Replace Devstaff Slack with Devstaff Forum (a.k.a. "pou pige to chat, oeo?" )

[gsaslis]

The way we use the public channels on slack (posting a message and then always being expected to start threads, which only people who are interested in the topic will follow) is basically how forums work.

It seems to me we are using an IM tool to implement a forum specification.

I hereby suggest we drop slack for a more suitable solution (e.g. discourse).

This will have the added benefit that we won't lose history, etc.

[kapolos]

My 2c.

Slack is like IRC, i.e. real-time. A forum is a completely different thing. So they are not mutually exclusive.

In my view, removing slack would lead to decrease in participation for no good reason (assuming there's ever a good reason to decrease member participation :D ). And it's not like I dislike forums, I've been deeply involved for over a decade in a huge community forum. You need a looooot of traction in a forum to be able to get the same dynamics that emerge on a real-time medium. And small communities don't have that kind of traction. I mean, perhaps, if a core team is willing to spend a ton of time kindling it for a significant period of time.

If you're dead set on it, I'd say just create a forum in parallel and see what kind of traction it gets and take it from there.

[zakkak]

I'll leave this here :)

[mzampetakis]

From my point of view a forum is something different than platforms like slack. Slack provider a more real time and flexible way of communicating. You don't have to be strict under a certain main topic as you do in a forum. Apart from this I believe that replacing slack with a forum will dramatically decrease participation.

I do realise the issue with the threads of slack, but moving to a forum will bring us lots of other problems. Having said that, I would be open to discussion about moving to another alternative of slack as @zakkak "left it" here. Also check this older issue and feel free to reopen and/or take into consideration what people have written there!