Should OpenFarm try out Slack for real-time discussion?

I setup an account to try it out. It's really nice to use! I think it's better than Hangouts because others can see what is happening/catch up. It will certainly be for the core team only because one needs to be invited, but I think it will help us. I've sent out invites, feel free to pop in and try it out. We can evaluate if we want to continue with it in a few days?

An other open source tool that looks like it might have potential in the near future is heartbeat

It's based of of syncthing

For the record, we are currently trying out Slack for core contributor group communication. Loomio will still be used often for larger discussions with the community but was proving difficult to use for the core group for real-time communication, file sharing, organization, etc.

The Slack group is at http://openfarm.slack.com but one needs to be invited. Please send an email to me at [email protected] with your name and email address so I can send you an invite! Everyone is welcome :)

And how about if you had a simple task manager in Slack?

@raymonddallara Could you explain what you mean?

We've been using slack for about 11 months now - register at http://slack.openfarm.cc. Feel free to hop in there if you'd like to chat with one of us.

Hey I was reading "Understanding the Open Source Developement Model" by the Linux foundation, and I found a section that might be helpful in this debate:

One of the major contributing factors to the success of the open source development model is its transparency, and ability to accommodate distributed collaboration among project teams.This is accomplished using communication methods that are accessible to all within the project community for strategic decision making, architecture discussions, and code reviews.

Mailing lists are one of the most commonly used communication channels because they are self-documenting, transparent, and typically anyone involved in the project can participate.

This includes end users, who may be monitoring the lists to understand future features as they evolve or to provide practical feedback. In addition to project mailing lists, many distributed teams use IRC for live discussion and meetings.

Because of its text-only nature, IRC is useful for design meetings and user support, especially when English is not the primary spoken language of all participants.

Hey thanks for the link Helen, and for chiming in here :)

We do have an IRC channel: #openfarm on freenode, though not too many people use it. It is linked up to our primary communication space though: Slack, which has been working well for us. Simon set up this cool thing where anyone can join our Slack group by going to this link: http://slack.openfarm.cc ( http://slack.openfarm.cc ). And of course, GitHub is a public space but its mostly used for software/technical discussions, whereas Slack is good for that plus business model, design, outreach, etc communications.

Just chiming in with a thought: the only time I get emails from Slack is when I get pinged by username or by @channel, and that's usually when I remember to check in on the Slack, by which time there's sometimes a bit too much detailed discussion to catch up on.The section of the text you posted regarding mail-lists chimes true, Helen.
On the one hand, I find mailing lists pretty clunky but, on the other, there are several projects I'm only occasionally involved with that I nonetheless feel very well connected to because I get the daily digests of discussions in my inbox. I usually scan the subject lines and just read those that interest me, but it certainly helps me keep up with what's going on, and from time to time there are things I jump in on which I would have otherwise missed.
On the other hand, they're clunky and can be confusing, but they certainly seem to satisfy a use case for those contributors on the fringe which Slack does not.

TLDR: Slack is a great tool for a core team to discuss, no doubt. But I think it might be letting us down in keeping fringe contributors (like me) up to date..

We could create something like a discus forum? Though doesn't Loomio serve the same role as a mailing list? Especially with the daily / weekly digest of topics? Loomio has kind of died down, and it's about as open as mailing lists, and a bit more navigable.

My issue with mailing lists is that they have a technical threshold that might intimidate people - have a look at this research article: http://people.csail.mit.edu/axz/mailinglists.html.

I wonder if there's a way to sensibly and automatically create a Slack newsletter. I've seen some slack channels that do this manually (I think), and send something out once a week. But I've been in charge of manually keeping track of things discussed in a chat room and it's no fun.

I totally understand both your concerns though Andru and Helen.

Some stray thoughts that encourage participation - a Facebook page. I don't use Facebook, so I have no idea, but as that article points out people like interacting with them. Maybe regularly post to Twitter or Facebook from our Slack channels? I realize those are also closed source platforms and tools, but if that's where our audience is hanging out...

That's a great link simon, and it does bring up a lot of good points. Maybe to appease everyone you guys could set up a group to gather pertinent information from the Slack convos and post them in a weekly update to the mailing list.

That way, we wouldn't have to use mailing lists full time, because of their inherent downfalls, but we can use their good sides (keeping outsiders in the know). :)