I don't regularly communicate except by email or text.
You occasionally communicate via eclectic webzine.
Oof, I don't know. What do you mean by 'collaboration?' Because my first thought TBH was 'one can't collaborate with more than ten people, whittle that down to the one or two people you can work with efficiently and just use Google Docs.'
Perhaps relatedly: The Calabat had his first group work assignment at school and he was so, so full of criticisms when he came home. They'd put the kids in groups to do timed math problems or something, and the group was slowing me down! I could have done it faster alone! He's not wrong!
Why not use an eclectic web magazine?
You can't survive these days on MENA or Africa or much of Asia without WhatsApp.
Not so much specific projects, rather, all the work that's (a) internal, (b) you want all members to have access to, and (c) so much it gets too much for mailing lists. Discussion, strategizing, sharing relevant articles/tweets/news, cross-promotion of other causes, enlisting people for specific projects within the larger work.
At my work we heavily use the Google version of Slack---it has largely replaced email for all small-group interaction---and I have to say it's absolute dogshit for staying on top of things. There's no way to mark a message/thread thread as "important for later" so you have to either respond to everything immediately and constantly be distracted or risk forgetting things (or strictly keep it closed most of the day but many things are time-sensitive).
I've used Slack with activist groups and it's never made much sense to me. I've been asked to use Discord and can't even get through the setup. So I guess that's my technological age right there.
Apparently, if you want to get on the raid parties for Pokémon Go, you have to sign up for their Discord. But who the fuck names a communication tool "discord." It's like naming your hospital "Iatrogenic infection center. "
Maybe the answer is that one tool won't work consistently for everything.
Isn't a Discord "server" not actually any kind of server? Maybe their core mission is linguistic anarchy.
12: Wait, is that true? I had no idea.
Sounds possible. I was able to set up my own server with just a few clicks and not knowing anything about how to set up a server in other contexts.
At the same time there is a lot of modding so many the real thing is also an option.
There's no way to mark a message/thread thread as "important for later"
There is. You can save it (little bookmark icon when you hover over a message) or pin it in the channel (kind of a "save for everyone" effect) by hovering and clicking the three vertical dots.
Like Cala, I'm unclear on what "collaborate" means in the post. At work, we use lots of tools; I'll list what we use, but there are always other options. Something for video chat (Zoom), something for project management (Pivotal or Jira), something for collaborative document editing (google docs), and something for messaging (Slack).
Oh, Yawnoc, you were talking about the google version of Slack. Sorry, misunderstood.
But, they have to pay you to use those things so they probably suck.
See what the Perfect Strangers fanfic group is using because they all are there for the art.
The thing I find missing in purposeful collaboration in digital spaces isn't tooling or whatever, but some set of procedures by which we agree what we're talking about doing, and decide on if we are going to do the thing, and what did we even agree to, and how do we decide how to decide. It's a social problem, not a technical one.
The hidebound traditions of your classic Robert's Rules meetings are probably due for an update, but I'm hard-pressed to think of anything compelling that I've run across.
21: this is a lot of what agile/scrum tries to cover. Started with software engineering, but a lot of it is applicable to other endeavors.
Lots of times people make very detailed plans when they have absolutely no control over the needed inputs. Then they try to get you to agree to deadlines based on the detailed plan. Then they wonder why nobody answers their questions at meetings.
You just kind of listen to their voice for tone and say reassuring things while projecting competence.
22: I don't disagree, I am in this world, but I have also yet to see any useful practices actually result other than maybe the "fist-to-five" technique (and I've heard that actually comes out of anarchist circles). Moreover, agile practices are at best useful tactically in my experience.
At work we use Teams, SharePoint, Confluence, and email for most things you'd call "collaboration". Which tool is used for what purpose varies from team to team. I have my preferences, but no one listens to me.
Among parents of kids at my kid's school, the most popular thing for sharing news and planning events seems to be WhatsApp. When there's an actual document that needs edits/review by multiple people, the preferred way is a Google doc.
Teams is shit for meetings. Like Zoom with shittier sound and more dropped connections.
SharePoint is a pain to use with SAS, but probably at least 10% of the workforce doesn't use SAS every day for five hours.
Unfortunately, Zoom isn't an option for me at work due to security settings or something like that. Problems with sound shittiness or dropped connections with Teams are dwarfed by problems with my computer's microphone (which happen, maybe not 100 percent of the time, but with more than one app/system) and my office's network setup.
