Investigate interaction channels for discussions and feedback

[Lovemore-Gakava]

Look into different ways users can have discussions and provide feedback. Potential candidates might be slack channel or github discussions?

[Lovemore-Gakava]

What is a slack channel? https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/help/articles/360017938993-What-is-a-channel

[aemabe]

Slack Channel Pros:

• interact with GitHub as a personal app or access from a channel; promoting real-time updates
• allows users to subscribe to a specific repository/organization's activities (flexibility for users)
• customize notifications by subscribing to relevant activities: issues, pulls, commits, releases, deployments, workflows, reviews, comments, branches, discussions
• can filter branch notifications, i.e. commits to a specific branch (not main)
• can filter workflow run notifications
• inclusion of threads to reduce noise in the channel, only notifying those involved in a conversation thread (shows up under "parent card" showing latest status of the Issue/PR)
• can mention other users in threads; they will receive updates regardless of subscription
• can create and respond to an issue directly from Slack
• Slack is better known than GitHub discussions
• you can view a public Slack channel without a slack account

Cons:

• default comments and reviews will only show up in thread; need to run additional commands to transfer comments to the channel
• can require extra steps to include/exclude settings, options, and notification filters
• becomes tricky to move from a private to a public Slack channel; need to manually move over important discussion topics
• does not post Slack discussion to GitHub discussion tab; works one-way
• users must have a slack account to contribute to slack discussions
• can lead to notification overload if there are too many contributors
• can be hard to regulate

further info on Github/Slack integration: https://github.com/integrations/slack?tab=readme-ov-file#features

GitHub Discussions Pros

• share announcements, discussions, polls, etc. within the GitHub without third-party tools
• can close discussions that are no longer relevant
• anyone who has access to the GitHub has access and can contribute to the discussions
• can pin, categorize, and comment on important discussions
• can manage permissions on discussion topics, contributors

Cons

• not as popular or well-known as other discussion platforms
• limited notification options

possible suggestion:

• Private Slack channel created for Phase 2 -- allows the community to closely monitor the GitHub and work together.
• Once we are ready to deploy to Phase 3, we shift to GitHub discussions to allow for greater community engagement. We can paste important discussions within the Slack prior to this deployment if we believe it will enhance community engagement.
• we could also create a separate public Slack channel, and link it to the GitHub. The only issue is we would have to manually update the GitHub discussions to allow those without a Slack account to contribute to ongoing discussions.

[Lovemore-Gakava]

Agreed to test slack and check functionalities.