Props to @Cecile!
Would I be correct to summarize your comment as the 'Soup's purpose is to provide FM aficionados with a UX better than Claris's?
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Yes. And we are allowed to speculate. Humans do this, robots don’t.
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That would be correct from my perspective, yes.
Well I don’t think that’s what defines us anymore!
Once the proof of concept was rejected by Claris, the members of was then called our.filemakers.community had to decide whether they wanted to pursue the adventure.
After a democratic process, we renamed it to the soup and we are in the process of incorporating as a not for profit. The soup is self administered and self regulated by its members. I’m like momma soup. The soup doesn’t belong to me since I have given birth to it but I do some discipline sometimes 
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Well put Cécile. And congrats for the great work you have done. Je tire mon chapeau devant toi🎩
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I think that a better UX would be a hard sell!
So (and this is a question for everyone who cares)
What is fmSoup's defining feature?
What separates fmSoup from the other communities you belong to?
If you were going to recruit someone, what would you say is/are the most compelling reasons to participate?
There are no wrong answers here (OK, "free mayonnaise" is probably wrong, but you know what I mean.)
Everyone's opinion counts!
I personally hope over time that the soup will become a stable and trustworthy repository of knowledge for the community and the church porch where people gather for a friendly chat.
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Freedom of expression. Only incivilities are not allowed.
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Same for me. There must be hundreds of Bug Reports, Feature Requests and posts of mine I can't find anymore with this SalesForce crap.
I was told that @Cecile and the crew who founded the soup were bringing reasonable suggestions forward to the Claris CEO first and started the soup project after it was clear that he wasn't listening and wouldn't change anything.
For me also important that the soup is independent and not controlled by Claris Inc..
some thoughts:
- if growth is important for the soup (is it?), maybe some dedicated sections for newbies should be created
- for me personally, for my business, there's no benefit with the direction Claris Inc. is heading to. Cloud or expensive License models are no option for my small business' market (customers with less than 80k annual revenues).
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Fmsoup counterbalances Claris’s grip on the community. A proven and well-functioning concept in democratic communities.
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By the way, we surpassed our 200 members goal. We’re now 202 and there’s still 8 days left before our birthday!!!
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love that one 
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Obviously FB doesn't police manners, glad that we try here!
Here's what I have so far:
- Polite
- Good/better UX
- Growing stable repository of FM Knowledge
- Independent of / not governed by Claris, Inc.
What else? 
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Getting input and feedback from peers.
Gaining perspective.
Hi @julien I think the points you make are so relevant, I wanted to outline them by starting a thread.
Some answers here will be based on what I know / perceive. Some will be personnal when talking about why I chose to call fmSoup "home".
- Why was fmSoup created?
- Yes Claris made changes to their community platform and the feature set had been changing quite a bit as a result. I'm not going to go into more details about that. @Cecile initially was motivated in putting this site together as a proof of concept, attempting to get Claris to revisit their choice of platform. Had Claris revisited their choice of platform (either by going back to Jive, adopting Discourse or customizing Salesforce to a point where friction would no longer be a concern to users), we can bet fmSoup would not have carried on.
- What was it you were not getting in the other myriad FM "fora"?
- Everyone's answer is going to be different. Other FM "fora" have a lot of content, but that also means their UI/UX is dated. When I looked at what would my new home, I felt like I could do without the content given how the platform has changed and how older content often needs to be revisited. Coming to a new place and starting fresh allowed, in some way, to cut the noise level from content that may no longer be relevant.
- It also was an opportunity to "build" that home, something very different from just hopping on someone else's train (it can be ok, but it was not what I was looking for)
- Does this community have a mission?
- The about page says "A place where FileMaker users, Developers and Citizen Developers can find answers". Does it need to be revisited? It is always good to keep something like that in the rear view mirror.
- What differentiates it from other FM Communities?
- Again, you will get different answers depending on who you ask. Not everything will move everyone's needle the same way. For my, yes the UI/UX is refreshing. I also like the fact that it is a .org and not a .com It makes a statement right there. I like how the Policies, TOS and Privacy elements are set and easy to find for anyone who looks or ask for it.
- Contributions are welcomed and the decision process often has room for discussion. This is very refreshing to me. I feel like other environments are almost set in stone (I could be wrong about, it is my perception)
- On the feature set side of things, I LOVE the fact it is easy to make a poll. Same thing for a wiki (even if the feature is kind of hidden). I feel like polls are a great way to spark discussions and get a feel for what others think or experience. (I would love if replying as a new thread was not also a hidden feature)
- I also have been using the curated collections channel in a specific way.
- Who were you hoping to attract to / keep away from fmSoup?
- From the above quote from the "about" page, it seemed pretty wide.
I'm not going to go into the "who to attract / avoid" and the rest of the questions as I feel some of my answers would overlap + I'm curious to see other's answers.
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Interesting post.
With the little time I have at the moment, there are two things I'd like to contribute to this:
-
At no point must this forum be challenge to Claris in any way. We're all FileMaker fans, that and the SalesForce based forum was what prompted @Cecille to setup the original proof of concept. Claris is the reason we have FileMaker and for that we should be grateful. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, but equally healthy speculation and investigation should be encouraged.
-
The only thing that keeps me visiting a forum is good information. Having a nice collection of contributors is a bonus. The more helpful information posted both proactively, and as a response to a question, the more people will drop in and out to check what is going on. Personally, I'm not a big fan of SEO, I receive many weekly emails promising me that we will be on page 1 of Google, but not everyone can be on page 1 unless it is a very big page. It is the quality of the content that brings visitors.
This discussion is healthy for the forum, but won't entice any visitors. Getting some real world experience on FileMaker 19, CentOS, plug-ins, new techniques, gotcha's etc. is why I would come here.
Kind regards and take care
Andy
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@julien, there... I think you got the answer you were looking for, in this very thread, by its content and meta content.
When we chose to continue the adventure, in a thread we expressed what we wanted with the soup
The story of the soup can be read throughout the early posts of the feedback channel.
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