###### tags: `admin` `comms`

[TOC]

# Friendzymes - Comms - Chat Revamp v3

## About

- v2: 2021-10-27
- v3: 2021-11-08
- v2 not yet touched.
- v3 adds to v2 changes.

## Chat Bot

Timezone bot:
- possible to make it quieter / less prone to false negatives?
- one approach is probably to set a minimum time value to trigger on
- that would prevent it from replying to wetlab chatter etc.

## Chat Channels

### Ahmed.H_99 2021-11-01 12:58

We want a static channel [only mod edit access but viewable by all and at the top of welcome] (single message if possible) with all the important friendzymes links

One of the links being the opentrons protocols

I wouldn't change useful links nor help me to fit that though, just need to create a new one

# Friendzymes - Comms - Chat Revamp v2

## About

- Last revamp was last revised 2021-10-07.
- This revamp was last revised 2021-10-27.
- Most of "v1" was implemented as written.

## Chat Bot

Highly asynchronous / fully remote work is often messy.
Especially so with teams using different schemes, working on different deliverables.
I've found chatbots that interface with an overall task system help enormously.

I won't bother elaborating further until I've been able to discuss with IsaacG and IsaacL.

- Software currently uses (very loosely/haphazardly) a single trello board.
- Creative/Social currently uses (again, loosely) an airtable board.

## Chat Pruning

### Category: Welcome!

:::warning
Carried forward from v1 (not yet addressed):
:::

1. **#useful-links**
- try to re-scope into more of a papers-and-cool-finds hub

### Category: Admin

:::warning
Carried forward from v1 (not yet addressed):
:::

1. **#progress-updates**
- enable Announcements on this so it can be "followed"/syndicated
- Harini and Jeremy verified that `@caretaker` and `@moderator` can't do this.
- We think only server owner can do this.

:::info
New for v2:
:::

1. **Which channels hold continued relevance after iGEM?**
- It seems that all *topics* do, but keeping a channel for each will be arbitrary.
- In particular:
- `#collaborations` and `#human-practices` becomes a distinction without a difference
- `#safety` is just subsumed under wetware and the engineering channels
- `#social-media-hype` and `creative-design` almost fully overlap
- Topics that definitely need to retain dedicated channels include:
- `#wiki`
- `#fundraising`
- `#project-management` or similar
2. **What will be the \*main\* place where roadmapping/planning decisions are discussed?**
- seems like **#project-management** needs to be revived for this?

### Category: Engineering Hub

No Changes :)

### Category: Outreach

1. **Are all further collaboration efforts going under Outreach?**
1. **#london-biofoundry** vs. **#paml** vs. **#bioprotocols/#combine** vs. **#standards**…
- We have multiple collaborators on the PAML Pilot Project.
- They have multiple lab affiliations.
- Are we keeping the channel scoped to just London Biofoundry?

### Category: iGEM Collaborations

1. **When do iGEM collabs without followup become inactive/abandoned?**
- Sometime post-iGEM, presumably.
- So, end of November 2021?
1. **When are we following up?**

### Category: Manipal Hub

I don't know why this has its own hub, so I'll assume the iGEM collab questions apply.

### Hidden

We have two hidden channels. Do these need fixing?

1.`#pioreactor`
2.`#synbio-indonesia`

## Chat Roles

Some members were assigned to "DD" en masse in the past.
We still need to go in and correct this manually.

# Friendzymes - Comms - Chat Revamp v1

## About

- These are Jeremy's notes regarding chat refresh ideas and activities.
- Some of these ideas are purely my own.
- Some stem from discussion with Ahmed.

## Chat Backups

- We have discussed producing chat backups.
- Examples have been demo'd.
- This is doable on an ongoing basis by Jeremy.

## Chat Link Mining

- We have discussed knowledge / resource graph extraction via the chat backups.
- This can be done with increasing success with increasing manual intervention.
- At its most crude is a script that looks like this in pseudocode:
- extract all URLs
- export results to line-separated file
- sort lines
- `uniq` lines
- The above is zero manual intervention and nets all kinds of junk along with useful links.
- The next-most crude is to do the above, then:
- open all items in a browser, or
- pass all items to a crawler.
- This provides for basic characterization of what will be found *at* the links in question.
- From there, it's possible to begin to build whitelist and blacklist sets for future jobs.
- Then we chuck the links into an sqlite db…

## Chat Pruning

Chat cleanup would go a long way toward focusing both the team's and collaborators' comms.
Here are specific actions I would implement at the time of writing, 2021-10-07:

### Category: Archived/Retired

#### Create a category for filing away disused channels.

1. Name it something with "retired" or "archived" in the title.
1. Move it to bottom, where it should always stay.
1. Set it to read-only. Channels inherit this.

:::danger
Problem: Categories aren't #crossreffable or searchable via searchbox or ctrl+k shortcut.
Solution: Channels are. Add a dummy channel for jumping.
:::

#### Create a dummy channel inside this category.

1. Name it something with "retired" or "archived" in the title.
1. Move it to top of the category, where it should always stay.
1. Cross-ref to it when you need to refer to the category.

### Category: Team Discussion

#### For small servers, fewer voice chats is better

IMO: Server-wide, you should eliminate all but two voice channels.
That entails following the reccs below + removing each "Lunch Room".

#### Limiting details to this category for now

1. Eliminate the Team Discussion category itself.
- Out of sight, out of mind.
- The category keeps the VCs it contains collapsed and tucked away.
- People only join lonely voice chats they notice.
- Why do voice channels need to be segregated? They don't.
2. Reconfigure the voice chats.
- Eliminate one.
- Rename one to "Hangout".
- Rename one to "Work".

### Category: Welcome!

#### Retire these channels outright

1. #timezones
1. #roles
1. #i-want-to-learn

#### Update these channels

1. #introductions
- new user messages should go here, not #general
1. #progress-updates
- enable Announcements on this so it can be "followed"/syndicated
1. #useful-links
- try to re-scope into more of a papers-and-cool-finds hub

### Category: Engineering Hub

#### Merge the next two categories

They're both Core Team.
Just put them in Core Team.
Or Friendzymes Core.
Or Core Project.
etc.

#### Retire these channels

1. #wetware-test
1. #models
- conditionally, to be reactivated post-iGEM
- since it's not a competition criterion we're going for
- but it's a topic of continuing channel-level relevance

#### Update these channels

1. #wetware-build
- rename it to #wetware-build-test

### Category: Admin

#### Retire these channels

1. #science-education
- conditionally, to be reactivated post-iGEM if suitable
- it's a distraction and clutter right now
1. #cgem

### Everything Else: For Now, Just Alphabetize Collab Categories

Pending further discussion on what all these empty collab channels signify…