[community building] Slack relaunch

[emmyft]

What is the idea?: Repurposing the current data champion slack group into an open science community space

Why: We currently have a Slack group for TUD Data champions. Since I took over the role as community coordinator (Oct 2020) I haven't decided what to do with it- mainly I was hoping to observe how existing usage looks like, and at the same time see how the community evolves and grows before making a decision.

There is a strong interest from groups related to the community (e.g. the Digital Competence Center, the data stewards) to create a space where those curious about various aspects of open could ask questions and share thoughts, and ultimately achieve a form of peer exchange of open knowledge.

But we already have this idea sandbox space here on Github, why Slack? Github is not a platform that is familiar to most in the community, and it being completely open is a double-edged sword: while this is inline with the spirit of open science, it can be very scary to post openly when you're a newcomer to a community. I envision Slack to be a safer, easier to use space.

Why Slack and not MS Teams, or open-source solutions? We learnt from other communities, including our friends at 4TU.ResearchData, that to facilitate initial uptake, it's easiest to use something that our community members and maintainers (myself) are familiar with and have easy access to. Since we are repurposing the data champions Slack group, many of our community members are already in the group. If the community feels strongly about not using Slack, we will reconsider this.

Proposed steps and timeline

• [x] (ASAP) Notify all existing members on Slack of this plan (by posting a message linking to this issue, encourage members to comment/provide input on this plan and content (see "how the community can contribute")
• [x] (July 1) Change the group name (oscdelft.slack.com?)
• [x] (July 1) Code of Conduct reminder in Slack space
• [x] (First week of July) set up new channels with channel descriptions ~- [ ] (First week of July) set up a welcome bot & channel?~
• [ ] (First week of July) Announce the Slack relaunch in the OSCD newsletter, ~and send all members that are not in the Slack group yet an invitation to join~ we have an invite limit apparently, so we can't send everyone an invite at once, we'd have to do this in phases
• [x] (First week of July) Update onboarding documentation to include adding to Slack group
• [ ] (Dec 2021) Re-evaluate: do we have other contributions (in the form of questions/comments) beyond those from maintainers? Is the content shared engaging/interesting? Run a poll to see if we have new directions. We should also aim to share the evaluation "results" and learnings openly, either here or in our Stories space.

How the community can contribute

• What sort of content would you like to see in the Slack group?
  • We currently have the #opportunities channel for funding, jobs and CFPs
  • We currently have #events for, uh, open science events
  • A place to share open science related news and resources?
  • Other ideas?
• How can we make the space more welcoming for questions/contributions? ( we should leave these questions also for folks who are joining after the first week of July)

Please feel free to also comment on the steps and timeline, and other parts of this issue, either in Slack or here in this issue.

What are the benefits for other members to contribute to the idea/participate? I estimate it takes around 5 mins to read this post, and maybe another 5 to think about the above ideas :) You will be helping to build this crucial space for learning for the community.

[emmyft]

I've decided to forgo the welcome bot for now - is this a bad idea? let me know ;)