Mixed first MM days

Troubleshooting
1

We have been looking for a new chat framework that we would could professional developers on to make a solution urgently needed. I’ve personally tried to feel about the traction, ideas and vision the last three days. But, while the technology is solid, I must say I am a bit disappointed… although that might have been due to too high expectations.

My biggest gripe is it seems that the threshold to contribute is quite confusing:

  • there is this forum with unsorted topics ( https://forum.mattermost.com/ ) - nice, friendly and essential, but not enough structure to get things done
  • there are multiple MM channels ( https://pre-release.mattermost.com ) - confusing stuff
  • Github issues, normally used to mention things that go not as expected, MM uses them for code breakers only it seems (?)
  • The Atlassian project plans ( https://mattermost.atlassian.net/ )
  • Voting channel ( https://mattermost.uservoice.com/forums/306457-general ) Seems I can only vote 3x ? And that for any issues. So, in Github when I posted an issue, I consider a usability bug, I’ve been asked to make this into a feature request. Which of course I can not do… I dont wanna waste my precious votes on bugs…

So… a bit of a mess and strange that in this Slack dominated world, there is still no coherent Open Source alternative. We are pondering about our next move. Fork MM and do more ourselves? Go for MM and hope for the best? Something else? Ohh… help :slight_smile: ))

2

Hi @Tom,

Appreciate your interested and your thoughtful feedback these last few days. A few thoughts:

  1. Mattermost is a explicitly a self-hosted team communication solution providing an alternative to proprietary SaaS.
  2. What matters most for teams is not what matters most for a proprietary SaaS service, and accelerating the use of proprietary SaaS is not a priority of this project.

For example, the idea of requiring permission to change a channel header doesn’t fit the criteria for being a bug.

In a team, when someone changes the header, they’re probably trying to be helpful. Any change is recorded in the channel, so if it wasn’t helpful, a polite conversation can occur to correct.

s
cbc25e92-e536-11e5-8838-cc744034dd4d.png1241×851 125 KB

To translate this to a real world example, when you walk into a conference room there aren’t permissions to use the whiteboard, there is a social norm in teams to use it appropriately.

You are more than welcome to open a feature idea (and perhaps an offer to contribute) if you feel this change is a priority.

We purposefully use the voting system, rather than GitHub issues, so:

  1. Community members who are less articulate (particularly those whose English is not as strong) can be influential
  2. There’s more clarity on what the community wants, versus individuals.

Each system–feature idea forum (feature ideas), GitHub issues (bugs), forum (troubleshooting and discussion), pre-release (contributor discussion and testing of pre-released versions), Jira (approved work items)–serves a specific purpose, just as the product serves a specific purpose.

3

Thank you for the extensive answer, @it33. There is no doubt we can contribute in both effort as well as some funds where applicable.

By now, I understand that the Mattermost focus is a bit different than ours, as we focus on closed groups in one value-chain : associations and its members, universities and its students or companies and their distributors.

When we take the plunge it is costly to change later, hence the emotions and energy. Basically we need confidence that we can achieve our goals one way or the other, but are unsure if we can…

+1 for the pleasant atmosphere here :slight_smile: