Hi Carlo, Carlo Zancanaro <[email protected]> writes:
> Hi Sergio, > > On Tue, Feb 17 2026, Sergio Pastor Pérez wrote: >> Could you elaborate further on what would committing to Zulip mean for >> you? Remove the mailing lists and IRC and centralize all communications >> through Zulip? > > Yeah, I think committing to Zulip would mean saying "we communicate on > Zulip - if you want to be a part of the Guix community, join here". No > official mailing lists, no official IRC. There could be some overlap (as > there has been with debbugs and Codeberg), but with the explicit stated > goal of moving to Zulip-only communication. I'm not sure we share the same goal here. The idea was not to impose anything on anyone, but to allow unexperienced people to participate. I'm comfortable with my mail setup but I don't like seeing how our current situation difficults collaboration and dilutes the energy of the community. >> If you are thinking something like that, I'm afraid that it would be >> unlikely to reach a consensus, at least not until Zulip has proven to be >> the ideal tool for us. > > Certainly I think consensus would be hard to achieve, but we have a > mechanism for doing so (a GCD). If we can't build consensus, then we > shouldn't do it. > > As I understand it, the Matrix room(s?), XMPP room(s?), and whatever > else are unofficial. It's not a problem for them to exist, but in terms > of official project communication it's just the mailing lists and IRC. > > Adding an unofficial Zulip community would not require consensus > (although calling it "Guix" seems inappropriate in that case), but then > bridging to the mailing lists and IRC is a more fraught proposal. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what you say, I understand that you don't take part on the different unofficial communication channels. Therefore, it's difficult for me to convey to non-participants what they are missing out. I understand that it's "okay" to have unofficial channels, what I'm trying to say is that this should be out of choice not out of necessity. And in my experience, the conversations that take place in different unofficial platforms cannot take place in the official mediums we promote, because they don't provide the technical features that those conversations require, being it images, audio, video calls, polls, etc. As I stated before, the nature of IRC and mailing lists provide a subpar experience to non-experienced users, that leads them to search help in unofficial channels, not because they like this platform or the other, but because they can get efficient help and recommendations in those other platforms. To close this section, I know we have a GCD for this things. The idea was to propose a solution that would not require the drastic change that you propose, for which I don't think I have the ability to convince everyone involved. >> So I can only imagine something like that happening in a natural way, >> where just by preference people gravitate towards Zulip for most >> communications. I don't think consensus on that would be possible if >> done artificially through discussions. > > I disagree, and I'm not convinced this is a good way to do things. This > is actually arguing for "we should intentionally make our communications > more fragmented", because now it's not enough to be on the mailing lists > and IRC, you also have to be on Zulip! No, you are reading me wrong. What I meant is that, if at the present time, trying to do the drastic change of switching completely to Zulip is unrealistic, what I wanted to do is to try to make a space for Guile projects to collaborate together, and try to bring members from the different unofficial communities to the Zulip instance, to at least see if it helps us with gathering all this help information that newcomers get scattered across different media. If this is successful and we manage to centralize most of the unofficial conversations through that Zulip instance, then we can start writing a GCD. By then many members of Guix would have probably had some kind of interaction with the Zulip instance. At that point, it won't be some small voices (you and me) screaming into the void, there will be other users with experience with the platform that would be able to sing it's praises and warn about the shortcomings. I think any GCD before other members understand the platform does not make sense. And I believe this is why this thread seems more like a conversation between you and me, that a community dialog, Guix members are just not familiar with the platform so they don't have much to say (I imagine). > It might be possible to bridge things so you can only be on Zulip, but > my scepticism remains (I'll respond to your other email after this one). > Even if it is possible to bridge things, that would effectively demoting > the mailing lists and IRC to "secondary" communication channels, because > things posted directly to Zulip channels/topics wouldn't go anywhere. Yes, I see your point here. > Changing the way the project communicates is a big deal. I don't think > relying on it happening organically is realistic, or fair to the people > who are invested in the current processes. The reason we have a GCD > process is to work through peoples' concerns, not steamroll them with > "everyone likes this more, so you have to deal with it". Again, this is just the way you are framing it. It's not about liking or not, it's about building community and having a tool that enables doors that we have now closed. The proposal here is not "let's switch to Zulip because I like it". The point is that I see that our community is diluted and that our newcomers are relegated to unofficial channels. The question would be, as a community, do we want to do something about it? To be extra clear, it does not need to be Zulip, if anyone has other ideas to help with the fragmentation and compromised collaboration we are experiencing, I would like to hear them. >> Do you perhaps have a different proposal? > > My proposal is: write a GCD, and build consensus for your idea. This > will involve using Zulip yourself and getting experience with it, > solving the technical problems that you run into, as well as listening > to everyone's concerns and working hard to convince them. Right, I addressed this some paragraphs above. Let me know if there is any problem with my suggestion of getting the platform to the users first, so they can participate in a GCD that they understand. Best regards, Sergio
