Add support forum MERC.

Signed-off-by: Michael Price <loneviking72@gmail.com>

docs/mercs/index.rst

@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ Draft
    0001-merc-process
    test-writing
    merging-roles-and-groups
+   support-forum
 
 
 Type

docs/mercs/support-forum.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+======================
+MERC XX: Support forum
+======================
+
+:MERC: XX
+:Author: Michael Price
+:Status: Draft
+:Type: Process
+:Created: 2018-02-27
+:Last-Modified: 2018-02-27
+
+.. contents:: Table of Contents
+   :depth: 3
+   :local:
+
+Abstract
+========
+
+This MERC proposes the move of the official community meeting place
+from Google Group to a self hosted forum platform.
+
+Motivation
+==========
+
+Google Groups is not a proper forum platform and as such is lacking many
+features that would increase participation. Google Groups has not had any
+significant update in years and the age of the platform is visible. There
+are no official mobile apps for Google Groups, no responsible template
+is not provided. There are not integration options. These factors
+contribute to the problems of knowledge dilution and one time
+participation being experienced in the Mayan EDMS community.
+
+Other concerns for moving the community to a self hosted forum solution
+are that Google Groups presents a single point of failure by relying on
+a free product hosted by a commercial company with no continuation plan
+for the product. Google Groups doesn't provide archiving features and
+the current archive solution relies on other third party services, one
+of which (GMANE) has stopped working. Recent user privacy and censorship
+issues regarding Google, reinforce the need for a self hosted solution.
+
+
+Specification
+=============
+
+The proposed solution is to use the bbPress (https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbpress/)
+forum plugin for Wordpress. After 14 years, Wordpress dominance continues
+unrivaled. The wealth of material, themes, templates and professional avaialbe make
+it a safe option.