Move Dfinity's community from Discourse to a Web3 Native Forum System - Metaforo.io

Governance
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Basic Details:

Project Name: Metaforo - Web3 Native Forum for Web 3 Governance

Team Name: Metaforo

Project Overview

Metaforo Website: https://www.metaforo.io

Discord: Metaforo.io

Twitter: https://twitter.com/realmetaforo

Youtube: Case Study - Shapeshift Migrating to Metaforo from Discourse

Deck: Metaforo.io

Overview

The forum is a critical piece of infrastructure for any DAO. It’s where community members come together to brainstorm ideas, draft proposals, give feedback on each other’s ideas, and generally coordinate to get things done. It’s critically important for DAOs that their forums are decentralized and owned by community members. Many crypto projects and DAOs have their communities on Discourse. However, because Discourse is a web2 tool with centralized data ownership and other limitations, some projects are looking for Web3 forum tooling alternatives.

Metaforo is a Web3 native forum that has many of the same features as a traditional forum system, such as creating topics, commenting, liking, and polling. But it is web3 native. All content is stored on Arweave, and all governance processes are token-gated and token-weighted.

Problems:

Discourse is a web2 tool with centralized data ownership and other limitations, including:

  • Sybil attacks: These occur when multiple fake email addresses are used to abuse the governance process.
  • Lack of on-chain proof of work: This can make it difficult to verify the authenticity of proposals and votes.
  • Lack of motivation for contributors, including low participation rates in voting.
  • No Web 3 access control to discussions and voting: This means that the platform is not as secure or decentralized.
  • No token-weighted voting: Without this, voting power is not distributed fairly among stakeholders.
  • No display of snapshot strategies: This can make it hard for users to understand how proposals are being evaluated and selected.
  • Lack of DAO ownership: This means that the community does not have full control over the platform and its decision-making processes.
  • Centralized data storage.
  • Monthly subscription fee.

Solutions:

Metaforo is Web3 native with decentralized data ownership

  • Wallet connections are used to reinforce identity validation and prevent Sybil attacks on voting.
  • The DAO Admin can issue SBT (Staked Based Token) to members as proof of work, increasing the authenticity of proposals and votes.
  • Wallet integration makes it easy to reward contributors with tokens, NFTs, and POAPs.
  • A mobile app with push notifications is available to encourage higher voting participation rates.
  • Token gated pools are supported, and voting power is calculated using snapshot strategies to ensure fair distribution of voting power.
  • Snapshot strategies are displayed to keep the forum and governance processes in one place and make it easy to understand how proposals are being evaluated and selected.
  • Gnosis safe is supported to ensure that the DAO community has full ownership over the platform.
  • Decentralized data storage on Arweave.
  • Best of all, there is no monthly payment required to use Metaforo - it’s completely free to use!

What to Expect after Migrating to Metaforo from Discourse:

  • All members and content from your previous forum will be transferred to Metaforo.
  • Users can log in to their new Metaforo account using their Discourse account, and then connect their wallets to their email address.
  • Your forum URL will stay the same, and all existing thread URLs will be automatically updated to the new platform.
  • Metaforo offers an NFT and token-based permission system, which allows for specific token or NFT holders to join, view, vote, and more.
  • Multiple voting permission controls are available, including erc20, erc721, erc1155, and snapshot strategies.
  • Gnosis Safe login is supported so the DAO’s treasury can be appointed as the admin of the forum.
  • The best part is that all of these features are available at no cost to you and your team.

Some Crypto Projects that have made metaforo.io their new home recently

ShapeShift: https://forum.shapeshift.com/

BuilderDao: https://forum.builderdao.io/

Contact

Contact Name: Howdy

Contact Email: howdy@metaforo.io

Discord: Bue | Metaforo.io#5801

Telegram: Telegram: Contact @Bluefishie

Contact Howdy for an obligation free demo and feel free to create a group on https://metaforo.io/ to get a feel of its feasibility. We are open to any custom feature requests.

Vote

For: Set up a test group on Metaforo.io to see if it’s a good fit for Dfinity.

Aainst: The current Discourse Community is good as it is, no need to look elsewhere.

