In-team communication

Tasks people need to do go in GitLab, but that is not how tasks should be communicated. Whenever possible, anything important enough to be assigned is worth talking about in ‘real-time’ first, or concomitantly. Everything needed to understand an issue should be captured in GitLab, but we want to avoid back-and-forth ‘huh what?’ and ‘nuh-uh not me’ (un-assign)

Discussion that takes place outside of GitLab needs to be summarized (or copy-pasted) into the relevant issue in the GitLab project.

Try to get important meetings, internal as well as external, on your Agaric calendar.

Zulip

Our primary tool for internal communication is now Zulip, free software group chat software available as LibreSaaS.

agaric.zulipchat.com is our web interface.

Downloading an application is recommended.

E-mailing messages to Zulip

When BCCing a Zulip stream on a message to someone, Use the default that can be found under stream settings (click the gear icon you can get to from the down caret):

project.785f16fc671a5d8c0f2d4fbb161f16b3.show-sender@streams.zulipchat.com

When forwarding an e-mail to a Zulip stream, swap out .show-sender for .include-footer.include-quotes.prefer-html

project.785f16fc671a5d8c0f2d4fbb161f16b3.include-footer.include-quotes.prefer-html@streams.zulipchat.com

Hover over a stream in the lefthand column to get to stream settings; there’s also a link to a list of all streams that is easier: https://agaric.zulipchat.com/#streams/all

Stream settings pages are also key for getting the e-mail address for sending e-mail to streams, https://agaric.zulipchat.com/help/message-a-stream-by-email (their help is lightly customized to organization, so that “Your streams” link will work)

Real-time meetings with BigBlueButton

Agaric uses BigBlueButton (BBB) video chat for our daily Stand Up meetings and for client meetings. We have an account with meet.coop but currently primarily use our own instance, meet.agaric.coop.

Regular meetings include Monday, Wednesday, and Friday weekly rhythm meetings. More irregular meetings include as-needed worker-owner meetings.

IRC

#agaric

Agaric also maintains a channel for worker-owners only. NOTE: We have not been using IRC sine Zulip arrived, but some of us still hang out there and use it to connect with other developers that are not in Zulip.

Freenode has given us operator privileges for this channel. To use it, we need to register:

/msg nickserv identify mlncn pa55w0rd
/chanserv op #agaric mlncn

Some of our best clients are also on IRC, as are our partners at May First Movement Technology (#mayfirst on irc.indymedia.org).

Internal notes

Agarics can get more detail on communication channels in the wiki.