Chatroom for Contributors and Developers

[mprobson]

Many open source software projects have a dedicated chatroom to discuss their project, welcome newcomers, and provide rapid feedback. Might be something to consider in this context as well as a place for people to quickly ask questions, get help, and contribute without directly engaging with GitHub.

Some Examples:

• Gitter
• Slack
• MS Teams
• IRC
• Discord

Pros:

• Real time feedback
• Helpful space for novices intimidated by GitHub and worried about making mistakes
• Rapid discussion between all interested parties in a centralized hub as opposed to email, issues, PRs, SMS, Slacks, etc.

Some potential downsides:

• Fractures discussion between several spaces (as opposed to concentrating discussion here)
• Potentially adds yet another service novices must sign up for (Gitter uses Twitter/Github so this wouldn't be a problem)
• Could obscure some conversations that happen in private channels (yet those might already be happening anyway and some projects, i.e. Gitter, are public be default)
• More management overhead for maintainers, e.g. moving messages into issues (I am happy to help with this)

I am happy to elaborate on the pros/cons of each and/or set up the service if that'd be helpful, just let me know!

[cgreene]

@mprobson : is this something you'd be willing to lead up? Seeing the interest level in #17 I'm thinking that we'll want a place to at least coordinate folks who can help those who are newer to Git/GitHub. I've used gitter before, and I agree that not having to have a new account is a strength. If you're willing to lead this up, I'll defer to you on what the way to go is :)

[LucyMcGowan]

+1 for Gitter

[mprobson]

@cgreene Absolutely, I'll work on setting up a Gitter room ASAP. I had a quit chat with some of my colleagues at UIUC and they seem to like Gitter as well.

[mprobson]

Looks like someone in the org needs to start the chatroom to link it to this repo, I'll assist @rando2 with this process.

[mprobson]

We're live at https://gitter.im/covid19-review/community

[cgreene]

I'm there! 👋 Do you want to file a PR to add this to the README.md?

[mprobson]

You read my mind! I can also add it to the text if you'd prefer.

[cgreene]

What do you think about adding a link to it, the introduce yourself, and the overall repository readme explicitly in the Abstract section of the paper? I figure some folks will get here by landing on https://greenelab.github.io/covid19-review/ and won't know to click the "automatically generated from..." part to get to GitHub and contribute.

[mprobson]

Seems like a great idea. We could also fence it off in a (new) contribution section(?) between the Abstract and Intro.

[cgreene]

Yes! Even better - perhaps "Where to Contribute" with a very short set of pointers? I'm big on DRY but getting folks to the right place is important :)

[mprobson]

On it! Also, very glad to hear you're a fan of DRY :)

[mprobson]

See #23 , I'm still waiting on CI test to confirm links work.