All feedback is welcome!

4 Likes
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(speaking personally) Nice idea, I’d certainly like to see the forum move to a more decentralised platform. However…

This is an Internet Computer forum. I’d rather see this hosted on the IC, not on a different, completely unrelated chain

13 Likes
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Oops … I am really sorry. I thought I was posting in the Governance group.
Can Mod please help to move this post to the correct subforum?

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I feel conflicted on this too. This looks very cool and im all about the multichain future but I would assume the goal is to switch eventually to be IC native. So even if it did switch, it would probably switch again

How is the frontend hosted?
Storage is in areweave, but are there backend servers too?
Can this project be tweaked to have more IC native integration? Is it purely reliant on certain backend tech or can that be configured?

3 Likes
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Metaforo frontend is currently hosted on our server as a JavaScript Single Page Application, but it can be served from anywhere. Additionally, we are developing a backend using Node.js, which will allow anyone to run the full service using Docker.

We’ll be more than happy to offer tailored assistance. For example, we can help with integrating functionalities like Dfinity Chrome wallet login, IC native token gating, and enabling the IC token rewards between users.

To discuss this further, whom should we reach out to in Dfinity’s community?

2 Likes
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I took a look at how things work over there. I must say, the UI looks very nice, in fact, think I like it more than Discourse. You guys built something really neat and hopefully something can be sorted here. Like the others say, though, it’d only seem right if it’s hosted on the IC.

5 Likes
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Ya, my guess is youll have trouble getting traction unless its able to have a WASM backend hosted in a canister and have the frontend also be put in a canister to be served via ICP. A big part of the community is ‘everything is on chain’.
Im not sure who is in charge of the forum itself but maybe @diegop can help

2 Likes
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Awesome project - looking forward to seeing how it progresses.

Not to be a downer, but a few criticisms.

  • The UX of metaforo has much to be desired. The main purpose of this forum is to easily facilitate IC technical discussion and help developers troubleshoot issues, not to be decentralized itself or hosted on the IC (that would be a cherry on top)
  • A good developer forum needs elastic search and good SEO. This does not seem to have either, and elastic search would be very expensive and difficult to put on chain. (@domwoe grant idea?)

If you can solve these issues, plus be hosted on the IC then DFINITY may be persuaded to think about moving the forums on chain.

2 Likes
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We could most definitely start planning for moving metaforo’s front end onto IC. After all, we are all for building the decentralized forum system for the Web3 world. Could you please connect us with someone on the IC end so we could discuss this further?

1 Like
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Thanks, Gekctek.
@diegop are you the right contact for this topic? Can we schedule a call to give you a quick demo of what we have? Moving Metaforo’s front end onto IC aligns with our goal of building a decentralized forum platform. We’d love to explore this further with your team.

1 Like
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@HowdyMetaforo I asked @domwoe to reach out to you. He’s probably best suited to talk about everything you’re interested in

1 Like
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Thank you @Severin!

@domwoe Looking forward to talking to you. My handle on discord is Bue | Metaforo#5801

3 Likes
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Sent a private message.

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I’d like to provide you with a quick update on the progress of our proposal. We recently had a discussion with @domwoe, and we both agreed that Metaforo has the potential to be a valuable addition to the IC. For this to happen, Metaforo would need to consider moving its infrastructure to the IC platform.

As a first step towards achieving this goal, we have submitted a developer grant application to the IC. This application is aimed at beginning the process of moving Metaforo’s front end to the IC platform. We are excited about the possibilities that this could bring and look forward to keeping you updated on our progress.

8 Likes
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This is fantastic! Thanks for the update and can’t wait to see what comes from it.

1 Like
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Very cool. Welcome to the IC

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Hi
a quick update on this proposal - we had a very pleasant interview with Dfinity Asia team and we are waiting for the grant to be approved for moving Metaforo’s front end to IC. :tada: :tada:

3 Likes
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Hi~
Our grant was approved. You’ll see metaforo.io running on ICP in a few weeks! :tada: :tada: :tada: :tada:

3 Likes
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Congratulations on that!

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Congrats ! Looking forward to it.