| Time |
S |
Nick |
Message |
| 01:06 |
|
dotplus |
https://dave.cheney.net/2017/04/11/why-slack-is-inappropriate-for-open-source-communications |
| 01:50 |
|
pdurbin |
Interesting. Thanks. If he isn't into posting logs from Slack I can't imagine he's into logging IRC channels either. |
| 01:51 |
|
pdurbin |
I guess I've always been a fan of real-time communication such as chat. I like being able to make sure everyone understand each other. |
| 10:47 |
|
dotplus |
my position is mixed. I most prefer "async with occasional synchronous as necessary" for any communication that is for getting something done. explanatory wrangling, brainstorming, cultural-fu, fun and so on are usually best the other way around IMO: "synchronous summarized to something easily archived such as mail or docs" |
| 11:03 |
|
pdurbin |
I share your position. :) |
| 11:04 |
|
pdurbin |
Ideally, important decisions from meetings are written down as well. |
| 13:11 |
|
pdurbin |
I'm still chewing on this quote from the article: "Even if you are in the same time zone, real time chat assumes a privilege that you have the spare time–or an employer who doesn’t mind you being constantly distracted–to be virtually present in a chat room." |
| 13:14 |
|
pdurbin |
Is it true that being in a chat room leads one to being constantly distracted? I think it depends very much on the chat room, especially how busy it is. I shy away from chat rooms that are too noisy. This #openknot channel, for example, is quite low traffic. Most weeks it isn't a distraction at all because there is no traffic. :) |
| 13:14 |
|
dotplus |
true, but this channel is at the far end of the noisiness spectrum |
| 13:16 |
|
pdurbin |
yeah |
| 13:17 |
|
pdurbin |
I'm looking at http://wiki.greptilian.com/haunts which I keep in order of how interested I am in the conversation there, how likely I am to pay attention to new messages. I'd say the top 20 are all quite low traffic. |
| 13:18 |
|
pdurbin |
And it's not like I'm constantly looking to see if there are new messages. Obviously, that would lead to constant distraction. |
| 13:19 |
|
pdurbin |
I guess I'm saying that to me, it's a strawman argument. Anyone who is constantly distracted by chat rooms isn't managing their time well. They need more self control. |
| 13:21 |
|
dotplus |
I agree. But as someone who constantly has to self-discipline in that area, I want everything I can do/get/be to help me in that area. |
| 13:22 |
|
pdurbin |
What would be helpful? |
| 13:23 |
|
dotplus |
and I am reminded of this: https://m.signalvnoise.com/is-group-chat-making-you-sweat-744659addf7d which I think I posted to you/here before, but is IMO absolutely the best article I have ever read in the area. |
| 13:24 |
|
dotplus |
what would be helpful would be every community that I participate in to move the slider on the spectrum of sync vs. async further in the direction of "async with occasional synchronous as necessary" |
| 13:26 |
|
dotplus |
jason fried's article is not a comprehensive presentation of all the +ves and -ves, but it's close. |
| 13:28 |
|
pdurbin |
Favor async. Sure, that makes sense. |
| 13:28 |
|
pdurbin |
Yes, the "Is group chat making you sweat?" article was very interesting back when I read it. I should re-read it. |
| 13:30 |
|
pdurbin |
Heh. The subtitle is great: "Group chat is like being in an all-day meeting with random participants and no agenda." |
| 13:31 |
|
dotplus |
I'd like to re-read it and then rewrite it in my own words, add a couple of other ideas and then give it to every Eng team I work on/with. |
| 13:31 |
|
dotplus |
right, bear? ^ |
| 13:31 |
|
dotplus |
:) |
| 13:33 |
|
pdurbin |
Yeah, I should blog about this topic too. If I had a blog. :) |
| 13:33 |
|
pdurbin |
As I've said before, probably elsewhere, IRC is sort of my blog because philbot logs what I write to http://irclog.greptilian.com |
| 13:34 |
|
pdurbin |
I shouldn't call it a blog, though. It's something different. I'm not sure if it has a name. |
| 13:35 |
|
dotplus |
ooh, ooh. new shiny? IRC logs -> ELK so that I have *really good* full text search *and* easy data viz. |
| 13:36 |
|
pdurbin |
Here's where I wrote about it: http://irclog.greptilian.com/pdurbin/2012-11-28 |
| 13:36 |
|
pdurbin |
I guess the term is "work notes". |
| 13:37 |
|
dotplus |
"if it has a name". Yes, "knowledgebase". Even if that's not the fashionable term. Refer to and cf. "ontological web" |
| 13:46 |
|
pdurbin |
Hmm, maybe. To be hopefully more clear, I draw inspiration from http://scripting.com/stories/2009/08/09/narrateYourWork.html |
| 13:47 |
|
pdurbin |
There's also a nice write up of the "narrate your work" concept at http://blogs.perficient.com/digitaltransformation/2011/02/09/collaborate-by-narrating-your-work/ |
| 14:11 |
|
pdurbin |
Ok, I just read https://m.signalvnoise.com/is-group-chat-making-you-sweat-744659addf7d again and it's fantastic. I agree with almost all of it. Many good quotes. I have a new appreciation for this article because we started using Slack at work about 8 months ago and I have mixed feelings about it. |
| 14:16 |
|
pdurbin |
It makes me wonder where I tend to put longer form pieces. Again, I'm not much of a blogger and I guess that Google+ is the closest thing I have to a blog. Maybe I could use my wiki. Dunno. Will have to think about it some more. :) |
| 14:19 |
|
pdurbin |
I really like "The smaller the chat the better the chat. Think of it like a conference call. A conference call with 3 people is perfect. A call with 6 or 7 is chaotic and woefully inefficient." |
| 14:30 |
|
dotplus |
even if Slack (both the Slack "app" (scare quotes, because it's just an electron wrapper and therefore not a real native app) and browser-based Slack) wasn't a *terrible* resource hog, I'd still disprefer it (and that's not strong enough) compared to IRC/XMPP because of a) the UX/workflow consequences of it being a walled garden b) the common usage patterns of many Slackers/Slack {channels,teams} seem |
| 14:30 |
|
dotplus |
to fall afoul of most of the problems ... |
| 14:30 |
|
dotplus |
... cautioned against in group-chat-making-you-sweat; in other words Slack sucks 1) technically, 2) because it tends to push people towards sync (more than IRC did/does) and worst of all and hardest of all to fix 3) because Slackers aren't really good at sync comms even when they are appropriate. |
| 14:33 |
|
pdurbin |
Yeah, it takes discipline and good judgement to use use these communication tools well. |
| 14:35 |
|
pdurbin |
Now I'm wondering if there's a CONTRIBUTING.md for communicating. :) COMMUNICATION.md or whatever :) |
| 14:35 |
|
pdurbin |
If that makes sense. |
| 14:36 |
|
pdurbin |
Set expectations within a project or community about how communication channels are ideally used within that project or community. |
| 14:36 |
|
pdurbin |
Guidelines, rules of thumb. Nothing hard and fast. |
| 14:38 |
|
pdurbin |
I'm sure every community is a little different in terms of what works best for them. |
| 14:43 |
|
pdurbin |
I can imagine the writeup starting with "Our community frequently uses the following methods of communication. Here are some guidelines..." |
| 14:51 |
|
dotplus |
ooh, COMMUNICATION.md++ |
| 14:52 |
|
pdurbin |
possibly on topic at https://opensource.guide/building-community/ |
| 15:02 |
|
pdurbin |
I just left a comment where it felt at least somewhat on-topic: https://github.com/github/opensource.guide/issues/54#issuecomment-293921165 |
