MCOSI Meeting with Bill Ottman - June 25th 2019

On Tuesday June 25th, Minds Community Open Source Initiative (MCOSI) welcomed the Chief Executive Officer of Minds (Bill Ottman) to a meeting. During this meeting (which was also attended by Medworthy, Luculent, RealMindsChan, Nick, Jack and was also watched by members of the Minds community) we had a discussion about the current situation with the Google Play Store version of the Android app.

As many community members are aware, the Minds app was reintroduced to the Google Play Store (after being removed from the store in December 2018). Due to Google’s policies, the Minds app had to have various features disabled (including the facility to be able to view content that could be deemed to be explicated or considered as being not suitable for work environments). Therefore the Minds staff decided include code and release two versions of the Minds app for Android devices (a version that is suitable to be hosted on the Google Play Store platform and another that version that provides full access to the Minds site.

After having a brief discussion about several technical issues Bill gave an explanation about why it is necessary to have a version of the app hosted on the Google Play Store. Jack explained about the issues surrounding Google’s dominance of the Android market and talked about how the majority of Android users only install apps from the Google Play Store.

We then had a brief conversation in which we discussed the situation surrounding the Apple (iOS) app and talked about the lack of ability to side-load (being able to install apps without the need of any app stores), as well as discussing how Apple has been able to lock-down their iPhone and iPad devices.

After the conversation about app store fronts and the wider issues in relation to the market place, we discussed about ways to promote the full version of the Minds app (which is hosted on the Minds site) and agreed to having new information included in the Minds download page. The information will include a guide to help users install the full version of the Minds app for Android.

Just before Bill had to leave we started discussing the issues surrounding the jury system and continued this conversation with Jack (Minds Chief Operation Officer). Whilst having this conversation, we explored the issue surrounding NSFW (Not Safe For Work) and the Minds jury policies. We realised that this issue is a subject that is too complex to be able to review within this meeting and does need further examination (MCOSI encourages community members to add their own suggestions. If you have any ideas, suggestions or opinions about these issues then please post a comment).

The last topic for the meeting was a discussion about how to improve accessibility to the official Minds app web page. Over the last month both the MCOSI and several Minds staff members have been reviewing the burger menu (the three lined menu that is shown within the sites top bar). Whilst examining this menu, we have been looking at ways to improve the menu and how to include a link to the Minds app page.

After some long conversations with the staff, the MCOSI has been exploring ideas to have access to the official Minds app page from the burger menu and Mark (Medworthy) has created some images that represents a new burger menu layout.

This was an interesting and productive meeting, in which members discussed several subject. Minds Community Open Source Initiative would like to thanks to all members that attended and welcome community member to post any ideas and suggestions to the comments. We also encourage new members to join the MCOSI group. Community members can access new news, post and blog articles from.

Minds Community Open Source Initiatives welcomes constructive comments, suggestions and opinions from the wider Minds.com community as part of the endeavour to help to provide and support a truly transparent and open source social media platform.

References & Other Resources:
* Minds Community Open Source Initiative
* Minds App
* Burger Menu Feature Request
* Meeting Announcement
* 2019, MCOSI and Community Collaboration
* Introducing Minds Community Open Source Initiative