I've been thinking about this topic for the last few months, and have
become more and more convinced that it's more than *just* a generational
issue. It's also an inclusion issue.
I recently wrote the following in an email to a colleague:
<QUOTE>
I have long had very strong opinions about the *right* way to have
conversations in open source communities - it's via email, because it
gives you a permanent record, gives people not in your time zone time to
respond without urgency, and includes people from different
languages/cultures because it doesn't require immediate response.
Ten years ago, if you asked a project "where do I talk to you" the
answer was "here's our mailing list, and our IRC channel is on Freenode
for more immediate support needs."
Now, you hear more Slack, "in the Github issues", Matrix, and so on.
I have done two interviews (ie, podcast interviews) now in which we've
talked about this issue, and the person agreed with my perspective, that
there is a *right* answer, and kids these days don't get it, and will
understand when they're older.
In both cases, the person was a white man of a certain age. Ironically,
both of them were named Greg.
I am slowly coming around to the perspective that this is not only a
generational thing (email, and IRC especially, are old-people-tech) but
may also be more about diversity than I understand. Very consistently,
at least at Red Hat, the white men over 30 agree with my perspective and
EVERYONE ELSE thinks that more synchronous discussion venues are preferable.
At the same time, I strongly believe that I am *right*, because having a
searchable permanent archive is just so valuable for communities.
But, at the same time, I recognize that this is canonical "Tyranny Of
The Dead"[1] problem, and means that the decision that [Community
Leader] sent to the mailing list in 2002 is The Answer Which May Not Be
Challenged. The fact that I, also, think that it's right just means
(maybe?) that I'm part of the problem.
</QUOTE>
I feel like this issue is a larger question for the entire open source
ecosystem.
--Rich
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001QREWQ4 - The Tyranny Of The Dead is
the notion that most important decisions in the world have already been
made, by dead white men, and we are not "allowed" to challenge them.
(Yes, that is a gross oversimplification.)
On 2/16/22 07:50, Roman Shaposhnik wrote:
Hi!
while the classical ASF communication culture is pretty squarely
centered around mailing lists it has become apparent in recent
years that some of our communities (especially younger ones)
prefer using alternative channels of communication. The range
is pretty wide from Slack to Telegram and WeChat (and I have
even heard of an occasional TikTok use ;-)).
The question that originated from one of the board meetings and
the one that I'd like to pose for this forum is basically: what's our
collective advice to these communities on these alternative (and
when I say alternative I really mean anything but a mailing list)
communication channels?
Personally I don't think denying them is a viable strategy, but I'd
like to open up this discussion and see what others think.
So... let's at least start with folks sharing their experience with
these alternative communication channels: the good, the bad
and the ugly.
Personally, I don't think I have much to share -- I'm still very
much a mailing list guy when it comes to ASF.
Thanks,
Roman.
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