Communication channels

Communications methods

These are many communication tools available to members / users and others to discuss matters related to the Hackspace. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and each seems to be used by a slightly different subset of the membership.

Prioritised by appropriateness for different tasks -

• Longevity
• Security (moderation, etc.)
• Speed of response
• etc...

Wiki

Long term, Hackspace 'documentation'. Seen as not easy to contribute to by some (but an 'expert' can always be found lurking who can assist). Used for monitoring pledge drives (although this function will migrate to HMS in the future).

Wiki is the knowledge base, Information about the physical space we have, the teams scopes, network setup, tools we have, project pages (either space wide or just a members personal projects), any member can go update a page or start a new one.

Email

As well as member-personal emails, there are also a number of addresses set up for formal communication with and by the Hackspace. Ought to be the preferred way of pushing messages (e.g. trustees@...) but like all email, blighted by spam.

Nottinghack Website

The Website front page mainly functions as an advertisement to draw potential members in and blog post to advertise events or announcements. Most existing members use it to access HMS for tool bookings and admin tasks.

Google Group

The public channel. Permanent, searchable, message storage. Moderated.

A very large chunk of the membership is subscribed to this channel.

Anyone joining the google group is initially put under moderation. This is simply to prevent the group from being invaded by 'bots, but moderation has been (and can be) re-instated on occasions when inappropriate postings have become contrary to the best interests of the Hackspace.

Slack

Slack can be thought of as Super-IRC, with the ability to handle media, files and other larger message types. Several trustees and members are likely to be online at any time.

As a real-time chat system, there is no overall moderation of comments, although any overly disruptive or offensive posts will be removed.

Slack is good for talk with or around teams, a place teams can have quick real-time conversions to make decisions. It is also a place members can ask questions of teams or get more involved in them.

NH-Teams

A place for communication within and between teams. Used for real time discussion and quick decision making. Each team has its own channel, and are usually quick to respond to any questions.

Link

Trustees

A separate Slack account is used by the trustees. Unlike NH-Teams, this account keeps a permanent record of communications.

IRC

Long-established geek channel of choice, however now rarely used for team communication. Please use Slack instead.

(NB: Links to the LED message display boards in the Hackspace)

Trello

Trello is a TODO board, on which teams or any member can add and complete jobs.

Telephone

There is no active telephone number for the Hackspace. The line is used only for broadband delivery. Unfortunately Google has found the number and it has become known - don't try and use it!

Post!

Some things just have to be delivered as hard-copy to the Hackspace. Letters are pretty reliable, but packets and parcels should not be expected to be delivered promptly, as it depends on someone regularly checking with the site management to discover if something is awaiting pickup in the management office.

Types of message

• Banter
• Showing Off
• Answers to Questions
• Asking Questions
• Progress reporting

Cross links between channels

Some email addresses are automatically cross-posted to Slack channels, for example trustees@nottinghack.org.uk automatically gets delivered to the Trustee slack channel. This allows Slack to be used as a unified inbox, though it is spammed horribly.

Teams Slack - usefulness diluted by banter and other inappropriate postings eating into clarity of discussion and message longevity. Also, please do not post the same message to multiple channels, e.g. Laser + Tools when reporting broken or missing tools as this also eats into the message base.