This transcript captures a community meeting where participants discuss recent achievements and pressing concerns. The meeting begins with the introduction of a returning member, Hamza, who shares his unique "two lives" as a tech professional and farmer. Key updates include the successful creation of initial content for the contributor webpage and the merging of usability tips for Slack with screen readers. A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the CNCF's potential move away from Slack to Discord for project communication, prompting participants, particularly Hamza and Ivan, to raise strong concerns about Discord's inaccessibility for visually impaired users. Action items are established to formally convey these accessibility issues to the CNCF. The group also outlines future plans, including developing accessibility best practices for blind and visually impaired conference attendees and speakers, and strategizes on promoting their new resources. The conversation highlights the importance of focusing on tangible impact and consistent contributions for community growth, rather than just large member counts, and addresses practical matters like accessing meeting recordings and notes.
Meeting Highlights and Key Takeaways:
0:00 Welcome and Introductions: The meeting welcomes a returning member, Hamza from Kano, Nigeria, a front-end developer and advocate for open-source community focusing on disability and inclusion. Hamza explains his periodic absence due to balancing a "tech life" with extensive farming activities.
0:12 Recent Progress on Contributor Webpage: The group successfully created and merged the first content for their contributor webpage, making initial information available to new members.
0:49 Slack Usability Content: Ivan created and merged content providing tips and tricks for using Slack with screen readers to improve daily usability, which is now available on the website.
4:18 CNCF's Slack Policy Change: A major point of discussion is the recent announcement from CNCF that Slack will no longer support projects, potentially leading to a move away from Slack for all CNCF projects.
5:42 Concerns about Discord's Accessibility: Participants, especially Hamza and Ivan, express strong reservations about moving to Discord, citing its poor user experience and inaccessibility for visually impaired individuals compared to Slack.
8:12 Action Item: Voice Discord Concerns: The group decides to post their concerns regarding Discord's accessibility in the dedicated CNCF Slack channel, with Ivan leading the post and Hamza reiterating support to ensure broader consideration.
10:02 Community Building Strategy: Discussion shifts to fostering community growth. Hamza emphasizes focusing on "impact" rather than just "large numbers," stressing the importance of consistent, valuable contributions to attract and retain members.
13:50 Core Pillars of the Group: The speaker reiterates the group's three core goals: advocacy, visibility, and building a supportive network, highlighting an instance where the group successfully connected two blind SREs as an example of network building.
17:44 Promoting New Assets: The group plans to promote their newly created content on social media. Ivan volunteers to draft a LinkedIn post, and Hamza volunteers to post on Twitter (X).
20:37 Next Project: Accessibility Best Practices for Conferences: The next major project will be to create "Accessibility Best Practices for Blind and Visually Impaired Attendees/Speakers for Conference Organizers" to send to the CNCF.
21:39 Empathy in Documentation: A key takeaway for the new best practices document is the importance of explaining why certain accessibility features are needed, to help non-impacted individuals empathize and understand the real-world challenges.
23:12 Collaboration Tools for Documentation: The group discusses using Google Docs for collaborative writing of the best practices document, with members bringing their initial ideas to a shared document for refinement.
27:47 Accessing Meeting Recordings and Notes: Hamza inquires about meeting logistics, prompting clarification that all CNCF meetings are recorded and uploaded to the CNCF YouTube channel (typically 5-10 days after the event), and links are shared in the Slack channel and meeting notes.