We are forgetting something. The meeting is not just being held at slack. @wadestriebel mentioned the bridge, which helped me remember. It is also being held on Discord at the same time. Maybe in anouncements we should start mentioning: The meeting is held on Slack AND Discord. I have found that discord is a lot easier to deal with for a lot of the more casual users in other projects Im a part off. It might still not be perfect, but it is an alternative.
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My two cents from very different perspective.
Slack is not an open architecture, they closed XMPP support some time ago. So, for the openness it is not the best solution. If we at CP aim for openness, we should use as many open tools as possible.
From my own perspective: if I canāt connect to Pidgin, I donāt use. So, now I am (mostly) on Telegram and (almost never) on Skype. Just because they allow me to connect with Pidgin (How weird it is? Feel free to write those words back to me. 
)
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We tried Rocket.Chat but it was nowhere ready for production, tons of bugs, lots of lag when loading messages (and this was only with like 10 of us).
The bridge can offer connections to other chat providers. Here is the link to the repo: GitHub - 42wim/matterbridge: bridge between mattermost, IRC, gitter, xmpp, slack, discord, telegram, rocketchat, twitch, ssh-chat, zulip, whatsapp, keybase, matrix, microsoft teams, nextcloud, mumble, vk and more with REST API (mattermost not required!)
bridge between mattermost, IRC, gitter, xmpp, slack, discord, telegram, rocket.chat, steam, twitch, ssh-chat, zulip, whatsapp and matrix with REST API (mattermost not required!)
If I am being honest I Slack being our central hub for a long time (if not ever), this is where the majority of our users are and there is no easy way to move them. We had this discussion last year when discussing whether Slack was the best choice and ultimately it doesnāt matter. If we could go back in time and change from Slack to another provider we would, but we canāt.
Our best solution, for now, is the bridge. If there is enough interest in adding a new provider we will definitely look into supporting it.
What is the goal? To save the history of the meeting? To easily link to web pages (or have apps that integrate with link previews)? To interact in real time? To hear and see people (video call)? To have the @mentions ping the people mentioned? To actually decide things, or discuss and decide later? To hash out details of policy in the open? To determine best approach on matters that need some expertise to discuss?
I think every meeting needs its own approach. They are all different. Slack is only good for a few things, but once you get a lot of conversations going, it becomes the central hub. Using different channels helps keep it organized, but it still doesnāt help with the way that conversations often fork tangentially. Publishing a summary of meeting notes helps everyone that couldnāt attend.
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Iām not a fan of Slack for meetings of more than 5-6 people, but itās great for small, focused task team meetings.
My preference for mass meetings would be video calls with chat (Zoom, maybe?) Not aware of free versions that would do the job, though. Zoom free version, for instance, would limit meetings of more than 2(?) people to 40 minutes.
BTW, just discovered https://airwidget.app/, it broadcasts Slack channels as a widget (iframe). Any guest visitor could watch commitee discussions almost real-time, right here on classicpress.net. No need to join Slack or install anything on a client side. Widget is free. Iāve connected it to my testing Slack workspace, seems to work properly. Can be a nice āspectating modeā solution for those who have troubles with joining Slack directly.
Iād offer to create a page āClassicPress Liveā (or something) with this wiget. It takes 2-3 minutes, no coding skills required. This page is also a meeting transcript. Advanced option is to place there a detailed tutorial āHow to join our Slack meetingsā. And later link to any alternative chat platform for community meetings or live support if it appears.
So do I. But donāt know if itās popular in UK and Western Europe.
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That is pretty cool, thanks for sending it through! I will do some testing this weekend
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Brilliant! If it works I see that as the perfect solution.
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This is nice, but it is still subject to Slackās 10,000 message limit.
So (at least for now) we still need to post meeting transcripts to the forums.
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This is a big plus. Because joining a channel is buggy (I canāt join CP on Slack), the API is closed.
I still prefer to have as many conversations and meetings here, on a CP site. Is it important to have a āliveā meeting during 40 minutes, or can we chat during 2-3 days, or even a week? We are from around the world, from different time zones, busy and have other duties, so having more flexibility is a big plus. Frankly, I didnāt see any need for Slack, except online collaboration during development/coding.
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I am not sure what you mean, if you go to Slack do you not get asked to verify your email?
If not, it would be great to know so we can look into it
This isnāt a CP site, the forums are powered by Discourse.
This is why we are trying to be very cautious about what happens on Slack vs the Forums. For more drawn out discussions we move them to the forums because people do need some time to process and reply.
I donāt really agree. I think Community Meetings and Committee Meetings should still take place on Slack because they are more real time. Additionally, as I have mentioned previously, our biggest user base is still Slack, and I think the informal community engagement we get on Slack is incredibly important.
That being said, we are listening to feedback and are looking into options - like the one @norske brought up
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Some time ago, a @ClassicPress email was required. Now, ok, I can use my own. But Slack donāt recognize my email and demand to create an account again. Sorry, too buggy (or, maybe, this is not a bug, this is a feature?). I will leave it for developers, maybe they are comfortable with it while I am too old and too sensitive to bad UI and UX. Sorry.
Maybe I am missing something, but donāt get why it should be āreal timeā. At least, most of them.
Heartily agree, if it will help to attract more developers, it should be used.
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But itās a classicpress.net address, so it is under control, whereas Slack is not.
Slack is very handy for quick collaboration and sharing links and images and āhow toā information. Itās not that great for meetings IMO.
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