Should OpenFarm try out Slack for real-time discussion?

In that case, does it make more sense to send out more regular emails to people subscribed to the email instead of setting up a mailing list (and having another venue for conversation)?

Though at the moment sending out emails costs us money (I think, @roryaronson?)

Yes, but a pretty small amount of money. I think it's worth the cost to help bring more people aboard/keep em informed and involved

Emerges from the woodwork

From my understanding I think a simple monthly mailing list would do the trick. An old list serv not so much! modem sounds

If we have the resources to put towards a weekly/monthly newsletter that would probably be a huge help to fringe contributors. Hoodie (http://hood.ie ( http://hood.ie )) do a great job of this, doing a regular email roundup of project news, open issues which need attention, relevant community info, etc - I can forward on a copy of the latest to someone if we're interested in copying a successful format from a similarly small dev community.

I guess OpenFarm is still small enough that a core member knows what's going on, but I think CouchDB is worth a mention for their weekly community email where they send out an initial email each week to ask for newsworthy contributions from the community which a community organizer then compiles into the weekly news.

On the subject of cost of sending, it might be a good idea to try and set up a special contributors list so we're not paying to spam everyone who's registered interest with emails which might not be relevant to a large section of the list. I don't know what email service we use presently, but I'm guessing the size of the community interested in contributing to OpenFarm should be within MailChimp's free plan?

Yea we currently use Mailchimp. We have a list with 'everyone' on it (all Kickstarter backers, and everyone else who opts-in on member signup) I can make another list like you suggest. Or, we could just send out to everyone. I think its cool to keep the whole community engaged. You never know who might be signed up and not realize that we could use their help. Or people who have friends looking for a project to work on.

The emails can include 'stuff for everyone'. This week's new features/bugs, what we need help with, interesting news for the community, announcement of new blog posts, standout community members, etc. We can have simple calls to action for anyone who wants to learn more or get involved. (Links to github, slack, loomio, and the blog)

I was planning on throwing an email together soon to announce the member badge system anyways, so I can take a stab at making it a more well rounded email. Andru, can you forward me an example hoodie and couchDB email?

Rory, we currently have an email list for people interested in contributing - there's an optional sign up for that on the sign up flow. We can add an additional form at some other point though.

Do we have enough activity on a weekly basis to justify a weekly e-mail? What about bi-weekly?

Cool, I had forgotten about that. Yea maybe weekly is too much for now, though it's a goal we can work towards :)

I saw MailChimp do a great thing recently (for their UX design list) where they basically said, "still like getting these emails? Click here to keep getting them. We're trying to be good email stewards." Could opt-in the whole list like that for the more minute and technical updates.

Yea I think we still want a list with 'everyone' on it. Though we can totally ask that list if they also want to subscribe to our 'team list'