Minds Community Open Source Initiative First Anniversary

September 11th welcomes the first anniversary of the Minds Community Open Source Initiative (MCOSI) . Within the last year the community has seen real improvements within the Minds platform and some of these changes have been supported, aided and encouraged by the activities of the MCOSI.

During 2018 many community members were becoming increasingly frustrated with the direction that, at the time, Minds was heading in and around mid 2018, several community members decided that it was time for an organisation to be setup with the aim of encouraging further community participation and wider transparency within the Minds open source, open discourse social media platform. With a lot of work, the MCOSI provided encouragement to the Minds staff to move away from using a closed source, propriety and gated online project management, task tracking system (asana.com) in favour of a more transparent, community orientated open source solution. As well as further encouraging the staff to provide transparent roadmap information.

During the first half of this year, Minds announced their presence within the Gitlab platform, which replaced the reliant usage of the Asana service. Gitlab provides a transparent solution and gives the Minds community access to roadmap information, the ability to review project management processes and provides further information within the aspect of continuing development of the Minds platform. Gitlab also allows for Minds community members to provide suggestions, feedback and the ability for members to contribute to the continuing development process. As well as to aid the staff members within the area of identifying and resolving issues, bugs and other other frustrating problems.

This change of project management and task tracking solution has provided community members with the opportunity to collaborate within the development of the Minds platform, and has allowed the MCOSI to provide support for the wider community.

The Minds Community Open Source Initiative founders are volunteers and are independent of Minds Inc. This independence has provided the MCOSI with the opportunity to objectively review community members concerns, research possible solutions and act on behalf of the wider community, as well as communicating on a regular basis with Minds staff members. The MCOSI continues to hold regular public viewable meetings, in which the MCOSI discusses various issues, changes and review new functionality within the Minds platform with staff members. The outcomes of these meetings are then published to the MCOSI channel and group, in which the MCOSI asks the wider community to review and provide feedback on.

Since the introduction of the Minds Gitlab facility, the MCOSI has participated within various projects, including a review of the most recent terms of service agreement, the further development of the burger menu and other platform interface (user experience / user interface) elements, as well as reviewing and providing suggestions in relation to improvements within group functionality. The founders of the MCOSI are experienced community members of the Minds platform and provides support to both the official Minds Help and Support group, and the community driven Minds User Group (MUG), in which the MCOSI members provides advice and solutions to community members problems, as well as to support the staff and the community with logging issues to the Gitlab facility.

Minds Community Open Source Initiative goal is to enrich the Minds platform and associated services by encouraging community members to participate within the continuing growth and development of Minds open source and open discourse social media platform. For further information about the MCOSI services, please refer to the MCOSI’s profile statement and list of objectives, which are displayed within the top section of the MCOSI group and channel, as well as reviewing the “2019, Minds Community Open Source Initiative and Community Collaboration” blog article.

             Minds Community Open Source Initiative, A Community Driven Organisation             Supporting Minds.com, The Open Source & Open Discourse Social Media Platform