Yes, it happened on Slack

This is one of those moments worth calling out explicitly.

Yes, it happened on Slack

Here, it refers to a decision, an agreement, or some important results. All of these should NOT have been left on Slack alone. At the very least, the Slack threads or some key messages should have been copied into some more open and permanent places like Bugzilla or GitHub (in public issues).

It won’t come as a surprise; I don’t like Slack (but it wasn’t always like that). There is a reason for that: it is the antithesis of working in the open. What happens in Slack stays in Slack. What stays in Slack is basically lost forever. “Chat apps” aren’t the right tools for decision-making, especially when working with external contributors and distributed teams across the globe.

I understand the need for synchronous communication, but (1) we have Matrix at Mozilla, which is open at least, and (2) we should not use Slack for asynchronous communication. Let’s just use it for quick feedback, instant chats about sensitive topics, GIFs, and emojis on every other message. Jokes aside, it’s easier to restrict some content than to publish private content more broadly.

Working in the open is what makes Firefox and other Mozilla products so special: anyone can contribute. Each individual can find information about a decision on GitHub or Bugzilla. I personally dig into old GitHub issues at least once a week, usually with a question in mind like “why did we do that?”. Back then, everything was either relatively well documented on GitHub/Bugzilla or captured in broadly accessible Google Docs, which makes it possible to answer my question. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for me to “request access” to some docs I have to read for my own work…

We should continue to use open and accessible platforms to capture not only the decisions but also the “why” (context), and keep them available for the future. Not only will this be useful to us, but it will also allow our contributors to participate even more and feel more “in the loop”.

Note: this article reflects my experience within my team at Mozilla, but the views expressed may be relevant beyond that context.