[Temperature Check] Eliminate the Discord and Telegram One-Month Retention Policy

Temperature Check
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Title: Eliminate the Discord and Telegram One-Month Retention Policy

Author: Second Set Maze

Summary

This proposal aims to eliminate Aura’s one-month document retention policy for Discord and Telegram content so that content is not deleted after 30 days and posts remain on Discord and Telegram servers and channels. Currently, content is deleted every month.

Background

Per Protocol Documentation and Discord FAQ, “Aura has a standard one month document retention policy for Discord.” Reasons for this policy are to:

  1. emphasize our commitment to effective records retention
  2. ensure that critical records are available to meet community needs
  3. optimize the use of space
  4. ensure that outdated and useless records are destroyed
  5. minimize the cost of record retention
  6. comply with legal requirements

Proposal

Aura community members are sophisticated and knowledgeable. Aura Discord is a place where conversations must be comfortable and encouraged. Participants use the channels to learn, educate, brainstorm, debate, and connect.

DeFi evolves rapidly, and experienced Aura members understand the importance of reflection and the value afforded from revisiting prior posts and interactions. This option and utility will be enabled by eliminating a retention policy that deletes user content every 30 days.

Our vibrant and active community can pin posts, create threads, archive channels, and utilize forum features. Aura’s savvy contributors can also employ search terms and filters when researching channels and posts.

Aura Discord has rules for conduct. Community participation must abide by the rules accepted upon entry to the server. The rules will be published to a dedicated channel so as to be accessible by server members at any time.

Per guiriba 01/08/2024, “we don’t have a channel with the rules, but when a person enters on Aura Discord, the rules appear for them to accept and enter the server … if the community thinks it’s worthwhile, we can create a channel for it”

If legal compliance and cost concerns (Background reasons 5 and 6) persist, let’s outline and detail them in the discussion.

Specification

Should this Proposal be approved, the following changes will be implemented:

  1. Aura’s retention policy will be eliminated effective immediately.
  2. A Discord rules channel will be created

Voting

This temperature check will be live for approximately 3 days for community discussion. It can then be revised into an AIP for Snapshot live vote.

This vote will be a single-choice vote. You may vote “For” or “Against” this proposal.

A “For” vote in this proposal is a vote to eliminate the Discord and Telegram one-month retention policy.

3 Likes
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Welcome to the forum, brother!

One point that I think is worth mentioning–document retention policies need to be implemented universally for them to be effective. If they are unevenly applied, this could be viewed as spoilation. Currently, we have roughly 500 TG groups on the same 30 day retention schedule as well, so if we make a change on Discord, it’s going to encompass a broader push across all TG channels as well.

For the Discord rules, that’s actually a pretty interesting point because it opens up the questions regarding decentralization that I was previously discussing w/ the former group of Yogis. Does decentralization only apply to the protocol level or does it apply off-chain as well, specifically to Discord–who has permissions, who makes the rules, how is the server structured and who grants roles. And the sticky part is, if too many perms are granted, like we did with the Yogis, notably webhook permissions to an individual that was supposed to link this forum and Discord, or broadcast @everyone permissions, this creates a new vector of unanticipated security risks.

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Thank you for the greeting!

You are spot on that security is absolutely of paramount importance. I also agree that rules, roles, permissions, and structure are all parts of necessary infrastructure to grow and maintain an online community. This is no less true for those communities that wipe their chats clean every month than for those that do not.

When eliminating the retention policy was recently raised, another member’s Discord comment suggested that if something comes up that is relevant, the Discord conversation/information would be moved to a separate and more permanent location. Selecting ‘relevant’ information to be saved before wiping servers clean is the antithesis of any level of decentralization discussed with the Yogis.

It is possible for Aura to provide and maintain a secure online social infrastructure that offers our community utility, optionality, choice, and opportunity. Eliminating the one-month retention policy enables this functionality to a greater extent compared to keeping the policy in place.

Interested to hear more from others.

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I’m in support of this check. Deleting vibrant conversation after one-month handicaps the ability for said conversation gain momentum and flourish into other positive aspects of community building. The community has been more active lately which has proved to be a positive experience and provide for positive optics for new members.

Additionally, it reduces the fatigue experienced by knowledgeable members when repeating answers to more commonly asked questions or discussions.

Overall, I don’t think restriction is in the ethos of our overall mission whether that’s Aura’s specific mission or decentralization in general. Reducing fragmentation of comms and providing a space for all to lean and interact is a necessity to continue to build and grow.

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@SecondSetMaze and @slen, thanks for your comments, and welcome, @slen.

There’s two issues being combined in one here, and it may be easier to break them up into two proposals rather combining them together in an all-or-nothing thing.

For #1, the retention policy, I think both of you (and others) have put in good arguments as to its removal. However, given the scope of this undertaking and guidance from legal, I do suspect that this may be rejected due to either practical reasons or feasibility of adjusting settings for all existing groups. Other questions that may arise are the nature of discussions that can now be held–will this actually free up conversation or stifle it, if everyone knows that everything they write is essentially part of a permanent record.

For #2, the rules channel, I think that’s an easy push and can easily be implemented. We do need a few more details or discussion about the contents of these rules, who’s drafting them, who will be enforcing them, etc. Ideally the proposal itself contains the text of the rules already, so that it’s just an easy copy-paste on to Discord.

Essentially what I’m stating here is that if you combine 1 and 2 in one proposal, I suspect that both will be rejected entirely, but if you separate them out, 2 will likely be approved with some more detail, with 1 probably requiring more thought and debate.

Ultimately, as the author, it’s up to you to decide how to present this proposal, but sometimes it’s just easier to go for the lower hanging fruit first before tackling the more difficult topics. Feel free to put some more thought into it. We’ve already moved the voting round for this week, but we can move this to vote next week, if you’re ready.

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Contributor, thank you for your continued attention and advice.

This proposal emanates from consistent community requests to eliminate the retention policy and that is its aim.

The creation of a Discord rules channel intends to make our Aura Discord rules more accessible and easy to reference. Effective rules already exist and all members of Aura Discord agree to these rules when joining the Discord server.

Aura Discord Rules
Aura Discord Rules1428×1600 315 KB

The proposal to be voted on will include Aura’s existing rules above and does not require considering new rules.

The proposal’s purpose is to eliminate the retention policy and this is what I hope voter thought, debate, and decision making will focus on.

How will the Aura community be made aware of the proposal? This temperature check has not appeared in the Discord governance channel. I am not able to link in Discord. Do all proposals get listed in the governance channel? It’s ideal to promote as much involvement as possible.

Thanks again for being encouraging and kind.

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Got it, sounds good.

Yes, all proposals do get listed in the governance channel, and we send out a @everyone notification when proposals go live. Usually @jameskbh duplicates proposals over manually, but he’s currently on vacation. I just opened up permissions to you so that you can create posts in the governance channel on Discord now as well, so feel free to duplicate it over yourself.

1 Like