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Future Ideas v1 — organized by product area

Started by linc in Agorakit : Users & developers March 29, 2025 10:38 PM

This is an attempt to organize all the ideas floating around the docs, roadmap, and issues into one place. This isn't where to prioritize things, it's just to see the "big picture" of everything we're thinking about.

Groups

Add "Create Group" navigation for easier access (#498)

Special group that every user is automagically member (#315)

  • Use case: welcome group, or when user must get some kind of info (even maybe legally)
  • Implementation: Add a group property (on the groups table) something like is_mandatory and create an artisan scheduled command to add any user to this group which is not yet added.

Users

Allow user to set correct timezone + autodetect by default (#370)

New role: External contributor (#449)

New role: Read-only member (#449)

Discussions

Allow a group to publish public content.

Allow Fediverse users to follow group discussions. (#271)

Store attachments in a separate directory in files, called "discussions" for example

Fix the "scroll to latest unread item" functionality on discussion list

Provide a nice navigation for longer discussions (ex: Flarum & Discourse) in a simple way

Add inline image display.

Show last comment instead of discussion body on discussion short template (#353)

External requests (from outside a group)

  • Allow people outside a closed group to contact the group by web form, email or Fediverse account (real inbox for groups).
  • When an “external” person contacts a group, a new discussion is created and labeled as “from an external person”
  • Group can discuss as usual and the whole discussion is sent to the external person as well
  • Example: Basecamp external client feature
  •  Extend users model & database to allow external users to be stored using their Fediverse handle instead of email
  • Add new “external” role to group members
  • Nice to have: Users authenticate with Fediverse account

Files

Upload discussion attachments to a separate folder (#441).

Provide Webdav access to files per group. For connected users, show all their groups, each in a separate folder when using webdav

Provide WOPI interface to allow integration with online office tools. Collabora Online, OnlyOffice, and Office seems to use this not well known standard

Allow drag-and-drop file upload

Preview more file types on file embed and show view

Store group files using the same structure as folders in group to allow easier sync (#546)

  • Currently: group/(group id)/files/(file id)/(content). Instead, use same way as filemanager of groups, including directories.

Notifications

Add push notifications (#333)

  • AgoraKit is a progressive web app (PWA) with 40% of users on small screen. Users expect to receive real-time notifications.
  • Native notifications using web push notifications
  • UI to configure notifications per group, per user (same as email notifications)

Add "welcome" email (#366)

  • configurable, on group creation , on user subscription, localized
  • "onboarding journey": right after creation/registration, one week after, one month after

Add notifications per channel, per group, per user with nice defaults and simple checkboxes.

  • "get an email / webpush when an event is created in group xyz"
  • "When someone joins / leaves / etc. the group xyz"

Allow notifications to be grouped in the summary email

Add notification types for group admins

Notify user by mail when membership is accepted (closed groups) (#219)

Notify group admin when an invited user join a group (#258)

When user is added to a group (#265)

  • add the group description to email sent
  • allow group admin to set a custom message to invited / added users

Calendar

Public calendar of events (#398)

  • Allowing groups to publish events publicly is an important tool for communicating outside the group.
  • Allow groups to publish events to a publicly available calendar.
  • Support iCal feeds.

Allow Fediverse users to follow of public group events. (#271)

Link discussions to events (#538)

Provide caldav access

Recurring event support (#639)

Propose an event (#537)

Documents

Users asked the ability to create and edit documents (if possible collaboratively). Two options :

Use existing Onlyoffice / Collabora / office tools (#161)

  • Allow to edit files (see WOPI/Webdav support idea for files)

Create a new document content type

  • Allow users to create and edit documents inside the files tab.
  • Search and implement a lightweight online editor (https://www.blocknotejs.org/ & https://milkdown.dev/ looks both interesting, based on prosemirror and using the collaboration engine (websocket server needed))

Maps

Add maps where there is geocoded info (e.g. actions, profiles, groups) (#170)

Proximity searching to allow searching nearby groups (#195, discuss)

Framework

Simplify install using Phing-based build to provide a file archive users can upload directly to install AgoraKit on shared hosting


hooray
March 29, 2025 10:45 PM

These are areas we should ALWAYS be improving, so they don't need to be in a "to do" list:

Accessibility

  • Audit any existing pages for accessibility shortcomings using the WCAG AA 2.2 standard.
  • File issues with detailed findings (current situation, standard to meet, and suggested changes).
  • Avoid creating new accessibility challenges, and remediate existing challenges with priority.