SharePoint might find a niche is what I'm saying.
re: 22 and 25
I've sort of come full circle on Agile over the past few years. Moving from initial curiosity, to frustration and skepticism, and then back to it just being how I/we work. Not formal Scrum with all the ceremonies, though (even though I am a CSPO). There's nothing especially radical about it, or our processes, though. Decision making tends to be consensus, as we are never normally working in groups of more than about 6 at a time, but ultimately if there's no consensus, I decide.
There's nothing specific to software engineering about those processes. It's:
* look at what you've got to do (at some fairly abstract level)*
* generate a bunch of ideas
* collectively discuss and clarify them
* prioritise them
* work out roughly how many you all collectively agree you can do at once or in some reasonable time scale (whatever that might be but it shouldn't be too long)
* go through those ones you've agreed to do in a bit more detail to make sure everyone understands them and there's no hidden gotchas
* decide roughly who is going to do what and if there's any dependencies between the things
* crystallise those into some form that you can use to track work through the life of the period you are working on them (this is the part where the documentation gets longer than the sort of thing you can capture on a couple of post-it notes but it's probably still not huge)
* do the work
Repeat.
I agree with Ogged's list of tools: something for video/audio chat (we use several, as we have to use whatever our clients prefer), something for messaging (Slack), something for tracking/managing tasks (Jira and/or Git issues/projects), something for collaborative document editing (Google Docs). However, I'd add one: something for white-boarding. Something like Miro or Mural** makes certain kinds of meeting/collaboration so much easier to do.
We more or less always start some planning/discovery type session by throwing up a Miro board, getting on a call, and chucking post-its and sketches onto a board, exactly as if we're standing around a physical white-board. Post-its get questions added on, discussed, changed, thrown out, etc. We might sketch some ideas and add them into the board. Then at some point, we'll agree what we're doing. Coral all of the relevant post-its into a frame, drag them into priority order, and start fleshing them out with further detail. At some point, those will get linked to Git issues or Jira tickets for formal project tracking, and we are done. I find that kind of thing much harder to do via Slack discussions, or on Git Discussion style threads. It only takes an hour or two to plan out the work of a team for a week or two.
* with reference to some longer term strategic set of goals, or some specific thing you are being paid to do, or a review of the stuff you've already done
** not godawful shit like Google Jamboard.
Oh, yeah, our designers live in Miro. Learning curve is surprisingly steep, though.
32: After years of just assuming that it's meaningless jargon, this comment prompted me to find out what it means when a "learning curve" is "steep".
Teams is shit for meetings. Like Zoom with shittier sound and more dropped connections.
FTFY.
Email, Teams, and whatever you want to link to in email and Teams.
Teams is a bit more like Skype than Zoom, since unlike Zoom it lets you make ad hoc video calls that pop up on the other person's screen. That's just for work purposes for me though, I can't imagine using Teams in an activist organization.
(I don't use any of the Teams collaboration functions other than calls audio or video, though.)
I didn't know it was possible to make ad hoc calls with Teams. Now I really hate it.
37- As noted above, they're shit. Imagine viewing all your chats, documents, slides, spreadsheets embedded in a reallllllly slow browser with no tabs and minimal browsing history. There are all these shortcuts it's supposed to support for experts but it's so slow that when you type a shortcut it searches the company for someone named /orgMinivet
You can just call someone to an immediate Zoom from the app and if they have the app it will ring just like Teams, Facetime, etc (mobile or desktop).
I just like to manage expectations by periodically showing them tables I'm still drafting.
What's the etiquette for responding to someone's chat message in Teams/Skype/etc? I'm assuming that, even though it feels like someone walked into my office and started waving a note in my face, I shouldn't react according to that feeling.
41: in my office Teams chat is essentially the same as email, and far ahead of any third way to reach someone. I assume a lot of places are basically similar these days if they're still mostly if not entirely remote.
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What does the hive mind think about getting a vaccine booster if you don't fall into one of the categories where it's specifically recommended? I'm under 40 and not immunocompromised. It has been almost 11 months since my second shot, though. Is it acceptable? Is it needed?
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Get the booster. Demand isn't that high and it can only help you and others.
Yeah. Get the booster. There's no harm done and it is pro-social.
get it - megan's totally right on both points.
Slack, Dropbox, occasionally Overleaf. I live on Slack these days. Split between like ten different workspaces. The fact that the olds don't like it is a big plus.
By far my best online collaboration was with google wave. Nothing will ever compare.
Get the booster. Once it's in a fridge near you its shelf life is limited and if it doesn't go in someone's arm, it goes in a bin.
just as a general broadcast to Unfogged in general, when your parents said they'd give the broccoli to some little kid in Africa, they didn't have a logistical plan to get it there and they were trying to manipulate you. I get the feeling someone should break this to you and it may as well be me.
