Category: Informational
Author: @mg
ABSTRACT
This AIP draft outlines a change in structure for the ApeCoin Forum to better suit the needs of the proposal process, governance, education, and community in general.
MOTIVATION
Currently this forum is structured in a way that is entirely centric to the AIP process and isn’t conducive to other discussions. This keeps the forum itself from becoming a vibrant place for discussion about AIP-related topics, workstreams that might be inspired by the work of the DAO, as well as for general community growth and camaraderie.
RATIONALE
This is a relatively simple change, which would require no additional cost, but would add a lot of value. The ApeCoin forum serves as the main hub for the ApeCoin DAO, and improving its structure would likely be a big benefit to the community.
KEY TERMS
-
Discourse: The forum software that’s currently in use by ApeCoin -
subcategory: This refers to a Discourse feature, which allows for nesting categories within parent categories
SPECIFICATIONS
The forum structure would be as follows:
Start Here
└── Announcements
Live AIPs
General
└── Events
AIP Ideas
AIP Drafts
└── Core: Ecosystem Fund Allocation
└── Core: Brand Decision
└── Process
└── Informational
Final AIPs
└── Implemented AIPs
└── Accepted AIPs
└── Rejected AIPs
Help & Resources
└── FAQs
└── Get Help
└── Stay Safe
RESTRUCTURING WHAT’S ALREADY HERE
First, I’m proposing that we rearrange from an entirely flat category layout to something that better utilizes the features of Discourse, and moves things into logical subcategories.
- AIP Ideas becomes its own category, which would have the 7 day topic auto-close timer built in
- This could also take advantage of the Discourse topic voting plugin to help the author and moderators gauge the value and interest of the idea
- AIP Ideas can be edited by the original author while in this category
- AIP Drafts moves all of the AIP types under one home
- This is a huge help as it means that someone can navigate to the Drafts category and all topics within subcategories (AIP types) would aggregate together in one home, potentially improving engagement across the board
- AIP Drafts can only be edited by a forum moderator or Foundation Board member, as directed by the original author
ADDING AN AREA FOR FINAL AIPS
Currently the forum structure only accounts for AIPs that are underway with a vote. Once a vote is over, they are considered Final, and would fall into one of two categories:
-
Implemented AIPs
These AIPs are considered final, and complete in their execution. Examples of this include AIP-1 and AIP-2. -
Accepted AIPs
These are AIPs that have been passed by the DAO by way of Snapshot vote. -
Rejected AIPs
These are AIPs that have not been passed by the DAO. Rejected AIPs can be resubmitted based on the workflow outlined in AIP-1.
CHANGING THE DEFAULT LANDING PAGE
By default Discourse is set to view the “Topics” view. Unfortunately this makes discovery of the various categories difficult. It also tends to focus the discussion only around the most recent posts at any given time, which is not conducive for a forum with a wide range of topics.
Therefore I propose that we switch to the “Categories and Latest Topics” setting by default. It would look like this:
And it’s set in the Discourse settings like this:
ADDING HELPFUL CATEGORIES
The ApeCoin forum can become a living, de facto home for all things ApeCoin, that doesn’t require the apecoin.com website to change.
But getting there would require adding a couple new categories
-
Start Here
This would set up a handful of important topics that would help initiate a new forum participant into the DAO. This could be locked for replies to keep the content tight.
Posting would be restricted to forum mods only- Announcements
This would be a category for broad announcements to be made. The reason this is separated is because we could then take advantage of Discourse notification settings and auto-alert all forum participants on new announcements added.
Posting would be restricted to forum mods only
- Announcements
-
General
- Events
This would be a spot to stay informed on all the different events (like live events, meetups, Twitter spaces) related to ApeCoin.
- Help & Resources
This would be a broad category, mostly relying on its subcategories. Posting would be locked entirely at the top-level category and only allowed in subcategories.-
FAQs
I mean, I guess this one is obvious -
Get Help
This would be a place for apes to help other apes. I’d imagine that some apes might even set their notification preferences to “Tracking” or “Watch First Post” so that they might get alerted any time a new post goes live so they can jump right in and help. -
Stay Safe
This would be the home for all things scams and general advice on security, etc. Many long-lived topics could be here, and it would be a logical place for people to become informed about the scary stuff that’s out there that might lead to losing our Apes!
-
STEPS TO IMPLEMENT
- The ApeCoin forum moderators would need to set up the category/subcategory structure, which would include renaming some categories, as well as adding new ones
- The Voting plugin would need to be installed and configured for the
Ideascategory - The default landing page would need to be changed as per the specification
- Add new topics within categories such as
Start Hereand theHelp & Resourcescategory and subcategories that would help guide people
TIMELINE
This would be determined by the ApeCoin Forum Moderators, but all of the above could be completed in under a day.
OVERALL COST
There is no cost to this change.