How Are Communication Channels on GitHub Presented to Their Intended Audience? -- A Thematic Analysis
Verena Ebert, Daniel Graziotin, Stefan Wagner

TL;DR
This study analyzes how GitHub projects present communication channels to their users, revealing diverse types and highlighting the importance of clear organization to prevent information overload and improve collaboration.
Contribution
It identifies 32 communication channels in GitHub projects, categorizes them, and examines how maintainers present and justify their use to enhance understanding and coordination.
Findings
32 unique communication channels identified
Channels are categorized into nine types
Maintainers often lack explicit reasons for channel choices
Abstract
Communication is essential in software development, and even more in distributed settings. Communication activities need to be organized and coordinated to defend against the threat of productivity losses, increases in cognitive load, and stress among team members. With a plethora of communication channels that were identified by previous research in open-source projects, there is a need to explore organizational issues in how these communication channels are introduced, explained, and motivated for use among all project members. In this study, we wanted to understand which communication channels are used in GitHub projects and how they are presented to the GitHub project audience. We employed thematic analysis to analyze 151 artifacts in 90 GitHub projects. Our results revealed 32 unique communications channels that can be divided into nine different types. Projects mostly provide…
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Taxonomy
TopicsSoftware Engineering Research · Software Engineering Techniques and Practices · Personal Information Management and User Behavior
