They were needlessly inflammatory, but none of that changes the fact that something requiring you to watch a 2-min video to get started does not pass the [non-inflammatory term for non-technical person but you know what I mean]-test.
I'm saying this in a jocular tone, because - otherwise - the reality is too depressing. But I know people like this.
Anyone with a large enough social group will have some people like this. These are people who've engaged in football, boxing or contact sports like rugby. Or, people with severe ADHD. Or have had some kind of traumatic brain injury. These are real users and they're my friends.
I won't switch to using your application if they're going to be left out in the cold.
If a messaging application can't be used by that person, then that's a default fail. I'm not going to expose them to it.
But you will expose them to Discord's nagging popups for random quest thingies, animated emojis, disorganised channels, etc.? It sounds like you've already decided it's a foregone conclusion.
I am not arguing from a particular desire to get your jock friends on Zulip. Like I said in another subthread, I consider Zulip to be mainly for people who want to achieve things together, not just hang out. It's a productivity app. I wouldn't recommend it as a social app. Why I'm replying is because I feel your approach to the discussion is a little... uncharitable?
They're already using discord. It's a single click.
I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not here to argue particulars. I'm sharing my reality as a user. A user who runs multiple communities. Including one for my friends. And my friend group extends to 2k+ people (my friends, their friends, their friend of friends... It adds up).
It's not fair that the CTE friend uses discord out of the box, but that's the power of network effects. Any competing solution needs to be 10x better to incentivise the switch.
I can setup a new discord server in a click. Versus,
Sponsorship and discounts
Contact sales@zulip.com with any questions.
Community plan eligibility
Open-source projects
Research in an academic setting
Academic conferences and other non-profit events
Many education and non-profit organizations
Communities and personal organizations (clubs, groups of friends, volunteer groups, etc.)
Respectfully, I'm not emailing your sales team to create a movie night server. Or one for class / group notes. Actual use cases. https://zulip.com/plans/#self-hosted
You don't need to email the sales team unless you have questions about the policy. It should be clear that "groups of friends" are eligible from the text you quoted.
You just need to spend 2 minutes filling out a brief form that's integrated in the server setup process if/when you have more than 10 users on your server. We enjoy hearing the brief notes users provide about how they are using Zulip. Is that too much to ask in exchange for reliably delivering you a service that you use every day?
It takes quite a bit longer to install a self-hosted server or configure an organization for thousands of users than to fill out the form -- I'd expect most people to spend more than 2 minutes creating a VM before they even get to running the installer. I'd expect that nicely configuring a Discord server for 2K people takes hours.
Is there something that we could change in the website that would make it obvious this is not an onerous process? The purpose of the section is to make clear that self-hosting Zulip is free for this sort of non-incorporated community use ... but we do need to have some eligibility process where you describe what you are, or it's free for Amazon too.
Not the original commenter, but I have faced similar friction from people who are not grandmas or quarterbacks. I don't particularly agree with its tone, but I agree with the original commenter's general message.
I won't be so confident to identify what it is, but there is something that causes "end users" to bristle at Zulip.
Where I'm coming from, everyone uses Slack. I spearheaded an effort to switch to Zulip because our Slack server is on a free plan and our messages get sucked into the void after 60 days now. Everyone agrees that this is bad, and that we don't have the money for Slack premium (we're an academic organization, so AFAICT we wouldn't even have to self-host to avoid paying), and yet so many people do not want to switch. Here are some common responses I've gotten:
* I refuse to use another messaging app and Slack is nonnegotiable for some of my collaborators.
* I don't want to learn a new UI.
* I don't want to learn a new UI that isn't basically the same as Slack.
* I will only switch if everyone else switches.
This is half a social problem ("I will only be receptive if everyone is using this"), but I do think there is some legitimate friction in Zulip's UI. I am fairly confident that we could successfully switch to Zulip if the Slack dissenters could be convinced to use Zulip --- or if Zulip could somehow be coerced into being more Slack-like.
As the "agent of change" at my organization, I felt like the resources Zulip provides are lacking in what I really need. Like I know there are technical details on how to move to Slack (https://zulip.com/help/moving-from-slack), but what I really need is help with the above: convincing people to try and acclimate to the UI. And yeah, I kind of agree that a 2 minute video on how to use Zulip is not the resource I need since it presupposes a degree of openness and cooperation that I don't have access to.
These are somewhat disorganized thoughts, but happy to expand upon anything if you're interested. I really do want to successfully move our org to Zulip since I'm tired of our messages disappearing.
It's not required. It's just there if you want it. Zulip is easy enough to jump into, especially if you have friends who actually care to onboard you into a community.
Adminning a Zulip for a small community group, I've actually found I have better tools to help with this. E.g. in Slack, we had constant nags to "please reply in the thread!" In Zulip, I can just move messages where they belong, and either leave the automated notes there to show where the messages went, or DM the person to let them know what I did.
