MCOSI Meeting Briefing – August 17th 2019

The latest Minds Community Open Source Initiative (MCOSI) meeting was held on Saturday August 17th and was attended by Luculent, Realmindschan, Medworthy (three founding members of the MCOSI), as well as Nick (Minds administrator) and Nemofin (Minds developer). The meeting was also viewed by several members of the Minds community.

Several topics were discussed within this meeting, including issues surrounding a recent outage of the platform (which was quickly and efficiency resolved), processes to help to improve the communication between the staff and the wider community, an updated in relation to providing the Minds app via the F-Droid Android repository and information regarding the upcoming Minds Pro service.

At the start of the meeting, Nick provided information about the recent issues in relation to the boost function and stated that the staff are reviewing the boost backlog. The issues regarding the recent boost backlog has been related to the growth of the Minds community and Nick mentioned that Minds staff members are examining methods in relation to improving the stability of the boost functionality. The staff have also made some modifications to this facility and are reviewing processes to further improve boosts for the entire community. Both the MCOSI and the Minds staff members welcomes suggestions from the wider community regarding any improvements within the boost function, as well as suggestions and ideas about any other element of the Minds platform, services and procedures.

The staff have also introduced an improved status page, as well as further information viewable within the Minds Gitlab facility (further information via the links that are provided below). The staff have also introduced a procedure in which weekly posts will be pinned to the top of the Minds Help and Support group, which will provide information regarding update and new functionality within the Minds platform. Update information will also be provided via the Minds notices element which can be viewed within the Newsfeed section of the platform.

Mark Harding (Minds Chief Technology Officer) has also introduced a new group, which has been specifically provide for community members to further review and report any issues in relation to Canary based experimental functions and updates. Canary is an opt-in service which gives community members the ability to explore upcoming facilities and functionality before these features are deployed throughout the entire platform.

During the meeting, Nick also mentioned that Minds has employed the services of a user experience / user interface (UX / UI) professional, which will conduct a audit of the design and usability of the platform. The Minds staff are aiming to have a UX / UI report prepared by the end of September and will use this report as the basis for any UI based modifications, improvements and extra functionality.

The staff are also preparing a scheduler function, which will provide the ability to schedule posts for publication (based on a user selectable times). For further information about upcoming changes, please refer to the Minds engine and front-end merge request Gitlab facilities. Further information will also be provided within the official Minds channel.

The upcoming Minds Pro subscription service will provide community members with the ability to have customised domain names, new user interface elements and user branding functionality, as well as the ability to upload high resolution images and video content that is not restricted by the current 15 minute limitations. Further information about the Minds Pro service will be provided within the near future.

As far as the introduction of the Minds Android app within F-Droid’s repositories is concerned, there are several technical and contractual issues that are in need of being resolved, the staff are reviewing the app development process so that future updates will be provided within a regular time frame.

The community based MCOSI continues to aim to provide information regarding community members concerns, suggestions and Minds updates. Both the Minds staff and Minds Community Open Source Initiative welcomes feedback, suggestions and further ideas about any of our services, we also encourage community members to actively participate within the development and support of the Minds platform.

Minds Community Open Source Initiative providing community based support for the Minds.com open source and open discourse based social media platform.

References & Other Resources:
* Minds Official Status Page
* Further Status Information (Minds Gitlab Status Facility)
* Minds Engine Merge Request Gitlab Facility
* Minds Front-End Merge Request Gitlab Facility
* Minds Help And Support Group
* Minds Official Channel
* Minds Canary Group
* Minds Community Open Source Initiative
* MCOSI Meeting Agenda - August
* 2019, MCOSI and Community Collaboration
* Introducing Minds Community Open Source Initiative