Any anger felt towards Slack’s suspension is justified, certainly. But let’s not look at its existence with rose tinted glasses. It was rife with in fighting and mistrust. It was an amazing place for community, yes, but it was an exclusionary community. In shifting the majority of our conversation to Slack, we began to exclude the other users. It became a place for us and only us to speak, and new users were left out in the cold.
As Slack use increased, forum use decreased. We can claim that it was solely a place for off the record banter, but a significant portion of our theorizing, analysis and information dissemination moved from the public to our gated community. We damaged Tension by doing this.
I agree, we need a place less formal than the forums to be irreverent and to shoot the shit. I’m speaking with Them to see if we can get something set up. But we have lingered too long in places that, by their very nature, exclude those that we should be welcoming
