Communication channels#

There are a few different communication channels with 2i2c, depending on your team and what kind of communication you’d like to have. See below for details.

Communication guidelines#

Most communication should be asynchronous. A person should be able to meaningfully participate in the conversation at a different place and time. If you must have a synchronous conversation or meeting, at a minimum document the meeting notes and post them publicly so that others can see. If it is a planned meeting, post the agenda at least 24 hours in advance so others can decide if it makes sense to attend.

Use synchronous conversation when it is really needed. In general, we pay a high penalty for coordinating a single meeting time. For this reason, keep synchronous meetings to moments where we strongly benefit from real-time communication (e.g. discussing particularly complex or sensitive questions).

GitHub Issues and Projects#

For most team communication, we use GitHub Issues and Pull Requests. See Workflow for more information.

Slack#

Most of our synchronous communication happens in Slack. There are a combination of private and public channels for different kinds of communication.

Public channels#

Our public channels cover general topics that are relevant to 2i2c, and a space for us to connect with other community members that reside in our Slack. Generally speaking, anybody can be invited or added to a public channel.

Private channels#

Private channels are spaces for the 2i2c staff to have internal discussions that benefit from extra privacy and clearer scope. We use them in order to have a space for our team to speak freely with one another, discuss sensitive topics, etc.

Below are a list of private channels for our teams. For these channels, all 2i2c staff may get access.

In addition, we occasionally create private channels for specific projects or topics. In this case, the channel creator can invite the people that they believe need visibility into the conversation.

Conversations that should not be in Slack#

Any conversations that are important or that should be remembered outside of the immediate context should be encoded as Discussion threads, GitHub Issues, or otherwise put in a more asynchronous place so that others may discover it and participate.

Here are things that should not be conducted in Slack, but instead put in an issue or other “Source of Truth” location:

  • Important updates on the status of a project or issue

  • Decisions that were made from conversations in Slack

  • Important dates or deadlines announced on Slack

  • Major bugs or problems that were unconvered on Slack

  • New ideas that warrant follow-up

Zoom#

Our team has a dedicated Zoom room that anybody on the 2i2c team may use. We try not to publicly post this link to avoid the likelihood of abuse.

To access the room, ask any team member for the URL and password to join.

See Access the zoom account for information about how to access the account.

Personal e-mail#

Each of 2i2c’s team members has an @2i2c.org email account. We generally use e-mail to communicate externally. We use Slack, GitHub issues, and Zoom to communicate internally. However, if it’s important communicate something to a team member that isn’t suitable for a GitHub issue, and needs to be more permanent than Slack, then it’s fine to send e-mails.

Shared e-mail via Google groups#

We use shared e-mail addresses via Google Groups to allow multiple people to check a single shared inbox. By joining the group behind one of these groups you’ll be able to receive e-mail it receives, and you may also send e-mail via this address. We also may connect these addresses to external services like FreshDesk to share information between them in a way all team members can access.

See our Google Workspaces documentation for more information.