Re: [UG-ADMINS] Slack-Team for Usergroups available

[email protected] (Eric) Sun, 22 Mar 2015 13:48:33 -0700
Newsgroups	ug.admins
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
We have a decent IRC for SDPHP with a good amount of people participating but we have a lot of people who struggle to understand how to get on to IRC, or how to register a handle. And don’t even get me started on trying to explain using a bouncer so you don’t miss discussion. I think we will always use IRC and I know I will personally continue using IRC because its just what I do. 

With all that said, I am a fan of Slack for a couple reasons 

I like how an organization can have multiple channels. This is nice especially when you use it to coordinate efforts and events. Yeah you can create multiple IRC channels buts it not he same as logging into one organization and seeing which channels they have to offer. For groups like the PHP-UG this makes a lot of sense. 
Easy to use. It just is.. I love IRC.. I use it from the command line with IRSSI and I have a couple clients I like to use but end of the day Slack is drop dead simple to configure and use. 
Integration .. With sites like IFTTT.com giving you the ability to tie your Slack into other systems, all sorts of potential doors can open. I have a IFTTT recipe to post to a SDPHP Slack channel every time SDPHP is mentioned on Twitter. Again, you can accomplish similar things with IRC using bots, but we are talking the Slack approach is just simpler 
Mobile version. There are a couple nice IRC mobile client, list irccloud but nothing beats an application that is built by the same group managing the platform, Slack has a super smooth mobile client 
I also prefer Slack notifications and being able to get emails on key words that I miss. 
Slack keeps missed chatter when you log out without needing a bouncer or other dependency 

So I can appreciate all those out there who are not interested in moving away from IRC, and I don’t think we need to move away from IRC. But I do encourage everyone to give Slack a try before making a decision. Try it for awhile and lets see where the conversations organically end up taking place. 

Just my $0.02 
-- 
Eric

twitter: @shocm | @sdphp | http://www.sdphp.org
No trees were killed in sending this message, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

On March 22, 2015 at 1:15:46 PM, Jeremy Lindblom ([email protected]) wrote:

We've tried unsuccessfully for over 5 years to get our Seattle PHP group to use IRC. Nobody wants to use it.  

Our mailing list is our main way for people to interact, and it is pretty active.  

We use Slack, but only recently, and only for the organizers.  

-- Jeremy Lindblom  
PHP Software Engineer, AWS  

> On Mar 22, 2015, at 12:42 PM, Lorna Mitchell <[email protected]> wrote:  
>  
> I'm really disappointed to see the user groups moving. For me, freenode is  
> a trusted home for open source projects and user group; the walled garden  
> feels like a really strange choice. I feel the same way about the facebook  
> groups, for all the same reasons. Not all of us are on facebook, or want  
> to mix our personal lives into the professional spheres - and how will new  
> people meet new groups that require email invite to gain access to?  
>  
> I am sure nobody meant to exclude me but I'm not comfortable with  
> interacting in these other ways. Hopefully most groups will still maintain  
> email announcement lists at least so that it will be possible to find out  
> about their meetings in other ways, but I do think we lost something here.  
> It's fine for groups of friends to hang out on slack or wherever but if  
> we're a community, then we need to remain open to our future members who  
> haven't stumbled across us yet.  
>  
> Just my tuppence (totally agree with the others feeling old for resisting  
> change!)  
>  
> Lorna  
>  
>  
>> On 22 March 2015 at 18:47, Joe Ferguson <[email protected]> wrote:  
>>  
>> I share a lot of the same concerns as Ben. If the solution makes sense to  
>> allow the conversations to happen in IRC and Slack, I'm all for it.  
>>  
>> Maybe I'm old school, but you can pry IRC from my cold dead hands.  
>> Especially when there are great looking (and customizable) web based  
>> clients such as https://www.irccloud.com  
>>  
>> Side note: I'm glad to see this conversation happen here. I've noticed a  
>> few conversations happen on twitter that I've missed because I've not been  
>> able to stop what I was doing to contribute. never mind the fact that 140  
>> characters is terrible for a conversation of any real depth.  
>>  
>>> On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 9:50 AM, Andreas Heigl <[email protected]> wrote:  
>>>  
>>>> Am 21.03.15 um 21:10 schrieb Ben Ramsey:  
>>>> On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 3:03 PM, Andreas Heigl <[email protected]>  
>>> wrote:  
>>>>>  
>>>>> And that was (and still is) my response to the idea of a  
>> usergroup-wide  
>>>>> slack-team. But on the other hand, I'd rather have one place to have  
>> to  
>>>>> look for those not on IRC instead of hundreds. At least MY primary  
>>>>> intention in creating that team was to catch all those not on IRC or  
>>>>> already using slack as their main communication channel into ONE place  
>>>>> to look for them instead of them splitting up into hundreds of  
>> different  
>>>>> places.  
>>>>>  
>>>>> That was the intention behind my emphasis of that team NOT being a  
>>>>> replaement but an addition of the way we as a community can  
>> communicate  
>>>>> with one another.  
>>>>  
>>>> Is it possible to somehow hook up Slack to the existing #phpgroups  
>>> channel  
>>>> on Freenode IRC so that we don't have a separation there?  
>>>>  
>>>> Thanks,  
>>>> Ben  
>>> Hi Ben (and everyone else).  
>>>  
>>> After a bit of searching and testing I've found a way to connect  
>>> IRC-Channels with Slack-Channels so that things you post in the  
>>> IRC-Channel are also posted to slack and vice-versa. You can have a look  
>>> at the solution at https://github.com/ekmartin/slack-irc or  
>>> http://npm.taobao.org/package/slack-irc.  
>>>  
>>> I could implememt that to map the #phpgroups-Channel on IRC to the  
>>> #default-Channel on slack if that can reach consensus.  
>>>  
>>> But that's a decission that has to be backed by more people than myself  
>> ;-)  
>>>  
>>> So input is very much welcome!  
>>>  
>>> Cheers  
>>>  
>>> Andreas  
>>>  
>>> --  
>>> ,,,  
>>> (o o)  
>>> +---------------------------------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-+  
>>> | Andreas Heigl |  
>>> | mailto:[email protected] N 50°22'59.5" E 08°23'58" |  
>>> | http://andreas.heigl.org http://hei.gl/wiFKy7 |  
>>> +---------------------------------------------------------------------+  
>>> | http://hei.gl/root-ca |  
>>> +---------------------------------------------------------------------+  
>>  
>>  
>> --  
>> - Joe Ferguson  
>> MemphisTechnology.org  
>> MemphisPHP.org  
>> HACKMemphis.com  
>  
>  
>  
> --  
> Lorna Mitchell  
> http://lornajane.net  

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