dang time. Maybe you can actively hide them, or switch between “my channels” and “all channels” view (with “all channels view” on by default) with the pencil or something.
Think about how Discord works in this context for what is likely to be the most familiar metaphor for many coming into Discourse chat. Obviously Slack is another one, but it is default-private, whereas as Discord, and many Discourse instances, are more of a “default public”. So again that informs my preference here. Curious if others agree though (and sorry if I’ve semi-hijacked your topic Jim!).
Haha, I feel no offense at all, actually quite grateful for your comment and agree about wanting the channels to be more visible, especially if the focus will be on category-linked channels and not topic-linked channels.
한 발짝 물러서서 생각해 보면, 이를 전체적인 "채널 발견(Channel Discovery)"의 맥락에서 고려해 볼 가치가 있다고 생각합니다.
채널의 발견 가능성을 높이기 위해 우리가 할 수 있는 일은 많습니다. 현재 제 우선순위 목록의 맨 위에 있는 것은 다른 채널을 빠르게 언급할 수 있는 기능입니다(“아 맞다, 며칠 전에 #community-building에서 이걸 논의했었지”).
다만, 할 수 있는 다른 방법들도 plenty 있습니다… (관련 채널 표시… 채널에서 게시물이 링크될 때 해당 게시물에 대한 인바운드 링크 제공… discobot이 가끔 가입할 만한 채널을 다이렉트 메시지로 보내기… “채널 생성됨” 메시지를 “일반” 채널에 게시… 토픽 목록에 채널용 탭 추가…) 어떤 의미인지 아실 겁니다. 가능성이 무궁무진합니다.
정확히 어디서부터 시작할지는 아직 모르겠지만, 브레인스토밍에 도움이 되는 맥락이라면, “토픽별(per topic)” 채널 기능을 제거할 계획임을 확인해 드립니다. 단, 카테고리당 두 개 이상의 채널을 가질 수는 있습니다.
Lots of great ideas! I’m glad to hear you have those in mind and are exploring this stuff. Of course the major existing options Slack and Discord also have some possible models for this (Discord more than Slack IMO, since I think it fits the general community interaction and discoverability model of Discourse more closely).
That is indeed helpful! Sounds like the right move for now.
