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Comment by nerdponx | Hacker News Reader

I've been wanting to get involved in this kind of thing for a while now. Shame they use Slack, and not an open platform like Matrix or IRC, though!

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This is a really annoying behavior. Not every project needs or even should be perfect along every dimension that you or anyone else cares about.

Would you also find it to be a problem if they held a meeting and didn't serve fair trade coffee? Should they expel any members with politics you find objectionable? Must they demand that everyone give up their iOS and Android devices too because they're surveillance instruments and running non-free software too?

Here's a good Tumblr post this made me think of:

- [The Grey Tribe — Activism, Accessibility, Setting Good...](https://the-grey-tribe.tumblr.com/post/175038067648/activism...)

Nitpicking about tool choices is not a useful contribution to a volunteer project starved for resources. There are better ways to contribute.

there are certainly better ways to contribute, but i’m not sure it’s nitpicking. it seems like this issue is pretty close to the network’s core values and reason for existing: getting away from centralisation, censorship, big companies, etc

This reasoning is a distraction. The fact is that it is unhelpful and slack works fine.

I do not like slack either.

that being said, get involved and get them in Matrix or IRC, not too difficult to enact change I think people could get in on it with appropriate leadership!

zulip looks interesting to me as well.

I have repeatedly offered to pay for hosting a standalone Matrix server for the Julia community, and so far been ignored. Seems like people just don't care.

I think the best I can do at this point is set up my own server running Matrix (or Zulip, which I haven't really explored) and host my own bridge to ease the transition. It's the classic problem where, now that I actually have money to spend, I don't have free time or infinite energy for side-projects anymore.

As much as you're trying to help, the truth is, small projects don't have the resources to do stuff like this. Now they have to devote time (probably someone's limited after work time) to bringing you onboard, getting you setup, etc. Then, you set everything up and let's say you disappear. Now they have this custom setup that only one person knows how to operate. At the end of the day, Slack works. They're already using it. No one has to get trained on new software. You don't need new accounts and passwords and admins and teams. The list goes on. This is a big issue with small projects - everyone wants to join and change some thing that's not part of the core mission.

They used to run a Matrix bridge, but from my understanding the administrators had no interest in maintaining it.

Also,

riot.im

Mattermost

Zulip

Wire

Rocket.chat

and more here: https://alternativeto.net/software/slack/

Riot.im is a Matrix.org client.

Mattermost is nice but it's not federated and I don't think it will catch on as a "public-facing" chatroom option. It's a nice solution inside an organizations that doesn't want to pay for Slack. I haven't used Rocket.chat but it looks similar along those lines. Wire just doesn't seem like the right solution.

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