I have made an appointment for the booster, though I feel like it would do more good in other countries that haven't been able to vaccinate their whole population yet as we slurp up a large quantity perhaps annually forever; as many in as many arms as possible is still a net good.
when your parents said they'd give the broccoli to some little kid in Africa
Parents say that? How does that guilt a child? I thought it was "little kids in Africa are starving and you won't eat this?".
Everyone who is shitting on Teams is the most right on this thread.
I'm not sure our implementation supports the poop emoji.
Update: it has poop but not the poop with eyes.
Because I poop on company time, I answer emails and phone calls while shitting, but no zoom or teams even with the camera off.
53: That's what I thought. Not that my parents tried it with us.
43: It's fine. Most places aren't having booster shortages and we're probably days away from recommending boosters for everyone.
Yeah, I put off getting mine, because I was uncomfortable getting one before grocery workers. I will get one in a couple of weeks. Only putting it off that long, because I want a Friday or Saturday appointment so that I can recover, and the Wegmans scheduling app is easier.
I got one and on day 12 ended up standing next to someone for 10 minutes who tested positive two days later. I was at peak immunity and never had symptoms or tested positive. Maybe I wouldn't have anyway but I felt like freakin Superman with my anti-COVID powers.
I felt weird about jumping the line, but did it anyway, and then a couple of days later NYC opened boosters up for anyone over 18.
Further to 60: it was the original one I postponed due to ethical considerations. Now there's no domestic shortage.
I'll probably get mine in a month or so, that way I'm still magnetic at Christmas.
I won't have to drive hooks into my skin to hold the ornaments this year.
Thanks for the reassurance, everyone. I'll schedule an appointment as soon as I can identify another convenient provider besides CVS, because their Web site sucks worse than Teams.
66: Safeway's website looks good.
back to the original topics, a group wiki? barebones self hosted or free tier? A wiki for permanent stuff and free Slack for organizing stuff? KNowing that the slack was shortlived might get people to move discussion decisions into the wiki, maybe even in a reasonable place.
Desultory Googling suggests the easiest way to get a hosted wiki might be the free tier at gitlab or github, and you also get other group work support tools. This may be nuts for other reasons.
Have more people tried just letting their boss's assistant do everything?
re: 68
Github would be perfectly fine. You can set up a repo, add some Github pages (so you have a website), add a wiki, and add discussions (so you have a forum). You can use Github issues and project boards to track tasks and progress towards goals, and you have somewhere to store documents and files in the repo.
I have run projects just using Git. Sometimes I work with a client who prefers that approach to using a bunch of commercial stuff, and it's totally fine. I'd be absolutely happy doing it.
I've used most of the apps mentioned above and found that I hate Slack the least*. My last two projects used it. Zoom is okay but isn't really good for having a meeting where you are going to save the results. Yeah, you can save the video and the chat but who wants to revisit them afterwards?: nobody. GitHub/GitLab are good as side-apps to Slack. The real problem is actually getting people to use it/them properly. People are pretty terrible about branch management, for example, not to mention that branching is not usually a thing you need outside the software world.
Part of the problem is that there are so many of these apps and so little consensus about usage that remembering which one you are in from hour to hour is a major source of confusion.
*Sharepoint is the one I hate the most. It always seems to become a mess of un-curated, out-of-date garbage that has huge barriers to fixing the mess. (Maybe that's just how it is where I work: software projects are like associations of cats.)
While we're complaining about garbage software, our intranet supposedly has current news and also serves as an archive of documents like HR info or project announcements. It's designed by FailsSource and is almost completely useless. The search function doesn't allow phrase searches and places no priority on age of document or any other relevant metrics. For example, I wanted to find our benefits brochure from last year to recall what we had been offered. Instead I was getting files from 2017 where someone used the word "benefits" in slide 14 of their presentation.
Maybe they're watering down benefits and don't want you to find it?
I've been in a Discord community for abut 6 months, and with the threading, it seems like it could work.
For my work, though, it's email all the way.
Update: changing my vote to no on the booster shot. It makes your arm hurt, if you then drink a bunch of wine you'll get a hangover, if you slouch in an armchair for two hours you'll get a backache, and if you type constantly while in the armchair-slump you'll get RSI. TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE 0 STARS. I admit this might be unrelated but, less than 24 hours after I got the shot, freeway traffic was horribly backed up, and I have several Taylor Swift songs in my head at once all running around like ferrets. My friend got a booster along with me and none of this happened to her so I think they must not have given her the real thing.
I think it's Jake Gyllenhaal's fault.
You knew he was trouble when he walked in.