Communication channels#
There are a few different communication channels with 2i2c, depending on your team and what kind of communication you’d like to have. See below for details.
Communication guidelines#
Most communication should be asynchronous. A person should be able to meaningfully participate in the conversation at a different place and time. If you must have a synchronous conversation or meeting, at a minimum document the meeting notes and post them publicly so that others can see. If it is a planned meeting, post the agenda at least 24 hours in advance so others can decide if it makes sense to attend.
Use synchronous conversation when it is really needed. In general, we pay a high penalty for coordinating a single meeting time. For this reason, keep synchronous meetings to moments where we strongly benefit from real-time communication (e.g. discussing particularly complex or sensitive questions).
GitHub Issues and Projects#
For most team communication, we use GitHub Issues and Pull Requests. See Workflow for more information.
Slack#
Most of our synchronous communication happens in Slack.
Who is invited to the Slack?#
Currently, anyone who is interested can join the 2i2c Slack. Initially this is people that mentioned they would like to join via our blog post. Any Slack member is welcome to send an invite link to another person that would like to join.
Private and Public channels#
We try to keep the number of channels to a minimum, and only add new rooms if it really feels necessary (e.g. if we keep having “off topic” conversations about the same topic in one room). There are a mix of private and public rooms in the Slack. In general, conversations about projects, development, etc should be in public rooms. Most conversation in the 2i2c Slack should be in public channels.
There are private channels for a few specific topics that probably warrant private conversation. By default, we’ll start with:
#team-updates- is for 2i2c team members to share information with one another about what they are up to#leads-and-partnerships- is for discussing prospective collaborations, communities we may serve, or funding opportunities
In addition, we may create private rooms on a short-term basis for specific events (such as discussing hiring a specific role).
Conversations that should not be in Slack#
Any conversations that are important or that should be remembered outside of the immediate context should be encoded as Discussion threads, GitHub Issues, or otherwise put in a more asynchronous place so that others may discover it and participate.
Here are things that should not be conducted in Slack, but instead put in an issue or other “Source of Truth” location:
Important updates on the status of a project or issue
Decisions that were made from conversations in Slack
Important dates or deadlines announced on Slack
Major bugs or problems that were unconvered on Slack
New ideas that warrant follow-up
Zoom#
Our team has a dedicated Zoom room that anybody on the 2i2c team may use. We try not to publicly post this link to avoid the likelihood of abuse.
To access the room, ask any team member for the URL and password to join.
See Access the zoom account for information about how to access the account.
Personal e-mail#
Each of 2i2c’s team members has an @2i2c.org email account.
We generally use e-mail to communicate externally.
We use Slack, GitHub issues, and Zoom to communicate internally.
However, if it’s important communicate something to a team member that isn’t suitable for a GitHub issue, and needs to be more permanent than Slack, then it’s fine to send e-mails.