Start here for the most common questions from the community. Expand any item below to reveal the guidance contributed by ZATech members.
Follow this helpful flow chart to see if you’re allowed to post your job.
If that comes to “Go for it”, then have a look at: Where Do I Post My Job
Please note per the Code of Conduct that professional recruiting is not allowed.
For job posting guidelines, see the #jobpostings channel page.
Slack is not intended as a community tool and many people point this out.
There are alternative commercial platforms like Discord that offer more moderation and community features.
There are other alternative open source, or self hosted chat platforms.
There are a bunch of things that are more like forums than chat apps, but something in between, like Circle.
We’re not going to move unless we really really have to. We have 10 years of history in Slack, and many of our members open Slack daily for work. Many communities die due to moving and not being the default place people go.
ZATech is a non-profit and we’re on the NPO Slack plan. Previously, Slack did not enforce the 250 person limit for non-profits, but they’ve recently told us that they intend to start doing this so we’ll need to figure out how to find thousands of dollars to pay them, or downgrade to the free plan with limited features and history.
If you want to start you own Slack, the free version is pretty good if you don’t care about history (most people actually don’t). Alternatively, you can use Discord which currently provides more generous features for free.
The hard part is actually getting people to join and engage. ZATech was created by N1c 10+ years ago ’to chat with friends’ and the initial growth was organic, so we don’t have much advice on how to replicate that bit.
Inviting someone to the group is easy, simply send them to ZATech.co.za.
We don’t accept invites requested through Slack directly to ensure that new users go through the process of reading and accepting the Code of Conduct.
To have an announcement posted in #announcements-community you need to use the “Announce your Event” workflow. To do this
#announcements-community
Once the form has been submitted a request will be sent to the admins for approval.
Note: This workflow is only available when you are in the
#announcements-communitychannel!
Firstly make sure that both:
To post a job opportunity in #freelance-jobpostings we recommend you use the “Post a Freelance Job” workflow. To do this click the ➕⚡️ icon next to the input bar and fill in the form.
Once the form has been submitted a request will be sent to the approval team.
Please note per the Code of Conduct that professional recruiting is not allowed.
For job posting guidelines, see the #jobpostings channel page.
Firstly make sure that both:
To post a job opportunity in #jobpostings you need to use Sboj.dev.
Make sure you sign up as an “Employer”. Create a new “Seeking Role” entry, add all the relevant details, connect your Slack account and submit it for approval.
If you run into any trouble, please reach out either in the #sboj channel or mail hi@sboj.dev.
Please note per the Code of Conduct that professional recruiting is not allowed.
For job posting guidelines, see the #jobpostings channel page.
Our Code of Conduct discourages self-promotion, but definining self-promotion is somewhat of a grey area.
Don’t spam the channels with links, or links to pages, for the purpose of monetization of user views and which provide no value to the community
If you think your own project provides value and interest to the community, you can sometimes share it anyway, even if you have a financial incentive for doing so.
Some pointers:
#developers is generally pretty anti any kind of self-promotion while #shameless-advertising is open to most kinds of self-promotion (though clear spam/scam messages are still not allowed). Channels like #startups are somewhere in between. Read the previous messages and get to know some of the more familiar faces before posting self-promotional stuff.Follow this helpful flow chart to see where you should post your job.
If you’re not sure how to post your job, check out:
Please note per the Code of Conduct that professional recruiting is not allowed.
For job posting guidelines, see the #jobpostings channel page.