Re: [CrisisCommons] Skype vs. IRC?

[Deborah Shaddon]

Thanks Atul,

We actually used to be an IRC community, like with the hundreds (thousands?) of users for haiti, etc., but the servers we used went away.  We've recognized the need in the crisis-commons-infrastructure-working-group to get back to this, Cambridge camp got us back up on freenode 2 weeks ago, but it wasn't really widely published or communicated.

This particular event had both going on in skype and freenode, but really, given osm, sahaha, and crowdflower use freenode, it alone is good enough reason to congregate there and we actually had some good cross-community support last night because we were there, but also for all the other reasons of simplicity, not to mention ubiquity.  And to do the cross-community collaboration, folks would have to have two tools anyway and we really want to try to limit that if possible.

We spoke on the all-city call today about clarifying the usage back on IRC for now, but for folks not comfortable with it, perhaps helping with some more training.  Those notes are on the pirate pad from today's camp page.

BTW, These discussions of tools and technologies are captured within the CCIWG which I've copied above, where we spend a lot of time in more indepth discussions, and documentation in a lot of cases, on tools and technology choices...the main thing is that we look to have clarity on use of a particular tool (like I said, we used to have irc just the servers went away), and try to be clear on it's adoption for the right context, and being very careful not to introduce another one....for instance, folks are using piratepad for 'chat' too....we've been clear that piratepad (other problems aside) is used for "content collaboration", ie, working on a plan or meeting minutes interactively...and the chat there is only to support that activity...the other collaboration via chat should be happening in the IRC.

There has been work to categorize and document all tool usage, based on observations, community feedback, experiences, usability, and complexity and supportability (we are very immature still as a community, so need to work within tools that are common and ubiquitious for now until formal strategies can be adopted)....that is discussion that is tracked in CCIWG if anybody likes that stuff, please join!!

Thanks,

Deborah

CrisisCommons Infrastructure Working Group Lead

On Sep 4, 2010, at 12:57 PM, Atul Varma wrote:

Hey, I noticed that there seems to be a bit of bifurcation amongst the volunteers between Skype text-chat and IRC.

My understanding, after talking to anahi on Skype text-chat, is that the original volunteer program for pkfloods started there, so it's where around 50 people are now, and using IRC seems like a newer convention, so it's where a number of the newer volunteers have joined. But it seems counterproductive to the community as a whole to have the schism, since that way the experienced folks on Skype can't transfer all their knowledge to the new folks on IRC.

The main disadvantage with Skype seems to be that a public chat requires an invite, which requires adding a friend who may not be online. Even if we posted a list of several coordinators that new volunteers could go down, there's still the edge case of none of them being online at the time, and also the hassle of a new volunteer having to go through the list before finding someone who's online. On the other hand, using webchat.freenode.net just requires going through a captcha; it's especially easy if one is given this link:

  http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=crisiscamp&uio=MTE9MzA4a8

That auto-joins them to the #crisiscamp channel as soon as they enter a nickname and pass the captcha, which is arguably easier than downloading the Skype client (if they've never used Skype before), figuring out how to add friends, and then going through a list of people to find someone who is online so they can invite them to the chat room.

Additionally, IRC is an open protocol well-understood by hackers, which makes it possible for volunteers to create tools called IRC bots:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat_bot

These can make life a lot easier for volunteers; for instance, if one was made that automatically detected when someone said something with the initials "UC" in it, like "does anyone know where UC Rahimabad is?", it could automatically perform some look-ups on the list of Union Councils in Pakistan and respond to them with a OSM link to where that area is. It's just one of many cool possibilities with the IRC route; I'm not sure if Skype has APIs that enable chat bots or not.

My understanding is that OSM, Crowdflower, and Sahana also have developer channels on Freenode IRC, which makes it much easier for inter-team collaboration to occur.

IRC definitely isn't perfect--I think it can feel kind of antiquated and intimidating at times--but it seems like the better of the two options to me right now, and I don't know of any other awesome alternatives (though I've been playing with the idea of prototyping one myself!).

It also seems like we should promote the IRC link front-and-center on all web properties, so that new volunteers can get connected with the live community as quickly as possible.  Or at least, this could be done until we're flooded with so many new volunteers that we can't help them all at once, which would be a great problem to have. :)

What does everyone else think?

- Atul

--
atul varma ⋅ toolness.com ⋅ @toolness

[Katie Filbert]

On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 5:15 PM, Deborah Shaddon <dsha...@comcast.net> wrote:

Thanks Atul,

We actually used to be an IRC community, like with the hundreds (thousands?) of users for haiti, etc., but the servers we used went away.  We've recognized the need in the crisis-commons-infrastructure-working-group to get back to this, Cambridge camp got us back up on freenode 2 weeks ago, but it wasn't really widely published or communicated.

IRC definitely works best for me, rather than conference calls or skype. 

Typically, I'm working out of a cafe or some place and w/ all the background noise, you wouldn't want me on a call but no issue w/ me being in an IRC meeting.  Freenode works fine or OSM uses oftc.net.  Don't care which, but strong preference for IRC over doing calls.

-Katie
 It has to be something super super important for me to arrange to be available for a call.

--
Katie Filbert
filb...@gmail.com
@filbertkm

[Katie Filbert]

On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 6:11 PM, Jeannie Stamberger <jeannie.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

Katie, clarification skype has a chat function with no audio- just like an irc but different method of joining etc. That is what we were using on Friday.

Jeannie

Jeannie,

Thanks for clarifying.  The chat feature would work for me, though still need to figure out where/how to find the chat rooms. (sorry, i'm ignorant, when it comes to skype)

-Katie

 

Sent from my iPhone

[Deborah Shaddon]

Katie/Jeanie/Atul,

...another thing we mentioned on the call today and you'll see on the wiki notes....there is what 'crisiscamps' do and then there is what the "communities that we engage with do"....a lot more focus on skype this time because one of the initiatives started on skype (crowdflower or sahana?), although we had a lot of chatter on the irc channels too (not the crisiscamp ones but others) for these as well.    When it comes to working within other-established-communities or tools, particularly those that crisiscommons is just a contributor, we will need to follow for them what is also their prescribed conventions.   

Which could make it confusing for some of our volunteers, particularly new ones, because we are the connector-community, and depending on who we are connecting with at the moment, we will have to adapt and integrate within 'those communities processes and tools'...and volunteers that move between areas will have to adapt....so crisiscommons has the historical perspective of the IRC and will likely land there for now for our core-community durrign these things, this doesn't mean we won't need to do other things too....the challenge that we will discuss is how to make that is clear as possible for volunteers who need to context-switch.  

So, being adaptive to other communities and tooling is actually part of the focus of the CrisisCamp day, Sept 25th, where we begin the work on Crisis Camp In a Box, for formal launch in 2011, that helps to make this more usable and  clear for volunteers.  Anybody can join and participate in that event too, besides joining the CCIWG (shameless plugs for support and participation...smile)...

Thanks!!

Deborah