Moving Oban Support to the Forum

[sorenone]

tl;dr We’re switching from Slack to the Forum as the primary support channel for Oban and Oban Web+Pro. (At least, this is our attempt to)

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The oban channel on the Elixir Slack has served us and over 1,000 Oban users marvelously, for many years. However, it’s sorely lacking compared to the forum in some key areas:

Limited visibility

Discussions on Slack aren’t searchable from the internet, and with limited history they’re barely searchable from within Slack.

Minimal exposure

Newcomers to the community can’t easily find help without joining a private Slack, and it’s not obvious that it’s a support channel.

Limited history

The Elixir Slack is on a free plan and only retains old conversations for a short period. The rich discussions and troubleshooting that takes place in the channel disappears forever after mere months.

That’s why we’re asking Oban users and customers to please ask questions and start discussions on the forum, when possible and appropriate. Be sure to use the oban, oban-pro, and oban-web tags so that we get notified.

Don’t worry, we’ll remain active in the Elixir Slack oban channel! We’d rather you reach out in the method you feel most confident than not seek help or advice at all. No finger wagging will come your way!

The oban channel is still the recommended place to seek help when synchronous communication is critical (during an emergency, for licensing questions, and when you long to engage in chit-chat.)

Shannon & Parker

[pdgonzalez872]

This is an excellent decision. Slack is great, but it does create a silo (not on purpose of course), especially for new folks in the community.

Thanks!

[AstonJ]

This is great news! Though must admit I thought it was already your primary platform given the huge number of oban threads here… where you’ve already racked up over 100,000 views!

I’ll also repost this here from another thread in case it helps others see the benefit of forums:

@AstonJ

Forums are great because:

• The conversation is split over multiple timezones (so more people can get involved).
• Answers to any questions asked can not only help that person, but people the next day, week, month or even years into the future.
• Answers to any questions are quickly accessible via a simple google (very important for adoption and onboarding).
• This forum places great emphasis on SEO (the forum team does a huge amount here, such as with titling and tagging of threads).
• Conversations on a forum persist, so every thread counts towards the activity of a project - which attracts more users (so great for adoption).
• Asking questions on a forum helps prevent drain and burnout - as the core team and other members don’t have to answer the same questions over and over and over again.
• Forums are easier to moderate while at the same time allowing the community to grow, as there’s a good chance a mod can take action on unwanted content/conduct before any related parties get to see or react. This can save a project or community from imploding.
• Using this forum helps show more buzz and activity for Elixir (so helps Elixir)
• Asking questions (and for them persisting) help show other community members or those thinking about joining that they weren’t the only one with what they might have thought was a ‘daft’ question. This helps onboard people and get on board people who might have otherwise felt too intimidated or out of their depth.
• Elixir related projects can get exposure from within an existing large community (via this forum).
• Forums are better for projects that grow (proper categorisation and tagging helps ensure knowledge/content/news is more browsable and accessible, thus more enjoyable and less frustrating to use or get the info you need).
• Forums are publicly accessible/viewable.
• And lots more.

There have been many threads and posts highlighting the benefits of this forum over the years (some we mention in our updates, some others mention in their updates , and some people mention ad-hoc, whether that’s via PMs or posts on the forum or elsewhere). Of course forums (or even this forum) may not be to everyone’s taste, but from the perspective of a project (especially one that wants to grow sustainably) then forums usually offer them the greatest benefit.

I will add that chat rooms are great for the initial stages of a project (and is part of the reason we added them here ) particularly where the core team need to discuss things in real time to iron out project goals/details, but for pretty much everything else forums are better. The biggest appeal of a chat room from a user’s own perspective is that things don’t persist, hence attractive to people who don’t want others to see lapses in their knowledge (which is understandable - we’re just human) but as mentioned above this does not help the community.

If you want to help a project grow, not much comes close to a forum

I will add that when we move to our new platform every project will essentially get the same as what projects like Phoenix currently have (i.e a ‘full’ forum, with sections for news, chat, questions, etc)

[gmile]

This is fantastic news!