WhatsApp group?

#1

Hi I was wondering if there’s a WhatsApp group for SLMS?
Ta.

#2

I know there was a group with SLMS logo that was available only to some members called ‘make the space’ Is it still there? @directors

#3

I’m against creating/using more than one discussion space.
The fragmentation of information is hard enough to manage with just one!
Which isn’t to say that the single space should be discourse, but only that we should just have one.

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#4

Agree that the fewer platforms the better but a more real time chat platform would be nice. Discord works pretty well for lots of makery communities. It has threads for topic based discussion too.

#5

Yeah there is a WhatsApp group floating around I’ve seen screenshots from it, it’s unmoderated and can get quite unpleasant

#6

Not all users are on Whatsapp (i don’t use it for example - prefer to keep my conversations away from Facebook where possible)

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#7

I am strongly opposed to an additional realtime chat platform for community communications like this. Several reasons (some of which are based on my personal experience):

  1. It’s fragmentary. If a Director (or someone with social clout) makes a declarative statement on another coms channel, it can become a statement of record for people on that channel, while everyone else remains oblivious.
  2. It’s not discoverable. Discord, whatsapp, signal, telegram, it doesn’t matter. You won’t find it on google, and unless you know it exists you don’t tend to see it.
  3. It’s too immediate. Unless you’re on it 24/7 you risk missing out on important conversations/decisions, and it discourages slower thoughtful posting. I’d never be able to take my time and write out a post like this on Discord, for example! Also, that immediacy encourages quick and/or unconsidered replies. The atmosphere in a chat room can get toxic very quickly, I’ve found.
  4. It’s difficult/impossible to track down the written record of a decision or topic. Due to the above three qualities, conversations are interleaved, unthreaded, untagged. You might remember that person X said Y yesterday, but 12 months down the line, you’ll spend all day playing detective trying to piece together a conversation. On a threaded, topic-based forum, this is a much easier task.
  5. It’s painful to moderate. Because conversations move so quickly, things can go from polite disagreement to nuclear war in a matter of minutes. And because posts are so short, the problematic posts can come thick and fast, interleaved between people trying to take sides or calm the situation.

Even if #1 was made irrelevant by making realtime chat the only coms channel, the other points would still stand.

That said, ad-hoc whatsapp groups or whatever are inevitable. I would expect the various techs to have their own private groups for example, and I don’t need or want to see what’s going on in them. But I would caution against trying to get a whole-space group going. It could end up having unfortunate social effects, IMO.

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#8

Discord server still up but barely used

#9

OK. I was just wondering. I thought one existed already. :+1:t5:

1 Like
#10

:smiley: Sorry I went off on one a bit there

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