Bye bye Zulip, a failed experiment

[Ben Hutchison]

https://melbournecompose.zulipchat.com/ is going away. Bye bye 👋 An online chat platform is only useful if we use it, and for a variety of reasons, we haven't taken to Zulip. The interface is a bit weird.

The nail in the coffin was when I posted to Zulip that I was going to delete it, partly as a test.. and only one person responded, with a thumbs up!

In the larger scheme of things, I'd first choose In-Real-Life chats with people over pizza on Lygon than online interaction. IRL conversations are a rare and precious thing.. that we have resoundingly succeeded at 😁💬🗨️😆

But a community founded in IRL interactions will be enriched & supported by an online aspect. Somewhere to continue conversations that started in the meetup, plan future sessions, share a frustration as you feel it, or seek opinions and advice (in a way that feels different from a fully public forum).

Currently, there's this email channel, but I'm doubtful people see their gmail inbox as a place for conversation in 2025?

Discord then? It is awful after all... awfully widely adopted 😝

-Ben



PS thanks Grammarly but I think you might of missed the point

[John Walker]

FWIW we had similar experiences with Discord at MHUG

[Viktor Dukhovni]

> On 18 May 2025, at 8:28 am, Ben Hutchison <brhut...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Currently, there's this email channel, but I'm doubtful people see their gmail inbox as a place for conversation in 2025?
>
> Discord then? It is awful after all... awfully widely adopted 😝

FWIW, I am likely not representative, but for informal group communication
I prefer email over most other channels unless the group in question is core
to my everyday routine.

So Zulip, Discord, etc. may work fine for groups one is O(daily) actively
engaged in, but for sporadic hobby interactions email is IMHO best.

--
Viktor.

[Ben Hutchison]

Thanks for your feedback, Victor. 

Email via the Google group remains a live option. Likely with a little time such a habit could become established. 

Ben

[Frank Jung]

I like the idea of email / Google group. No additional software or website to visit or to install, access anywhere.

frank

[Max Ma]

Thanks for Ben and other organisers for maintaining the public forum and group communication infra for everyone. As a new participant, doesn't seem to matter much either way to me. When I imagine myself in your position, I'd consider if having Zulip add much cost to my maintenance routine, i.e. paying for the platform, need to duplicate every notification across both channels, need to check every now and then for new messages to respond to. If such is tolerable, i'd just let it aside given that it seems to not an actively used tool for now, but it might be useful if circumstance changes, and only if letting it idle aside doesn't cause much problem...

Max