As the community has grown to cover the globe, we have attempted to maintain the same tools, mechanisms, and ultimately practices for communication. Some of these things seem to work across some cultural, time zone, and language barriers (with translation). Some tools and practices tend to work better for some parts of the community. But no one solution will cover everyone and everything.
This is not a discussion of IRC veruses various side-channel communication methods, but a discussion of how we can build bridges and better enable asynchronous communication, specifically with contributors in countries like China.
If you built a bridge: What helped the most? What hindered your efforts and how can we establish that context to help others?
How do we best memorialize and ensure discussions can be followed up a week, month, or even year later?
How do we make ourselves available for bridge building?
We as a community need to better understand how we can build bridges and ensure that people can find and follow-up on discussions. The answer seems to be the mailing list, but at the same time we need to understand what works, and what might not work so we ensure we have the correct intersection to best serve everyone.
