Dilution in ...communication channels

[lovejoy]

I agree that not reducing the number of, but indexing and promoting the various channels is the way to go.  In diversity is strength, and we will in time see which services are preferred by users for which reasons.  Also, I second the notion that hiding the bitsharestalk forum chat isn't a bad idea, I remember having the 'ghost town' experience there when I first started coming around... it's misleading at best.

[EstefanTT]

There is an easy fix for that. What we could have is a header or footer included at the forum page with all the conversation channel links. And why not all the bitshares projects / web site related. It's hard to keep up even for someones who read the forum every day.
That could be done quickly and kept update easily.

[noisy]

I don't think it is a bad idea to have multiple communication channels .. every new user can pick whatevery they like most ..

This is a valid point as long as user is aware of all option. We have to make sure, that new user unconsciously will not pick random channel, which is the least used.

A lot of users approach bitshares via this forum. For me I remember the first place where I tried to find some direct help... was forum's chat. No one was there. If forum's chat is not used at all, that mean chat lost the race, and should be removed for the good of the community. Right now chat bring only more confusion.

How could we possible create a decentralized ecosystem if we have a centralized gathering point that has had outages already?
Can you guys remember what happend when bitcointalk went down?

I we want to build a decentralized ecosystem... that mean that all nodes need to be connected somehow. (CC: @cass) We should have separate section on bitshares.org where all known and used communication channels should be listed. Then... we could call all of it as Strategy. Right now this looks like a mess, not a distributed or decentralized communication channels.

@roadscape could you add to cryptofresh.com a list of all communication channels with stats?  How many messages were sent in last day,  how many participants said something,  how long was a message (on average). With something like that... this could look like a decentralization.

[lafona]

Also you can subscribe to all of them and have nearly non stop bitshares discussion. @sudo do we currently have a wechat group or channel?

[xeroc]

How could we possible create a decentralized ecosystem if we have a centralized gathering point that has had outages already?
Can you guys remember what happend when bitcointalk went down?

I don't think it is a bad idea to have multiple communication channels .. every new user can pick whatevery they like most ..

BTW .. you forgot reddit/bitshares and the irc channel on freenode

[sudo]

wechat is more easy

[noisy]

In my opinion community is the most important thing for each cryptocurrency. When new user approach bitshares first time for sure he or she has a lot of questions.

Right now there are 6 IM communication channels (which I am aware of) used by community:

• chat on forum: http://bitsharestalk.org/chat/
• Mumble: https://beyondbitcoin.org/mumbleinfo/
• Telegram: https://telegram.me/joinchat/BYoMpwH95HL-crZbLpMiAA
• brand new Slack channel: http://slack.bitshares.org/
• cryptonomex dev Slack channel: https://graphn.slack.com
• new service developed by cryptofresh: https://cryptofresh.com/posts

and... a lot of people thinks that we need another one: trollbox in wallet

As you can guess... this bring a lot of dilution for our community. In new user's eyes we may seem to be very small group of people... which is simply not true!

Each mentioned communication channel was created for a reason. Some of them for sure will not be removed because of unique technical features, like Mumble which is audio conference tool not just simple IM.

What we need is Strategy. Here are few my propositions:

• we should have main communication channel promoted by whole community. In my opinion the main candidate should be brand new http://slack.bitshares.org/. IM on official subdomain looks very elegant.
• we should remove link to chat on forum (http://bitsharestalk.org/chat/) from forum's header. I never seen anyone there. In my opinion it is completely abandon. We should replace link to chat with link to http://slack.bitshares.org/
• I think we should think about building trollbox on top blockchain (bitshares blockchain... or some helper-blockchain). If I understand correctly (CC: @roadscape), https://cryptofresh.com/posts already works that way. In that case that should be easy to integrate with wallet. Why we need trollbox? IMO trollbox is a tool for traders, concentrated on what is going right now on the market.
  
• if we choose slack.bitshares.org as main communication channel, we should abandon Telegram
• Dev chat is another thing. Of course I understand that Cryptonomex may need own inner communication chanel. FYI right now https://graphn.slack.com requires invitation. But Bitshares needs own public channel for developers. In my opinion #dev channel on http://slack.bitshares.org/. It would be great if all cryptonomex employees involved in Bitshares project join that channel as well. They should be available to community.
• Slack is not an alternative to Mumble, however we should somehow link one with another. Before each official hangout there should be send reminder about that on main #bitshares channel. In that way, more peaple will notice it.

So in the end, we should have three communication channels:
* slack
* mumble for audio conferences
* trollbox based on blockchain