Synchronous chat

[JimMadge]

Do we want a place for faster/more synchronous chat? For working on all contributors but also possibly some off-topic chat?

@lwasser and I sometimes use an unrelated Slack workspace for this, and it can be helpful for quick questions or discussing things before we have an idea clear enough for an issue/discussion.

The downside is splitting the conversation a bit more, and that kind of chat is not very visible and tends to be lost over time.
For various projects I'm split across Slack, Element, Zulip, Discord, so any of those should be fine for me.

[lwasser]

I love this idea. There IS an all-contributors slack but it was "closed down" (in writing). I'd vote to NOT use slack just because of the AI/ salesforce potential challenges. I've also never heard of element!! i'd lean towards zulip or discord IF others are interested in this idea too. I find it helpful to chat with you Jim so as we onboard others it could be nice for them too. But let's see what others think!

[JimMadge]

I think my preference would be against Discord. Zulip seems nice.

[lwasser]

I don't use Zulip a lot, but I know conda-forge and some other core communities (maybe jupyter) recently moved there. We are eventually going to leave Slack, too. I suppose my question is - is anyone else going to use this besides you and I? 🙃 it's been quiet here recently!

[JoshuaKGoldberg]

against Discord

Can I ask why?

For reference, many of the projects I participate in -as user, contributor, and/or maintainer- use it. Discord is my preference.

Zulip, on the other hand, isn't something I regularly use or know any projects that do. From reading its docs it looks less polished or feature-rich than Discord to me. But even if they had identical features, the fact that so few people already use or are comfortable with Zulip paints it as having a disadvantage to me.

anyone else going to use this

I'd like to! This month has been busy for me (moving, job search, etc., kickstarting another project) but I'd definitely like to participate!

[lwasser]

Oh - I read this wrong. I thought Jim suggested using Discord. I don't have a strong opinion myself here as I use them all.

[JimMadge]

Can I ask why?

Absolutely. Partly because I'm less familiar with it, partly because it proprietary code and there isn't the option to self-host.

I know that a lot of open source projects use it though because the user base is large (particularly with younger, potential new collaborators), and I'm probably in the minority of liking it less than other options.

I wouldn't want to block going with Discord if it is what the community likes best.