Ask HN: Engineering group to fight Covid-19 needs fee waiver from Slack

#1

Post by charleshe » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

Hi,

We're organizing an engineering group to devise solutions to help against COVID-19.

We currently have 390+ people in our Slack. This includes ex-FANG, software developers and mechanical engineers. We also have PhDs, medical doctors, nurses and other clinicians.

The growth of our group was (is) extremely rapid. I expect to be quickly approaching Slack's horizon of 10,000 messages via the free plan.

Cutting off our messages will deprive us of important past insights and discussions. This will hamper our activities significantly.

Paying the standard plan's fee seems punitive in this situation. Indeed, even the non-profit rate implies monthly fees of $1,125 if we reach 500 members (we added hundreds today).

We are literally working to find ways to help frontline medical staff, who we are worried might be overwhelmed by COVID-19.

Given the time constraints, we are concentrated on products, not on funding.

Under the unique circumstances, can someone reach out to Slack corporate to ask for an exemption?

Our group is: helpfulengineering.slack.com

Re: Ask HN: Engineering group to fight Covid-19 needs fee waiver from Slack

#2

Post by rspain » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 8:38 AM UTC

Hi all,

Can we get more eyes on this.

We're working on open-source projects that can help reduce Corona virus infection and design high tech solutions to help ICU doctors and nurses dealing with CoVID19 patients.

If you are a tech with medical knowledge then we need you. If you are a tech with respiratory knowledge you'll be a valuable member. Please join!

Maybe we should tag this with "Show HN:" it may get more traction?

Re: Ask HN: Engineering group to fight Covid-19 needs fee waiver from Slack

#3

Post by rotterdamdev » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 10:14 AM UTC

How are you trying to help exactly?

Re: Ask HN: Engineering group to fight Covid-19 needs fee waiver from Slack

#4

Post by DarthGhandi » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 10:45 AM UTC

have you considered using any of the numerous free open source alternatives to slack?

Re: Ask HN: Engineering group to fight Covid-19 needs fee waiver from Slack

#5

Post by sethammons » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 11:18 AM UTC

If you have hundreds of members, why not ask each for a couple of dollars to cover slack costs? Or use a different platform. Or self host something else. Not to be overly dismissive, but my first impression is that you have a bunch of devs finding something interesting and wanting to follow along rather than a key cohort of people who will "disrupt covid-19." I don't see why Slack should pay for a bunch of people to use their platform. They are in the business of making money, and offer reduced costs for non-profits. If that doesn't work for you, use something else.

What is wrong with a subreddit for this, for example. Or a mailing list. Or just self host a chat app.

Re: Ask HN: Engineering group to fight Covid-19 needs fee waiver from Slack

#6

Post by redis_mlc » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 11:32 AM UTC

In most disaster scenarios, programmers are not welcome because they're dead weight.

Unless, of course, they can write a fat check.

So if you want to actually help, donate money.

Re: Ask HN: Engineering group to fight Covid-19 needs fee waiver from Slack

#7

Post by jklein11 » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 12:03 PM UTC

I work in Healthcare IT and am interested in joining. Any reason we can’t migrate to zulip or mastodon?

Re: Ask HN: Engineering group to fight Covid-19 needs fee waiver from Slack

#8

Post by ayoubElk » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

How do I go about requesting an invite?

Re: Ask HN: Engineering group to fight Covid-19 needs fee waiver from Slack

#9

Post by whb07 » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:16 PM UTC

Discord, Zullip(spelling?) and others can provide the functionality you want for free.

Re: Ask HN: Engineering group to fight Covid-19 needs fee waiver from Slack

#10

Post by Jugurtha » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

Maybe I don't understand the pricing correctly, but I think you're not "limited" to 10,000 messages. The limit is on history and searching through messages, in which the 10,000 limit kicks in. I think you can send as many messages as you want.

We've been using Slack for years and are way past 10,000 messages. You just can't search messages dating back many years. Although we can get the files we sent many years ago.