diff --git a/templates/zerver/for/research.md b/templates/zerver/for/research.md deleted file mode 100644 index b6ba6a5f5f..0000000000 --- a/templates/zerver/for/research.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,180 +0,0 @@ -Zulip is designed to facilitate the collaboration of thoughtful people -all around the world working on difficult problems, which perhaps -describes academic research better than any of our other use cases. - -Zulip has long been popular with individual research groups, but -during the pandemic has started being used for large distributed -communities focused around research topics like category theory or the -Lean theorem prover. We enthusiastically provide free hosting for -both use cases. - -If you haven’t read [why Zulip](/why-zulip), read that first. The -communication model challenges with the Slack/Discord/IRC model -discussed there are even more important for academic research: - -* For most research problems, the experts who it's most useful to - collaborate with are few in number and scattered across many places - and time zones. A Slack community is a bad experience if you’re - rarely online at the same time as most other members; the result is - often poor inclusivity of researchers whose ideas or knowledge could - be critical to progress. - -* One needs to be able to focus for several hours at a time in order - to do effective research. It's really important that one not feel - like one's missing out or being constantly drawn back to check - messages when doing focused research work. - - Because active participation in a busy Slack community fundamentally - requires constant interruptions, one ends up making unpleasant - choices between participating in the Slack community (and not doing - focus work) or ignoring the Slack community (and not getting much - benefit from it). - -* Researchers, especially senior ones, often have interests in - multiple areas. Because catching up on history in an active Slack - organization is a huge waste of time, this can make it hard to - participate in a part-time fashion and provide one's expertise while - personally focused on other projects. -* Writing to a busy Slack channel often means interrupting another - existing conversation. This makes it harder for newer and shyer - members to jump into the community. Often this disproportionately - discourages talented individuals from groups already - underrepresented in research. -* The lack of organization in Slack message history (and its 10K - message history limit) mean that it's hard to find previous - conversations that might have useful context. - -The overall effect is that a busy Slack makes poor use of researchers' -time, and Slack is a poor choice for organizations that want to have -an inclusive, global community that many busy researchers happily -participate in. - ------------------------------------------- - -Zulip’s topic-based threading model solves these problems: - -* Participants in any time zone can send messages and expect to get a - reply and have an effective (potentially asynchronous) conversation - with the rest of the community. -* Zulip’s topic-based theading helps include part-time contributors in - two major ways. First, they can easily browse what conversations - happened while they were away from the community, and prioritize - which conversations to read now, skip, or read later (e.g. after - that important talk or paper deadline). -* Researchers can effectively participate in a Zulip community without - being continuously online. Using Zulip’s [keyboard - shortcuts](/help/keyboard-shortcuts), it’s extremely efficient to - inspect every potentially relevant thread and reply wherever one’s - feedback is useful, and replying hours after a question was asked is - still a good contributor experience. As a result, busy researchers - can focus on teaching or multi-hour sessions of focused research, - while still being able to catch up and participate fully in the - community. -* Topics make it easier to provide a safe, welcoming, online - community. Asking a question never has to feel like an interruption - of an ongoing conversation or like one's sticking one's neck out. - -See our page [for open source projects](/for/open-source) for more -discussion of Zulip for large open communities. - ------------------------------------------- - -Below, we’ve collected a list of [Zulip features](/features) that are -particularly useful to academic research organizations (both formal -organizations and online communities focused around research topics -like category theory). - -### Free hosting at zulip.com. - -This free hosting is supported by (and is identical to) zulip.com’s -commercial offerings. If you’re not sure whether your organization -qualifies, send us an email at support@zulip.com. - -### Native LaTeX support powered by KaTeX - -With Zulip, you can use inline LaTeX in the middle of a sentence or as -a display math block. Zulip's LaTeX rendering is powered by -[KaTeX](https://katex.org); their [support -table](https://katex.org/docs/support_table.html) is a helpful -resource. - -### Syntax highlighting. - -[Full Markdown support](/help/format-your-message-using-markdown), including -syntax highlighting, makes it easy to discuss code, paste an error message, -or explain a complicated point. Full LaTeX support as well. - -If your community primarily uses a single programming language (or -only talks about math), consider setting a default language for syntax -highlighting. - -### Permalink to conversations. - -Zulip makes it easy to get a [permanent link to a -conversation](/help/link-to-a-message-or-conversation), which you can -record in emails, notes, talk slides, or anywhere else. Zulip’s -topic-based threading helps keep conversations coherent and organized -so they are useful for posterity. - -### Video call integration - -With a single click, you create a [video call](/help/start-a-call), -making it convenient to do a quick call to hash out an idea. - -### Import from Slack, Mattermost, or Gitter. - -Import your existing organization from [Slack](/help/import-from-slack), -[Mattermost](/help/import-from-mattermost), or -[Gitter](/help/import-from-gitter). - -### Moderation suite. - -Moderation is a big part of making an open community work. Zulip was built -for open communities from the beginning and comes with many -[moderation features](/help/moderating-open-organizations) out of the -box. - -In addition, Zulip's threading makes it easy for a small group of busy -moderators to skim every thread and notice if there's anything that -needs their attention. - -### Open invitations. - -Allow anyone to [join without an -invitation](/help/allow-anyone-to-join-without-an-invitation). You -can also link to your Zulip with a [badge](/help/linking-to-zulip) in -any associated source code repositories. - -### Full-text search of all public history. - -Zulip’s [full-text search](/help/search-for-messages) supports -searching the organization’s entire public history via the -`streams:public` search operator, allowing Zulip to provide all the -benefits of a searchable forum or mailing list. New collaborators can -easily find relevant past discussions. - -### Quality data export. - -Our high quality [export](/help/export-your-organization) and -[import](https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/production/export-and-import.html) -tools ensure you can always move from [Zulip Cloud](https://zulip.com) -hosting to your own servers. - -### Free and open source. - -Unlike many modern "open source" applications that are actually open -core, Zulip is 100% free and open source software. All code, -including for the [server](https://github.com/zulip/zulip), -[desktop](https://github.com/zulip/zulip-desktop), -[mobile](https://github.com/zulip/zulip-mobile), and beta -[terminal](https://github.com/zulip/zulip-terminal) apps, is available -under the Apache 2 license. - -### Created by former academics - -Zulip's founder is a former MIT PhD student and we love helping -academic researchers succeed. We prioritize feature requests from -academic research groups the same way we prioritize feature requests -from paying customers, so if there’s something we could improve to -make Zulip the obvious choice either for you or your research group, -[contact us](/help/contact-support) and we'll do what we can to help!