Proposal: Community membership flow

Continuing the discussion from Upcoming Blockstack Site:

I’d like to propose an alternative community membership flow (for lack of better terminology).

Right now, the site design makes slack channel button is the primary entry method to the community.

I propose changing the button to “Join the community” and linking it to the forum (or forum signup).

Membership flow

  1. Visitor visits site
  2. Visitor browses forum
  3. Visitor decides to participate
  4. Visitor joins forum
  5. Visitor receives the forum welcome message - which invites them to introduce themselves to the community by making a post in the Say Hello category. It also invites them to join the slack channel. (see screenshot below)
  6. Visitor introduces herself in Say Hello
  7. Visitor joins Slack channel

My goals are to maximize inclusiveness and discoverability by structuring the community to be public and asynchronous by default. Making the forum the default entry point to the community would help to achieve that.

I view joining the Slack channel as a higher level of commitment & involvement than joining the forum. To get much value out of a chat channel, you need to make more of an effort to keep up. I think it makes sense as a second step.

Another benefit is that once we add login with Blockchain ID to the forums, joining the community will be done using technology developed by the community.


I’ve gone ahead and modified the default welcome message to reflect this flow. It now begins by inviting users to introduce themselves and to join the Slack channel.

Here’s what it looks like now:

I’ve also made a Say Hello post for myself so that you have an idea of what I have in mind. I think this is will be more useful to show people how activity the community is than people introducing themselves in a chat where only a handful of people who happen to be online at the time will ever see it.

Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts.

1 Like

Site could look something like this:

Very well thought out @larry. Great work. So a few things jump to mind here.

I propose changing the button to “Join the community” and linking it to the forum (or forum signup).

Although you’d think that Join the community wording would be great, we are starting to discover that certain words have either been overused and therefore have little resonance for the audience. “Play hard to get” type of phrases seem to be working well these days. For instance, “get invited too _______”.

From a UX perspective, I feel we should have the user immediately begin to read, write, discuss and be a member of the community. I do like encouraging users to introduce themselves but for the most part, when I join a forum or community I want to see what it’s like first before doing an intro. Unless I’ve been invited.

Another thing that comes to mind is that there are too many steps. I really feel as though by having the two links on the hero landing section, users can easily join both channels and choose which one they’d like to be more a part of. This will allow users to make the decision on which channel to use.

I do really like have a custom sign up flow however. Maybe we can create a custom email to go out to users that join both slack and the forum. that would suggest the introduction and tips, etc.

You’re right! I agree w/ the wording - this is much more attractive. I got bored by my wording compared to yours after posting it. :slight_smile:

Most people won’t write & discuss:See the 1-9-90 rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%_rule_(Internet_culture)

The only “problem” I’m trying to solve is making sure the 1% create enough public content to keep the 99% engaged. The 9% are the people that may post once or twice in forum, file a bug report and/or send a one off pull request. The 90% are interested in following or knowing about the project.

The 1% like to be in a chat channel - 9% & 90% probably don’t & will want to avoid it because the interrupt rate is too high. (They have other stuff to do) You can already see the 1-9-90 rule in action - we have a few threads in this forum with 100s of views. And a few people who have stopped by and made one or two time posts.

Okay! sounds good to me! Let’s do it! Can we add the blockstack block logo from the top left of the forum to button so that it looks sexy like the Slack button?

1 Like

You’re right! I agree w/ the wording - this is much more attractive. I got bored by my wording compared to yours after posting it.

:+1:

Most people won’t write & discuss:See the 1-9-90 rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%_rule_(Internet_culture)

The only “problem” I’m trying to solve is making sure the 1% create enough public content to keep the 99% engaged. The 9% are the people that may post once or twice in forum, file a bug report and/or send a one off pull request. The 90% are interested in following or knowing about the project.

The 1% like to be in a chat channel - 9% & 90% probably don’t & will want to avoid it because the interrupt rate is too high. (They have other stuff to do) You can already see the 1-9-90 rule in action - we have a few threads in this forum with 100s of views. And a few people who have stopped by and made one or two time posts.

Well I knew Blockstack Slack stats were above average but I had no idea that they were that much higher. I do not have the community’s exact numbers at the moment but I have been unscientifically monitoring the usage among users and our engagement rate is much higher than the stats stated in the study. Now of course this could be due to passionate users but until those statistics start to dramatically fall I am going to say that we’ve hit a chord with the community. I also feel that Slack seems to have less friction for me anyway.