An overview of the Flashbots forum

Here’s a quick summary of some of the updates made to the forum since my last post. Along with various smaller adjustments, these are the larger changes:

  • Our custom theme has been set to default!
    The theme is available in both light- and darkmode, with the standard Discourse theme available under user preferences.

  • The content catalog from Writings has been ported over to the forum, with correct tags and categories as described above.

  • The pinned posts in each category has been updated with brief description and relevant resources. These topics are now pinned indefinitely, instead of for a set duration.

  • A couple of plugins and components have been installed:

    • Discourse Graphviz: To enable users to create graphs in posts.
    • Spoiler alert: Provides the ability to hide content marked with a [spoiler] tag in posts.
    • Follow: Allows users to follow other users and receive notifications of their activity.
    • Auto abbreviations: Automatically adds a tooltip for a list of pre-defined acronyms & abbreviations.

What’s next:

  • We are experimenting with adding a “featured”-section on the landing page to direct attention to important or time-sensitive topics.

  • We are working on ways to more seamlessly connect posts on Writings with their corresponding forum thread.

  • Perhaps move the #site-feedback -category to be a subcategory under #ship .


Feedback, thoughts, ideas, and inspiration on how to improve further

With the forum being live for 6 months, our new theme being default, and the overall structure and feature-set settling in, I think it’s a great time to collectively think about how we can improve things further.

I find pol.is to be the best way to gather feedback and identify areas to focus on for broad topics like this. I’ve therefore initiated this: :point_right: Flashbots Forum polis :point_left: for us to collectively brainstorm on how we can improve the forum experience further.

I would really appreciate it if you could interact with it by voting on the existing statements and adding new ones. It is anonymous and it only takes a couple of minutes.

The polis will run until the end of February, make sure to check in every now and then to vote on new statements being added.
Thank you!:pray:

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