MVP Decision Log

We build a Q&A engine to iterate on.

This is not another functional specification. This just gathers the in/out decisions as well as links to open issues.

Remark: I gathered decisions regarding features, e.g. what does Codidact do and regarding the tech stack, not smaller stuff (e.g. snake case vs camel case of variables or stuff) even if that was MVP tagged.

This also does not try to capture the DB schema & setup debates from the forum.

MVP — What's in

• Comments exist
  • Comments are threaded
• Community Sites
  • Custom CSS
  • Custom Color Set / Header Images
    • Implicit design decision: There are header images
  • Adaptable Help / FAQ pages
    • Implicit decision: There are Help/FAQ pages in MVP
• Cookie Usage
  • Restrictive and not used for nasty stuff
• Categories
  • Meta is a category not a separate site.
  • Each community will start with a meta category with the enabled post types question and answer.
• Post Deletion, Closure
  • Details of Closure & Deletion unclear
• Post Voting
  • Up/Down Voting on questions and answers
  • Question Voting
    • Questions display up and downvotes separately (Assumption on Q-List & Q-Details page)
• Post Order
  • For each answer we display raw upvotes and downvotes. This makes controversy visible.
  • For each answer we compute a score thus: (upvotes + bonus + N) / (upvotes + downvotes + bonus + 2N). Scores are not directly displayed. Default N is 1 but is configurable per-site.
  • We order answers by score, with newer answers winning ties.
• Tags
  • 1-5 tags per question
  • Tag names are alphanumerics and a few punctuation signs.
  • Anybody with a certain privilege can create a tag.
  • Anybody with a certain privilege can edit tag descriptions.
  • People can browse the list of tags.
• User Privileges
  • Progress to further privileges displayed on profiles
• User Profiles
  • User name, free text bio/profile
  • Activity Log
  • Associated SE account
  • Implicit: Contains list of user's questions
    • Said list of questions contains up and downvotes separately
• User Notifications exist
  • One trigger: "pinging" in comments

MVP — What's out — "Not now"

• Area 51 to launch new sites
• Community Sites
  • Custom JS
• Moderator Elections
• No publicized user reputation number
• Post Voting: Extend mechanism
  • Out by conflicting with simpler MVP definition (s.a.)
• Printable Pages
  • We don't break it on purpose but there's no focus on it.
• Tags
  • Tag Wikis.
• [User Profiles Avatars]((https://forum.codidact.org/t/user-public-profiles-in-mvp/44/21)
  • By affiliation out: Avatar Picture Host Discussion
• Badges
  • Open badges
• Post Order
  • For questions older than (default) 6 months, new answers are labeled “new” and given a bonus in the scoring formula for the first (default) 7 days. This allows new answers to have more visibility when there are high-scoring answers present already. The amount of the bonus is TBD. All values are configurable per-site, including turning this feature off.
  • There's discussion ongoing in the forum after the proposal was posted.

Codidact — What's out? — "Not ever"

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MVP — Undecided Proposal

• User Moderation Capabilities
• Import Functionality
  • One-time operation sufficient for MVP
  • Is in Func-Spec without forum decision (there was early discussion in Discord, but good luck finding it)
  • What to import
• Question Closure Mechanics
• User Privileges
  • Privilege levels
    • Follow Up
    • The linked forum post is now in the functional spec
    • However, neither forum does not provide insight into what should be considered MVP Furthermore these trust levels bring tons of implicit requirements that are so far not within the MVP.

MVP — Open (One or the other) — "We need a direction, which do we pick?"

• Authentication
  • Suggestion: ASP.NET Core Identity
• Licensing of Content
• URL Schemata

MVP — Open (In/Out) — "Do we really need that now?"

• Breadth of Notifications
  • Another one
• Community Customization beyond CSS/Design
• Community Launch Customizations
  • Lowered trust levels
• Computation of Post Scores
• Degree of Mobile & Accessibility support
• Draft Posts
• Image Uploading
• Localization
  • Current idea: No focus but trying to enable it down the line
• MathJax
• Meta beyond "there are metas"
• Mod Tool Capabilities
• Post Editing Mechanics
• (Semantic) Versioning
• SE Score Import
• Rating of questions and askers
  • This wants to go beyond up/down for questions
• Requirements and Mechanics of Downvotes
• Unlocking Upvote Privilege