Hi all. I’m Fergal at the RIPE NCC. So, we launched our new forum and we’re really hoping it takes off and becomes a hub for some good discussions and information sharing. If you have initial thoughts or questions, let us know here. And if you’ve used Discourse before and have some tips on what works well, then let us know.
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Loving it so far 
looking forward to seeing all the conversations!
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Very good idea! Although the 20 character limit on a post prevents me from being able to write the typical +1 when I agree with what someone has said.
Ah thanks. And yes, this came up a bit in conversation when we were setting it up. We think hitting the like button pretty much covers the +1 while reducing the amount of posts. Maybe we should request the heart be changed to a +1 icon for our members 
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Hearts are a perfectly good alternative
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Everyone can use his “username”. But to figure out the real person you have to click on the persons icon. Wouldn’t it be nice that the real name will be displayed too in the posting overview ?
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Thanks for setting up the forum, looking forward to have good discussions and to learn a lot.
Erik
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Looks good Fergal. Discourse is decent forum software so happy to see it in use here.
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It seems great. It would be nice if we can discuss policy here too instead of having to use the mailing list. Can we do that?
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Great idea ! However I am afraid that this will split discussions (and potentially communities) between oldies email-users, and forum-users. How could we avoid such issues ?
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One of the features we kept in mind when choosing Discourse was that it’s very email-friendly, so hopefully the discussion continues - with everyone using their preferred interface.
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I suppose that might happen Clément, and if it does we’ll have to try to address it. I might be optimistic but I think that it could just increase discussion, maybe even in both places. Posting here that there’s an interesting discussion on a mailing list, or posting on a mailing list that there’s an interesting thread on the forum, seems very doable to me.
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I see no problem with that, David. It happens on Twitter and other places all the time. The only thing to keep in mind is that if you want to have an actual impact on the policy, and have the chairs take the points into account, then it needs to go to the mailing list. We hope the forum increases discussion on everything but it’s not intended to change how policy works.
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Great initiative.
As for splitting communities, discourse is really good at being “piloted” from emails.
Mozilla’s discourse has a “post by email” button, and I am quite sure something similar can be activated here.
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@kuon this is a cool feature indeed! I knew about the replying to a topic but starting a new topic via email sounds definitely worth investigating 
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i am concerned about any sort of move away from email too. I am old school, and while I do check my emails, I do not always remember to check / keep up with all the different web-based forums I am supposed to be on. OK, we old farts are a dying breed, but…
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We really see the forum as an addition to mail rather than instead of mail. I hope our upgrade to Mailman 3 will make that experience much better too. If we can manage to keep the old farts happy and engaged, and start to engage with people who maybe are less comfortable with mail, then that will be a good thing. And we’re the secretariat for the community, so we certainly wouldn’t think about changing how things work unless that was something the community wanted. If you do notice changes happening (positive or negative) it would be great to give us a nudge (here or on the mailing list ;)).
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Thanks Fergal, appreciated!
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Here’s something people might have missed that’s handy to know (now we’ve been running for a few days): Change frequency or unsubscribe from Activity Summary emails - users - Discourse Meta
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Last week I presented at RIPE 85 on how we’re breaking down barriers to engagement. It gives a bit more insight into how this very forum fits into that work. At the end, theres a slide with a few questions I’d like people to think about when it comes to our engagement work. Have a gander and if you have thoughts, put 'em down here…
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