Shared topics between multiple discourse instances

[tophee (Christoph)]

Continuing the discussion from Facebook Groups - Zuck is coming for us:

@tophee

I’m wondering whether the discourse team has any plans or visions regarding ways how users can combine multiple discourse instances into a single newsfeed?

I take it that this is not going to be a priority any time soon, but I really like this idea of linking different discourse instances. So here is a more specific feature suggestion: multi-forum topics.

Not sure if and how this could be implemented, but the idea would be that users could request a topic to be shared by another discourse forum, i.e. that the topic would be shown in both forums and members of either community can reply to it.

Use case: @HAWK asked the same question on the feverbee forum and here:

What would you like to see on your Discourse 2.0 Admin Dashboard?

I’m working on a redesign of the Admin Dashboard (found at /admin). It currently displays a lot of data but I believe we could do a better job at providing the right kind of data. i.e. the things the community builders need to know at a glance to monitor health & growth and to diagnose problems. What features would be included in your oh-my-god-this-is-the-best-community-dashboard-ever dashboard? What info do you want to get at a glance?

And this topic of mine would probably also be suitable for both these fora:

Semi-public sub-categories?

My forum is currently a public forum with one category (apart from staff and lounge) limited to a specific group. But I have a feeling that in order to encourage more posts from my users, it might be a good idea to give users the possibility to post semi-publicly, i.e. limited to logged in users. My idea is to do this by creating a semi-public sub-category for at least some of the categories. But I’m not entirely sure where this might lead us and whether it’s really a good idea. So before I pro…

[j.jaffeux (Joffrey Jaffeux)]

I’m curious, can you explain what problem it solves? I don’t see where the use case is explained in What would you like to see on your Discourse 2.0 Admin Dashboard?

[tophee (Christoph)]

What I meant was that the two topics I quoted are suitable for discussion on both feverbee and meta. Currently, these discussions have to be separate (apart from cross-referencing) and if I want to respond to someone on the other forum, I have to sign up there too, even though I may not be interested in the forum otherwise. Multi-forum topics would make those kinds of discussions across communities much easier and better.

Also, from the broader perspective of improving discussions on the internet, such topics would be valuable because they build bridges between communities (or should I say “discussion bubbles”?). I could go on about how this is where innovative ideas are created through synergies and cross-fertilization, but I’ll spare you that part so as not to make this idea seem bigger than it is.

Cross-forum topics would be a small part of any discourse forum (except perhaps a few forums that specialize in cross-community discussions) and Many communities would not have any use for them, perhaps even see them as a threat to their communities sense of “owning” certain topics of discussion (and that’s okay), but I believe in those communities that use them, they would often be among the most valuable ones.

[Ham (Roland)]

I’m interested in this. I was about to launch a new one in the same market as my current one but more niche. I was going to use xenforo for that one but if this was possible Id use this instead.

[j.jaffeux (Joffrey Jaffeux)]

For me internet is built on one simple principle: links. One forum should just agree to discuss this subject on another discourse instance -> “Closed topic: follow discussion at http://xxx” If they can’t agree on this I don’t see them agree on any of the things I will explain later.

This proposal is raising tons of questions which won’t have any easy answer. What if different communities have different moderation rules (who decides if this post should be deleted?) ? what if one user is banned on one forum and not the other? What if both forums don’t update at the same time, it could be a nightmare for us to handle those cases… And I’m not talking about all the technical questions it raises as they could ultimately probably be solved but with much complexity.

I can see some value in the proposal, but as I see it, simply relying on internet principles and keeping it simple is a much better approach.

[tophee (Christoph)]

@Ham

I was going to use xenforo

Are you implying that Xenforo has this feature?

As an aside: if your current forum is on discourse, why would you consider Xenforo? (Maybe something for #comparison)

[Ham (Roland)]

No it doesn’t have this feature. But it has a lot of other features I like for my type of community. I’ve used vbulletin and xenforo before.

