[Sugar-devel] Suggestion on moving from IRC to Gitter

[Vipul Gupta]

I do agree with Rahul over the change on communication mediums. This
discussion rose a bit at the start of GSoC 2018 as well, with many fellow
contributors who wanted to apply to Sugar Labs didn't because they could
get a response. And yes, its absolutely okay for a time to have no people
in the room to help. But with Gitter's ability to hold conversations, have
plugins for GitHub and make rooms. We should definitely give it a shot to
see how it pays off in the long run.

The learning curve with IRC does instill a thing of learning or two among
all of us. I for one asked my questions on IRC after thoroughly searching
the web and all the resources I have. Since I always knew the importance
of  "Software is free. Time is not." Things taking time to figure out, is
good. But not when its spent on communication mediums by prospective
contributors. They just want to start contributing. And fast. I think
Gitter can help here.

On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 1:48 PM Rahul Bothra <rrbothra at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am proposing a change in the communication medium from IRC to Gitter.
> I've made a Gitter Community at https://gitter.im/Sugar-Labs, for people
> to try it out. In case people don't like the change, we can shut it down
> and stick to IRC.
>
> Following are my reasons for the change;
>
> New users can't see the past conversations, which is useful at times
>
> Many active contributors don't run an all time online instance,
> and can't read unresolved doubts asked when they were offline
>
> If a new user doesn't get a response for some time, he tends to
> quit IRC (observation) and it's difficult to look him up and resolve
> his query. This *might *lead to contributors thinking that the org is i
> nactive
>
> Since we are diverse, we can use different channels for each;
> Sugar, Sugarizer, Music Blocks, Design, Website.
> This will make discussions more organised and easy to look up
> Implementing this on IRC could increase problems of inactivity
> even more.
>
> D. Joe gave a reason[1] against the switch that every other chat
> systems has their own advantages.
> I don't mind using any chat system which can curb these issues.
>
> I am now comfortable in using IRC because:
>  - I *somewhat* understood how it works, but it took time to figure out
>  - I now know at what time might a contributor come online,
>    but it took time to figure out
>  - I now know which contributor works on what, so I can ask via mail,
>    if IRC doesn't help, but it took time to figure out
>
> There are obvious workarounds for all these, but then it's better if new
> contributors devote 'time to figure out' code instead ;-)
>
> [1]:
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2018-February/055064.html
>
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-- 
Cordially,
Vipul Gupta
Mixster <https://mixstersite.wordpress.com/> | Github
<https://github.com/vipulgupta2048>
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