Outreach programs/Zulip

Wikimedia currently uses Zulip for its Outreach programs to connect students and mentors. Zulip is a group chat app, its most distinctive characteristic is that conversation within an organization is divided into “streams” and further subdivided into “topics”, so that much finer-grained conversations are possible than with IRC or other chat tools.

How to join Wikimedia Zulip

 * 1) First, since it's an invite-only Zulip instance, you would need to ask for an invite to join the Wikimedia Zulip to the admin.  Send an email to ssethi@wikimedia.org with a valid email address and request for an invitation to join Zulip.
 * 2) Once the admin has accepted your request, you will get an email from Wikimedia Zulip with email subject: " invited you to join Wikimedia". Then, click on the "Complete registration" button in that email that to continue.
 * 3) You should see the form for Zulip account creation now, fill out your full name in the "Full name" column, and type your password for log in to the Wikimedia Zulip in "Password" column, check the "I agree to the Terms of Service" section if you have read the Zulip Terms of Service. If everything looks well, click on the "Register" button to join.
 * 4) You are all set!

How messages in Zulip are organized
Messages in Zulip are organized into streams and topics. Streams are similar to chatrooms, IRC channels, and email lists in that they determine  who receives the message. Each conversation in a stream also has a topic, which plays the role of the subject line of an email (though topics are  usually shorter, e.g. "logo" or "logo design", not "feedback on the new  logo design?") in that it organizes messages into threads.

By using those methods, users can search their messages and get started on particular topic faster, since the messages are organized in their topics