News: Our Zulip Chat Exceeds 3,000 Members (#411)

Co-authored-by: Alya Abbott <2090066+alya@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Owen Williams <owen-github@ywwg.com>

Author: 3 people

content/news/XXXX-XX-XX-zulip-3000_members.md

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+title: Our Zulip Chat Exceeds 3,000 Members
+authors: Daniel Schürmann
+status: draft
+tags: zulip
+comments: yes
+
+#### Mixxx Zulip Chat Exceeds 3,000 Members
+
+Since moving our community discussions from our mailing list to [Zulip](https://mixxx.zulipchat.com) in 2018, we have never looked back.  
+This month, for the first time, we have more than 3,000 registered users in our Mixxx Zulip community!
+
+We now exchange around 4,000 messages every month, something a mailing list could never handle effectively. The community continues to grow steadily, both in users and in activity, with over 60 individuals actively participating in discussions every month.  
+
+Zulip has become a solid foundation of our community: a place where developers, translators, designers, and testers meet and collaborate.
+
+### Moving to Zulip
+
+Before Zulip, we used Mailman for our mailing list and an IRC channel for instant messages for years, but we ran into several challenges:  
+- Cluttered threading and confusing message flow  
+- No shared cloud storage for files and images  
+- No video chat
+
+As the project and number of contributors grew, we needed a platform that could keep conversations organized and accessible to everyone.
+
+Zulip, which was open-sourced in 2015, was very promising and convinced us after a short evaluation period.
+Its unique thread system was the ideal solution to replace structured email threads and instant chat rooms.
+
+Whenever a topic drifts, we can split it into a new thread, so conversations stay focused and are easy to follow.  
+This approach makes it possible to collaborate asynchronously across time zones without missing important context.
+No need to hang around in chat rooms to avoid missing an important conversation.
+
+Thanks to Zulip, it’s now much easier to stay up to date. Our team collaboration and community engagement have both
+improved significantly. Zulip works particularly well for open-source projects where many topics run in parallel, and where structure and focus are key to success.
+
+In addition to the web interface, Zulip has also a nice mobile app for Android or iOS.
+It has recently received a major update, a full Flutter rewrite with fast natively compiled code.
+This allows us to stay in touch easily while commuting or when away from a desktop.
+
+We enjoy unique features, like the time widget, which is always showing local time, the poll widget for fast decision making, and the pronouns field that helps people address others correctly when the gender associated with their name isn’t clear.
+
+New contributors might be sceptical of using a niche FOSS tool like Zulip. But we got feedback that they later consider it as one of the best tool for managing communication across projects. The growing number of members confirms this.
+
+### Conclusion
+
+The introduction of Zulip was the right move for us. If you are in the same situation and still using a mailing list or chat rooms, give [Zulip](https://zulip.com) a try.  
+You can self-host or use Zulip’s hosted service, and you don’t depend on a single provider for all your services.
+
+If you'd like to join us on Zulip, create an account and say hello at [introduce-yourself](https://mixxx.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/109123-introduce-yourself)
+
+### Thanks
+
+Finally, we’d like to thank the Zulip contributors and organization for building and hosting our community instance.  
+Your work makes open collaboration possible for the now > 3,000 Mixxx contributors around the world at no cost.