Good Governance: Three keys for getting solid feedback on the forum

TL:DR:
Discourse (this forum) is a marginal collaboration tool - here are tips on how you (as a poster) can get better engagement.

Background:
Discourse (also known as “the forum” or sometime known as the “governance forum”) is the de-facto tool for web3 when it comes to making and debating proposals. The issue is that it difficult to discuss/debate complex proposals. Worse - the more complex or longer a proposal is, the less of a chance you have to get solid input as reader engagement starts to zzzzzzzzzZZZZZZ

What should you do:

  1. Create shorter, more specific proposals. If possible when your proposal consists of several ideas, consider breaking them up into smaller segments and post individually. The easier they are to consume, the more engagement you will get.

  2. Liberally use a pictures & diagram to explain your idea. One well crafted visual will help tell the story and cut out a bunch of blah blah blah. FDD does this really well.

  3. Intersperse polls within the proposal. When you have several ideas that cannot be put into shorter segments, consider putting in a poll after each major theme. This allows the reader to provide quick feedback on that specific segment - and gets them to think critically about what you just wrote.

So with that - lets demo:
Let me know how helpful these three ideas were for you:

Write shorter proposals:

  • I like this idea
  • We need more discussion
  • I am against this idea

0 voters

Substitute words with visuals

  • I like this idea
  • We need more discussion
  • I am against this idea

0 voters

Use polls to collect multifaceted sentiment

  • I like this idea
  • We need more discussion
  • I am against this idea

0 voters

If you would like any help, please just reach out…

2 Likes

Thanks for making this guide - super helpful!