Communication channels
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This page requires cleaning up! The specific problem is: Merge from Team Tools and Resources? duplicated info, better if all info in one place. Please help improve this page if you can. Use the talk page to discuss suggestions. (October 2019) |
- See also: Team:Communications and Community links
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.
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
- Main article: Website
The Website front page 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.
Discord and Slack
In 2023, Hackspace started migrating from Slack to Discord.
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.
Events
- Main article: Events
Hackspace has events where you can communicate in meat space.
Types of message
- Banter
- Showing Off
- Showing On
- 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.