(DUPLICATE) Moving from Slack to another service

[benigeri]

PLEASE DISCUSS IN https://github.com/reactiflux/volunteers/issues/25

Why don't we leave Slack?

In short, we haven't found a better alternative.

1. High switching cost

7500 people already have Reactiflux Slack account. Dozens of repos link to their respective Reactiflux channel. Switching to another service would be a big deal, and we'll probably lose a significant chunk of the community.

We're not opposed to moving away from Slack. We have very high switching cost though, so we'll only move if we have very good reasons to do so.

2. The product is amazing

Slack is great, and lots of people love it. Many of us believe it's the best messaging service for teams.

3. Many of us have it open by default.

Reactiflux is unusually active compared to other public Slack groups, Gitter channels, IRC channels, etc… Why is that?

Probably because so many of us use React and Slack at work.

Many of us are thinking about React at work. We’re working using libraries, building libraries, and running into bugs and problems. So we’re inclined to talk (read complain) about it with other people.

Many of us work at startups and tech companies that use Slack for team communication. So we open Slack every day and leave it running almost all the time.

And several months ago, Slack made it incredibly to switch between all of your teams.

Which means that even though most of us could never justify having yet another app or webpage open 24/7, just to talk to Reactiflux people, it happens automatically.

Obviously this isn’t the case for everyone on Reactiflux, but it is for many of us. In the early days, tons of people that joined kept on telling me “Oh, it’s so nice to be able to ask React questions on Slack since I already have it open all day.”

What are the top contenders?

Gitter

Gitter's benefits are that:

1. It works well with GitHub, which probably everybody on Reactiflux users.
2. It comes with unlimited message history.

But Reactiflux would not make sense in Gitter world. Gitter channels are based on repos. So instead of what we currently have, in Slack world:

• reactiflux/react-router
• reactiflux/redux
• reactiflux/fluxible

Gitter world would look like this:

• rakt/react-router
• facebook/react
• yahoo/fluxible

All channels would no longer be grouped under Reactiflux. The community would break up and separate into dozens of smaller organizations, like Facebook, Yahoo, and Rakt. (Are we even sure that Facebook or Yahoo want Gitter organizations?)

So in Gitter world, what would be left of Reactiflux? Not much. Why do we need another Reactiflux/redux room? There will already be a Rakt/redux room.

I don't think Gitter world would be better.

In Slack world, Reactiflux creates an overlap between all of the React sub-communities. It brings people from #redux, #alt, #reflux, and #fluxible together because it's so easy to go from one channel to the other, or to mingle in #general.

In Slack world, it's easy to find channels and to peek inside to see if you like it. You can tag people across channels, so everybody's around all the time.

Slack let's Reactiflux be a higher order community for all of the smaller React and Flux communities.

[chiedo]

So right now, we're practically deciding between the following?

Gitter Discord IRC

[vcarl]

IRC was decided to be nonviable because of the relatively high switching cost for people who don't already use IRC, and the availability of bridges for those who really want IRC.

Also, lack of discoverability of rooms.

[engelgabriel]

@vcarl what about our offer to host Rocket.Chat for you guys? I think it would be awesome opportunity for the community to use/support an nice open source project.

[taion]

IRC is also pointless because if you wanted to use Freenode#reactjs, you'd already be using it. There's no "switch to IRC option", the "switch to IRC option" is just "shut down Reactiflux and use Freenode#reactjs instead".

[chiedo]

Good points @vcarl and @taion.

So now it's just a matter of choosing between Gitter and Discord?

I personally am in favor of trying Rocket.Chat and taking up the offer from @engelgabriel but if that's off the table, let's officially put it to rest

[geekgonecrazy]

Another contributor to Rocket.Chat here.

Just something to think about. We're rapidly growing, features are being added daily. If you want feature X you can open a PR and get that feature in the core. That's not something you can do with these other platforms.

/end plug

[Daniel15]

25 seems to be the more relevant issue to discuss this in :)

[benigeri]

Thank you all for the great feedback. I've read it and will try to update https://github.com/reactiflux/volunteers/issues/25 to include the major points.

Closing this issue to focus the conversation in https://github.com/reactiflux/volunteers/issues/25