Documentation

  • Identify where documentation is unclear or incomplete.
  • Add documentation for user-facing functionality.
  • Add documentation around project process, planning & organization.

Localization

  • Identify desire for improved language support.
  • Increase level of translation coverage for existing languages.
  • Improve the automation for updating locales and making it easier to offer translations. (see #466)

Interoperability

  • Identify where open standards (e.g. iCal, RSS, ActivityPub) could enable specific use cases.
  • Prioritize integrations that support an open Web and open source software.
  • Avoid integrations with monopoly platforms (e.g. Facebook, Google).

hooray plusone
September 30, 2025 7:00 PM

Philippe and I recently collaborated on a list of priorities for applying for an NLNet grant. It has three equal focuses that build on each other:

  1. Improving existing features to make them more broadly useful (Calendar, Files, Discussions — 20%) and revamp "Reactions" functionality (16%).
  2. Add a more cohesive the Onboarding experience (16%) and add basic "Badges" functionality (16%) to help communicate community values.
  3. Add a collaborative moderation workflow as an experiment in self-governance (32%).

Overall, we hope this achieves the following:

The “switching cost” for online communities is incredibly high and not done lightly, so this initial phase should focus on sustainable investment for a long-term strategy that builds momentum. We want stakeholders to be intrigued by “democratic civic self-management” as a community strategy, not find any immediate disqualifications in the baseline feature set, and to instead find an additional exceptional feature set they hadn’t considered (onboarding). Ultimately, we want Agorakit to model classic democratic civil society interactions in the online space where it is currently severely lacking.

I'm laying out which existing roadmap items this covers with issue numbers and I'll make some issues for discussing the newer feature ideas to refine the scope of them. Notes, requests, and feedback welcome!

Improvements

Iterations and additions to existing feature sets to make the platform more broadly appealing.

  • Calendar: Recurring event support (#639)
  • Calendar: Link discussions to events (#538)
  • Calendar: Public calendar of events (#398)
  • Files: Upload discussion attachments to a separate folder (#441)
  • Files: Store group files using the same structure as folders (#546)
  • Files: Preview more file types on file embed and show view (#640)
  • Discussions: Allow a group to publish public content (#641)
  • Discussions: Add inline image display (#642)
  • Discussions: Fix the "scroll to latest unread item" functionality (#643)
  • Reactions: Allow all standard unicode emoji (#644)
  • Reactions: Allow custom emoji additions (#645)

Badges

Open-ended system for recognition based on time invested and group experiences.

Behaviors to recognize:

  • Volunteers for community roles. (ex: "Club Secretary 2022-2024")
  • Attending community events. (ex: "2016 Spring Meetup Attendee")
  • Recognitions by community (ex: "Person of the Year")
  • Achievements defined by the community (ex: "Completed a certification program")
  • Other time investments in the community

Considerations for a new badge:

  • Is this badge self-assigned, requested, or awarded? (Automation is out of scope for now)
  • Who approves requests / awards it?
  • Does the badge "group" with others? (ex: annual event)
  • Does the badge "stack" with others, and do we only care about the latest/highest?
  • Can you repeat the badge and what limits are there?
  • Does the badge have functionality attached? (ex: unlocking a privilege)
  • What meta is relevant? (ex: day/year awarded)

Onboarding

Improve the experience for new members.

  • Add "welcome" email (#366)
  • Notify user by mail when membership is accepted (closed groups) 
  • Notify group admin when an invited user join a group
  • Notify when user is added to a group
  • Allow user to set correct timezone + autodetect by default
  • Special group that every user is automagically member
  • Customizable application to join
  • Track who invited each user / prompt to opt-in

Collaborative Moderation

Experiment with new workflows and transparency. We'll want to pick a subset and focus because this could get out of hand easily.

Potential actions:

  • Nominate for deletion (by group)
  • Request an edit (from author)
  • Add "spoiler tag" (make post click-to-read)
  • Cooldown / timeout periods for fixed time
  • Appeal a deletion / potential reversal option

Support required:

  • Log actions more broadly and visibly.
  • Soft delete / hide for posts.
  • Spoiler tags.
  • Rate limiting.

I am slowly assembling this into a Project on GitHub: https://github.com/orgs/agorakit/projects/1/views/1 

hooray
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