Unified internal communications channel

[Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss]

Hi,

as others already mentioned, the issue that prompted this discussion 
seems to me not a tooling issue, but a usage one. Nonetheless, it is a 
good opportunity to talk about communication channels at KDE and to 
identify areas for improvement.

On 12/9/23 13:00, kde-devel-request at kde.org wrote:
>> I had the idea for such a channel before. But I admit that I did not search
>> whether such a channel already exists.
>>
>> I would subscribe to a channel which is readable via email and has messages
>> like these examples:
>> [...]

> I think you touched an important issue there - we should define the scope of
> the proposed communication channel(s) and give guidelines for when and how to
> use them.
> 
> There's no use in having another channel if people will end up sidestepping it
> because they were unsure if their topic was relevant.

I like David's proposal of a community-wide channel only for 
announcements, with a clear scope, moderation to keep it on-topic, and 
links to channels for further discussion. And I agree with Johannes that 
well-defined scope can help encourage contributors to provide content! 
That said, I also see the issue of adding yet another channel to KDE's 
communications infrastructure, at least not without looking at what 
channels already exist and how they are used.

I thought about the topic over the weekend. Personally I find it helpful 
to identify the organizational structure and then map the tools onto the 
structure, not the other way around. To illustrate what I am thinking, 
here is a graph showing subset relationships between groups, starting at 
everything under the node KDE COMMUNITY. The subsets are obviously far 
from perfect, should be reconsidered, and just here as examples. (If 
anyone would like to seriously discuss graphing the KDE organization, 
please be in touch. I think it would be useful.)


         KDE COMMUNITY
          /          \
         /            \
  NON-TECHNICAL    TECHNICAL
      /    \        /  |   \
     /      \      /   |    \
  USERS  CONTR.° VDG  PLASMA [...]
          / \
      [...] Int.Communities

°Contributors

Assuming this is a useful way of graphing the organizational structure 
of KDE (that is just an assumption, I am not committed to this), the 
questions for me are then:

  - What communication /within/ groups do we want?
  - What communication /across/ groups do we want?
     + Which tool(s) would best achieve what we want?
     + Which tool(s) do we already use? Are they achieving what we want?
     + Do we need to add/remove tool(s)? Which ones?

Here are ideas of how I might apply the above approach, using some 
examples from earlier in this thread:

  - planet.kde.org blogs:
     + Used for communication from "TECHNICAL" to "KDE COMMUNITY".
     + Which other channels (e.g., social media) are used for this 
cross-group communication? Are there areas for improvement?

  - plasma-devel ML:
     + Used for communication within the "PLASMA" group. Which other 
tools are used for this group? Are they all needed?
     + What advantages or disadvantages are there if we added/removed a 
tool (e.g., moved this group to Discuss, closed the mailing list, etc.)?
     + How do groups outside PLASMA communicate with this group? 
(particularly relevant in this context)

  - kde-code-devel and kde-devel MLs:
     + Both seem to fall within "Technical" group (as brought up by Carl)
     + However, they have slightly different scope. Can they be merged?

  - kde-community ML:
     + Communication within "CONTRIBUTORS" group
     + How can we move people from the USERS node to the CONTRIBUTORS 
one? What communication is needed to achieve this?
     + Would another tool (e.g., Discuss + ML function) be better suited 
for this communication, in that it potentially is seen by more users and 
the exposure may invite them to join in KDE's non-technical community?

If others here find this a helpful way to discuss it, I am happy to 
develop the idea further and make some concrete suggestions. This is 
just a sketch for now.

Cheers,
Joseph

-- 
Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss
KDE Internal Communications & KDE Eco Community Manager
OpenPGP: 8FC5 4178 DC44 AD55 08E7 DF57 453E 5746 59A6 C06F
Matrix: @joseph:kde.org

Generally available Monday-Thursday from 10-16h CET/CEST. Outside of 
these times it may take a little longer for me to respond.

KDE Eco: Building Energy-Efficient Free Software!
Website: https://eco.kde.org
Mastodon: @be4foss at floss.social