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Re: [openstack-dev] [Openstack-sigs] [tc]Global Reachout Proposal
On 2018-09-18 14:52:28 +0200 (+0200), Sylvain Bauza wrote:
[...]
> Why are we discussing about WeChat now? Is that because a large
> set of our contributors *can't* access IRC or because they
> *prefer* any other?

Until we get confirmation either way, I'm going to work under the
assumption that there are actual network barriers to using IRC for
these contributors and that it's not just a matter of preference. I
mainly want to know the source of these barriers because that will
determine how to go about addressing them.

If it's restrictions imposed by employers, it may be hard for
employees to raise the issue in predominantly confrontation-averse
cultures. The First Contact SIG is working on a document which
outlines the communications and workflows used by our community with
a focus on explaining to managers and other staff at contributing
organizations what allowances they can make to ease and improve the
experience of those they've tasked with working upstream.

If the barriers are instead imposed by national government, then
urging contributors within those borders to flaunt the law and
interact with the rest of our community over IRC is not something
which should be taken lightly. That's not to say it can't be solved,
but the topic then is a much more political one and our community
may not be an appropriate venue for those discussions.

> In the past, we made clear for a couple of times why IRC is our
> communication channel. I don't see those reasons to be invalid
> now, but I'm still open to understand the problems about why our
> community becomes de facto fragmented.

I think the extended community is already fragmented across a
variety of discussion fora. Some watch for relevant hashtags on
Twitter and engage in discussions there. I gather there's an
unofficial OpenStack Slack channel where lots of newcomers show up
to ask questions because they assume the OpenStack community relies
on Slack the same way the Kubernetes community does, and so a few
volunteers from our community hang out there and try to redirect
questions to more appropriate places. I've also heard tell of an
OpenStack subReddit which some stackers help moderate and try to
provide damage control/correct misstatements there. I don't think
these are necessarily a problem, and the members of our community
who work to spread accurate information to these places are in many
cases helping reduce the actual degree of fragmentation.

I'm still trying to make up my mind on 602697 which is why I haven't
weighed in on the proposal yet. So far I feel like it probably
doesn't bring anything new, since we already declare how and where
official discussion takes place and the measure doesn't make any
attempt to change that. We also don't regulate where unofficial
discussions are allowed to take place, and so it doesn't open up any
new possibilities which were previously disallowed.
--
Jeremy Stanley
Re: [openstack-dev] [Openstack-sigs] [tc]Global Reachout Proposal [ In reply to ]
Sylvain Bauza wrote:
>
>
> Le mar. 18 sept. 2018 à 14:41, Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org
> <mailto:fungi@yuggoth.org>> a écrit :
>
> On 2018-09-18 11:26:57 +0900 (+0900), Ghanshyam Mann wrote:
> [...]
> > I can understand that IRC cannot be used in China which is very
> > painful and mostly it is used weChat.
> [...]
>
> I have yet to hear anyone provide first-hand confirmation that
> access to Freenode's IRC servers is explicitly blocked by the
> mainland Chinese government. There has been a lot of speculation
> that the usual draconian corporate firewall policies (surprise, the
> rest of the World gets to struggle with those too, it's not just a
> problem in China) are blocking a variety of messaging protocols from
> workplace networks and the people who encounter this can't tell the
> difference because they're already accustomed to much of their other
> communications being blocked at the border. I too have heard from
> someone who's heard from someone that "IRC can't be used in China"
> but the concrete reasons why continue to be missing from these
> discussions.
>
> Thanks fungi, that's the crux of the problem I'd like to see discussed
> in the governance change.
> In this change, it states the non-use of existing and official
> communication tools as to be "cumbersome". See my comment on PS1, I
> thought the original concern was technical.
>
> Why are we discussing about WeChat now ? Is that because a large set of
> our contributors *can't* access IRC or because they *prefer* any other ?
> In the past, we made clear for a couple of times why IRC is our
> communication channel. I don't see those reasons to be invalid now, but
> I'm still open to understand the problems about why our community
> becomes de facto fragmented.

Agreed, I'm still trying to grasp the issue we are trying to solve here.

We really need to differentiate between technical blockers (firewall),
cultural blockers (language) and network effect preferences (preferred
platform).

We should definitely try to address technical blockers, as we don't want
to exclude anyone. We can also allow for a bit of flexibility in the
tools used in our community, to accommodate cultural blockers as much as
we possibly can (keeping in mind that in the end, the code has to be
written, proposed and discussed in a single language). We can even
encourage community members to reach out on local social networks... But
I'm reluctant to pass an official resolution to recommend that TC
members engage on specific platforms because "everyone is there".

--
Thierry Carrez (ttx)

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