zulip/docs/chat-zulip-org.md

The chat.zulip.org community

chat.zulip.org is the primary communication forum for the Zulip community.

You can go through the simple signup process at that link, and then you will soon be talking to core Zulip developers and other users. To get help in real time, you will have the best luck finding core developers roughly between 17:00 UTC and 2:00 UTC or during office hours and sprints, but the sun never sleeps on the Zulip community. Most questions get a reply within minutes to a few hours, depending on the time of day.

This is a bleeding edge development server

The chat.zulip.org server is frequently deployed off of master from the Zulip Git repository, so please point out anything you notice that seems wrong! We catch many bugs that escape code review this way.

The chat.zulip.org server is a development and testing server, not a production service, so don't use it for anything mission-critical, secret/embarrassing, etc.

Community conventions

• Send any test messages to #test here or as a PM to yourself to avoid disrupting others.
• When asking for help, provide the details needed for others to help you. E.g. include the full traceback in a code block (not a screenshot), a link to the code or a WIP PR you're having trouble debugging, etc.
• Ask questions on streams rather than PMing core contributors. You'll get answers faster since other people can help, and it makes it possible for other developers to learn from reading the discussion.
• Use @-mentions sparingly. Unlike IRC or Slack, in Zulip, it's usually easy to see which message you're replying to, so you don't need to mention your conversation partner in every reply. Mentioning other users is great for timely questions or making sure someone who is not online sees your message.
• Converse informally; there's no need to use titles like "Sir" or "Madam".
• Use gender-neutral language.
• Follow the community code of conduct.
• Participate! Zulip is a friendly and welcoming community, and we love meeting new people, hearing about what brought them to Zulip, and getting their feedback. If you're not sure where to start, introduce yourself and your interests in #new members, using your name as the topic.

Streams

There are a few streams worth highlighting that are relevant for everyone, even non-developers:

• #announce is for announcements and discussions thereof; we try to keep traffic there to a minimum.
• #design is where we discuss the UI design and collect feedback on potential design changes. We love feedback, so don't hesitate to speak up!
• #documentation is where we discuss improving Zulip's user, sysadmin, and developer documentation.
• #production help is for production environment related discussions.
• #test here is for sending test messages without inconveniencing other users :). We recommend muting this stream when not using it.
• #translation is for discussing Zulip's translations.

There are dozens of streams for development discussions in the Zulip community (e.g. one for each app, etc.); check out the Streams page to see the descriptions for all of them. Relevant to almost everyone are these:

• #checkins is for progress updates on what you're working on and its status; usually folks post with their name as the topic. Everyone is welcome to participate!
• #development help is for asking for help with any Zulip server/webapp development work (use the app streams for help working on one of the apps).
• #code review is for getting feedback on your work. We encourage all developers to comment on work posted here, even if you're new to the Zulip project; reviewing other PRs is a great way to develop experience, and even just manually testing a proposed new feature and posting feedback is super helpful.

Office hours and sprints

Every few weeks, we hold meetings on chat.zulip.org: office hours or sprints. Anyone can schedule one: announce it in #announce and on the zulip-devel mailing list a few days ahead of time, and ideally, tell Sumana so she can put it on the public Zulip meetings calendar.

Office hours are simply times for us to informally discuss current priorities, find out what questions people have, and so on. We set them up so people know there'll be more people around at a particular time to chat. You don't need to RSVP and you don't need to show up on time or stop conversations when the "hour" stops. They start in #general and conversations move into other streams and topics as they come up.

Sprints are times when Zulip developers get together in chat, and sometimes in person, to work on related issues at the same time.