Thank you Bertrand for the input.
With respect to Slack and how this project uses it, I think I can make the
case that it fits the criteria you quoted from Mark Thomas.
> ...The criteria that the ASF looks for in communication channels used by
projects are (in no particular order):
> - open to all
Our self-signup is fully automated and open to all. Unlike other projects
which send requests to moderators, anyone with an email id can register to
join our Slack and is admitted automatically. Our #general channel ---
which is where the majority of public discussion happens --- links to the
project's code of conduct as well.
> - asynchronous
Slack does the give the impression of synchronicity which is why I think
it's probably preferred --- As in, if one has a question and wants an
answer quickly, it's more likely they will try slack (or gasp, twitter).
But there is often asynchronous communication also happening on Slack and i
think it's detrimental to people's well-being to treat Slack as a fully
synchronous medium. Anyway, I'm tending toward different topics now but I
just wanted to point out that there are plenty of cases in our Slack where
questions aren't always answered "immediately" and might take a few hours
or even a day.
> - available off-line
This is perhaps too nuanced -- the Slack client will generally allow you to
read messages when disconnected, and if you receive Slack notifications by
email, and your email is also available offline, then it also works. Is
that satisfactory? The daily digests we've automated also provide another
way to consume the messages off-line.
> - full history
We only recently started sending our daily slack digests to our Apache dev
list. But I can replay the digests from the very first day we started using
the current Slack for the project. If there's value in that, I'm happy to
do it, but perhaps consolidate the historical digest into a single large
email to avoid a thousand emails being sent (or use a different target list
to reduce the noise).
> - searchable
> - archived on ASF controlled systems
The Slack daily digests are searchable and archived in the way our dev list
is searchable.
> - low bandwidth / minimal system requirements ...
Heh - I guess there are some stories about Slack being a CPU hog sometimes.
To your comment that:
Slack is central to the project and one cannot really get involved
without being active there "all the time".
I think it will serve us well to avoid this misconception --- certainly
that is NOT the case in my opinion and no one should be expected to be
active in Slack all the time. Thank you for the advice for establishing
better guidelines on the communication channels, I very much like the
suggestions and support us addressing these concerns.
-r
