Should we move all transient conversations/random requests for help off slack onto the forum?

[Aidan (Aidan Heerdegen, ACCESS-NRI Release Team Lead)]

@rmholmes

If this is still slack, then we’re being encouraged to engage with even more communication channels (I’m already on teams, slack, the forum, github, email…this is getting a bit much).

I agree, it is asking a lot for everyone to monitor a number of different channels and to know which are the appropriate ones to use for different types of issues.

@rmholmes

Furthmore, often these issues do end up turning into things that you want a record of. If the conversation is started on slack, it’s difficult to then move it over. In the COSIMA community we have been strongly encouraged, principly by @Aidan, to move everything off slack to the forum for this, amongst other, reasons.

It’s true. For anyone else following along the reasons I encourage the community to use the forum are:

1. “free” slack is time limited: older questions (and answers!) are lost
2. slack is not discoverable. If you’re not on the slack instance you can’t search it. If you don’t know the channel exists you can’t find it with a general search (google/bing/duckduckgo)
3. slack is not a great platform for in-depth discussions compared to a forum like this which has better support for embedded code and graphics, groups, and features like de-facto mailing lists

All of the reasons above mean the forum is a better place, in general, for discussing ACCESS related stuff, capturing it for anyone who might benefit from existing discussions in the future, and making that all open and discoverable, so that those who aren’t already part of the community can find it and join in.

There is a cost to the community being hidden. There is a cost to knowledge being lost. There is a cost to the community being balkanised in many different slack instances and/or email groups.

@rmholmes

Is there anything in principle wrong with having a single topic with a title such as “transient support” etc., which basically act as replacements for the corresponding slack channel? This wouldn’t pollute the forum with new topics but still keeps a permanent record of everything?

I think that is an excellent idea. Feel free to do so. A clear explanation of the intended scope of the topic would help a great deal, e.g. it is principally NCI only? It would mean those who wish to respond could watch the topic, and anyone who wants to hear about transient issues could also watch to get a heads up when things go pear-shaped.