Hi Justin, I completely agree with your points. From a community standpoint, regardless of the specific chat or instant messaging tool used, it must be open to everyone and accessible offline or asynchronously. Any requirement—such as a login, specific language, or region lock—that prevents a portion of the community from participating is unacceptable.
My main point is that the tool itself doesn't matter; the features do. In essence, any tool is acceptable as long as it provides the same core features that the mailing lists provide for communication and record-keeping. Regards, JB On Sun, Dec 7, 2025 at 10:23 PM Justin Mclean <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > These are all interesting points. > > When it comes to accessibility, I mostly agree that bandwidth and English > fluency are less of a barrier than before. Still, I want to point out one > issue I keep running into: region-locked platforms. For example, some > projects use WeChat for discussions, which I can't access. Even for > globally accessible platforms, I usually have to sign up or create an > account, which means I need to use another client, which is a barrier to > entry. > > From the Incubator and ASF values perspective, this is one area where we > should make sure that core project discussions always have a globally > accessible home. > > I’m not arguing against using these platforms for social interaction; I'm > only saying that decisions, direction, and governance-level discussions > must always land somewhere globally reachable and archived. > > Kind Regards, > Justin > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > >
