Thanks Amber for setting up the poll for the audience input.
All the points mentioned regarding pros and cons are noted, and think one of the ways, to see what will work best for the community to stay connected via a communication channel, is to ask for their input. What works for us or few of us might not work at all for the community and we definitely would want to make their life easy by providing an easy access to the community channel.
For the survey, looks good, maybe providing the third option of “Maybe” with a comment box for the people to write their comments, if slack doesn’t work for them, could help us getting more info? I am sure there are better ways to incorporate the users feedback, but just a thought!
I think Fatema is spot on here. It doesn’t matter what any of us would prefer in a perfect world.
If any random open source standard would work, then we’d have a bunch of people in irc asking questions. Any solution that requires people to install a different app or have an extra browser tab open is likely doomed to a similar fate, but if we can hook into an app like Slack, that they already have open, we have a better chance of staying connected after reboots and garnering participation via subtle activity notifications.
Yes, Discourse is a lot more tgan chat. And I’m very familiar with several communities who use, have converted to it recently, or who are in that process.
I’m thrilled to see all the suggestions and input here.
Just a side note: I do understand your concerns but I don't buy your argument. We do not live in a perfect world, so let's do our best to improve the situation. E.g. by using a "random open source" approach in popular projects to make it a standard. Furthermore, comparing IRC to modern communication approaches is comparing apples to oranges. Any of the mentioned alternatives will severely simplify participation and come with a bunch of new features. So at the end the question would be whether using an open source project is worth the cost of an additional browser tab. I would vote for yes.
