Say you want to contribute to a project and find out the only way to do so is by discussing the issue on IRC or the mailing list, then submitting the patch per email.
Say you want to contribute to a project and find out the only way to do so is by discussing the issue on IRC or the mailing list, then submitting the patch per email.
I'm fine with IRC (actually prefer it as I use it all the time).
I agree with others that a mailing list is more intimidating and more of a hassle, but if there is a web archive, I can live with that. It wouldn't be my preference, but it wouldn't be an insurmountable barrier (I have contributed to Alpine Linux in the past via their mailing list workflow).
Would you be more or less willing to contribute code and participate in discussions if newer technologies were used?
I would be less willing to contribute/participate in discussions if newer platforms such as discord, slack, or matrix are used. Of those three, I would prefer discord, then slack, then matrix.
As it is, I only use Slack for work, and mostly avoid discord and matrix except for a few mostly dead channels/servers.
I understand that this is not the mainstream view and that most people prefer the newer platforms, but personally, I am not a fan of them nor do I use them.
So #1 discord, #2 slack, and #3 matrix? Am I getting that right? Why that ranking?
It comes down to bridging. I use discord and slack via IRC bridges. I actually use slack a lot (for work), but primarily through irslackd. I do not use slack for anything outside of work and would prefer to keep it that way.
For discord, I primarily use it through bitlbee-discord. With this bridge/gateway, I can actually chat on different servers at the same time, so I wouldn't mind this for different communities if I had to.
Matrix is last because I don't really have a good briding solution for it and it just seems clunkier than the other two for me.