This isn’t as easy as xenforo or vb and doesn’t have some of the same security features I liked over there. For example I don’t want to read or know what my members are saying in PMs. And I when I delete a post or pm I want it completely deleted. Not just archived and non viewable.

The rss posting can be made from anywhere with full posts instead of an excerpt and link. I can message all the members anytime I like easier without needing a seperate service like mailchimp.

While the mobile site here is nice I notice a lack in my members activity without having push notifications. on xenforo a dev is selling a native app now for purchase and there’s always the options of tapatalk as well.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

Push notifications are available on our hosting, this requires custom setup with Apple and Google to work.

[Muiran (Muíran Shíoraí)]

My long-term goal is using Diaspora* to create a Federated Discourse Plugin which would by virtue of its mission as a social media server bring several options for sharing.

Features
Hashtags give you the freedom to label and follow your interests with ease. You can catch people’s attention by @mentioning them. Reshare posts you love so others can enjoy and comment on them too. And show your love for other people’s work by ing it.

Aspects
Diaspora* pioneered the concept of aspects, which means you can organize your contacts according to their role in your life. This means you can share something just with family members or work colleagues, knowing that no one you don’t want to will be able to see what you post.

Social Media Integration
Use diaspora* as your home base to post to your profiles on other major social services. This way your friends will still be able to keep in touch with what you’re up to, even if they’re not yet on Diaspora*. Diaspora* currently supports cross-posting to your Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr accounts, with more to come.

Diaspora is based on three key values:
Decentralization
Instead of everyone’s data being held on huge central servers owned by a large organization, Diaspora* exists on independently run servers (“pods”) all over the world. You choose which pod to register with, and you can then connect seamlessly with the Diaspora* community worldwide.

Freedom
You can be whoever you want to be in Diaspora*. Unlike some networks, you don’t have to use your real identity. You can interact with people in whatever way you choose. The only limit is your imagination. Diaspora* is also Free Software, giving you liberty over how you use it.

Privacy
In Diaspora* you own your data. You don’t sign over rights to a corporation or other interest who could use it. In addition, you choose who sees what you share, using Aspects. With Diaspora*, your friends, your habits, and your content is your business … not ours!

https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/
#ruby, #rails, #social-network, #federated, #distributed, #decentralized

[tophee (Christoph)]

Here is a related topic:

Is there a way to quote something that was said on a different Discourse instance?

Is there a way to quote something that was said on a different Discourse instance? I’m guessing no, but thought I’d ask. I know I can manually quote it, but I’d like Discourse to add the link arrows and have the expand functionality that it present in non manual quotes. I’ve tried searching but there’s a lot of noise when you search for anything involving quotes.

[ChrisBeach (Chris)]

This would be a very helpful feature for me too. I run local forums for different postcode zones in London and I want to expand. Some topics will interest people in multiple postcode zones, and its a lot of work to cross-post to all forums.

There are several different potential solutions to this problem and I won’t prescribe one - but I’ll keenly watch this topic.

[oshyan (Oshyan Greene)]

ネクロスレッド復活！このトピックについてより新しい話題が見つからなかったため、おそらく人々にとってそれほど興味深いものではないからかもしれません。そのため、かなり古いこの議論に投稿しています。しかし、これは人々が実際に考えたり想像したりしないが、いったん実装されればより評価されるかもしれない機能の一種だと思います。

私がここで発言する理由は、この話題が私が参加している様々な議論の場で最近何度か取り上げられたからです。現代では、協働的な知識構築、議論、コミュニティへの関心が再燃しており、Facebook から離れようとする要望も高まっています。Facebook が特に人気な理由の一つは、「ワンストップショップ」であることです。あらゆる主題に関する特別関心グループを一つにまとめ、それぞれに独自のプライベートスペースを持ちながら、単一の連続した投稿フィードで表示でき、簡単に相互作用できる点です。さらには「タグ付け」を使って、それらを粗い方法で相互にリンクさせることさえ可能です。

私が特に活発に活動し、多くの Discourse インスタンスに出会う分野の一つは、知識管理やワーク・タスク・プロジェクト管理ツール、およびそれに関連するコミュニティです。多くのツールは特定のソフトウェアに特化していますが、そのほとんどは、例えば知識管理全般について議論するためのよりオープンな領域を備えています。Obsidian の「Knowledge Management」エリアが良い例です：

Knowledge management

そこには、Zettelkasten に関する議論など、他の多くの Discourse インスタンスのトピックと重なる部分が大きくあります。つまり、これはおそらく Discourse 間のトピックリンクの恩恵を受けるに違いないトピックの非常に良い例です。もし興味がある方がいれば、より具体的に何を意味しているかを示すスレッドをいくつか見つけてお示しすることもできます。

Discourse でこのような機能を実装するには大きな技術的課題があることは理解しています。しかし、なぜ「できない」かについて語るのではなく、現在、過度な労力を要さない範囲で「何が可能か」について議論し、探求することに興味があります。また、ここで既に提起されている多くの質問や懸念は、私から見ると、それがどのように機能するかという非常に特定のアイデア（例えば、モデレーションに関する懸念など）を前提としたもののように思えます。しかし、実際に「それがどのように機能しうるか」について議論し、相互に理解する機会を持つまでは、そのような懸念を提起するのは時期尚早だと感じます。

多くの理論的な懸念は容易に対処可能であり、そのようなシステムが実際にどのように機能し、設定されるかによって、全く問題にならないかもしれません。例えば、各コミュニティは通常の通り自らの投稿をモデレートし、互いのリンクを表示し、他のコミュニティのスレッドで新しい投稿がなされた場合にどこかにその旨を示す（例えば、トピックの拡張可能なフッターに、遠隔リンクされた Discourse インスタンスでの最新返信を表示する）ことができます。もし他のコミュニティへの投稿がこのコミュニティのルールに違反する場合、リンクを切断するか、重大な懸念でなければリンクは維持しつつ、新しい「遠隔」投稿の通知をミュートすることも可能です。要するに、なぜできないかではなく、何ができるかを考えましょう。

[rjdrost (Robert Drost)]

@oshyan さん、このスレッドを復活させてくれてありがとうございます！Discourseコミュニティやチームで、フォーラムが共有したいトピックを決定できるようにすることについて、さらに検討が進んでいるかどうか、私も知りたいです。

@j.jaffeux さんが提起された技術面や管理者/モデレーション面の課題を読み、理解しました。そのため、Discourseプラットフォームのコア機能として頻繁に利用するのは理想的ではないことがわかります。しかし、私はインターネットの原則を使用するという分野で働いており、会話の単一のポイントを一度に1つのフォーラムに向けるという考え方は、あまりうまくいかないでしょう。

そのため、2つのフォーラムが適用できる、よりローテクなソリューションがあるのではないかと考えています。各管理者は、もう一方のフォーラムに応答を転送するためアカウントを作成し、ボットを設定して、リンクされたトピック/投稿に、引用された（つまり、ユーザー名と元の投稿のMarkdownを含む）応答を転送および応答するようにします。はい、タイムスタンプは完璧ではありません。サーバーとボットのレイテンシとポリシーに依存するためですが、最終的にはすべての応答が含まれることになります。

[oshyan (Oshyan Greene)]

@rjdrost

そのため、管理者が互いのフォーラムに応答を転送するためアカウントを作成し、ボットを設定して、リンクされたトピック/投稿に（つまり、ユーザー名と元の投稿のマークダウンとともに）応答を転送および引用して応答するようにする、より低レベルの技術的なソリューションが2つのフォーラムに適用できるのではないかと考えています。はい、タイムスタンプはサーバーとボットのレイテンシーとポリシーに依存するため完璧ではありませんが、最終的にはすべての応答が含まれることになります。

これは非常に興味深いアイデアです。API/プラグインでかなりまともなものができると思います。しかし、それなしでも、メールを有効にして、それらの特定のユーザーからの投稿を許可するように2つのフォーラムを設定できるのではないでしょうか？興味深いアイデアです。私が試すことはおそらくないでしょうが、誰かが試すのを見てみたいです。