using-chat.md

type	explains
guide	What our staff chat tool is, how to get started and its do's and don'ts

Using chat.publiccode.net for staff

We use Mattermost, hosted at chat.publiccode.net, for informal chat purposes.

Mattermost lets us create multiple teams with different members.

We have 2 teams right now:

• our staff team
• North America team

Guidelines

Discussions on chat.publiccode.net are:

• timely
• optional
• secret

Send an email for all non-optional interactions.

Channels

We have channels that reflect our work, plus some crosscutting topics.

Feel free to create new channels as you discover you need them.

When creating a new channel for an activity documented on About, please standardize the label between chat.publiccode.net and about.publiccode.net - what we talk about is the most honest reflection of what we're actually doing.

Getting started

Take these steps to join the staff team.

1. The operations coordinator will send you an invitation.
2. Set up your account. Please use the same name from as your email address as your username so it’s easy to see who’s who. Also, please upload an avatar (👹) and fill in your full name.
3. Join relevant channels!
4. Add integrations. We encourage you to /github connect. You may also want to add /github settings notifications off and /github settings reminders off if you don't want Mattermost to send you emails about Github issues or pull requests you're subscribed to.
5. Say hi 👋👋.

Sensitive information

It's easy to delete information from chat.publiccode.net, but it's even better to not have to. As a reminder, this personal information is protected by GDPR and shouldn't be shared on chat.publiccode.net:

• racial or ethnic origin
• political opinions
• religious or philosophical beliefs
• trade union membership
• processing of genetic data
• biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person
• health
• sex life or sexual orientation