snapshot of https://github.com/zulip/zulip.git @ 48c69911c7dd4e03b20552eb3bd77ad8151c1357 (2026-09-15)

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+## Asciidoctor: An active open-source community building software to share knowledge
+
+Started in 2012, the [Asciidoctor](https://asciidoctor.org) community develops
+an [open-source](https://github.com/asciidoctor) text processor for parsing
+AsciiDoc content, enriching it, and converting it to formats such as HTML 5,
+DocBook, PDF, and many others.
+
+For years, the project struggled to find a way to bring the community together
+in one place. Thanks to recommendations from leaders at other open-source
+communities, the Asciidoctor project leads decided to give Zulip a try to see if
+it could solve those challenges. “Moving to Zulip transformed our dialogue,
+making it organized, inclusive, and thoughtful in a way it never was before,”
+says project lead [Dan Allen](https://github.com/mojavelinux). “We finally had a
+home base. Zulip has been a game changer for our community.”
+
+
+> Zulip has been a game changer for our community.
+>
+> — Project lead Dan Allen
+
+
+## A decade-long search for a communication platform to bring the community together
+
+“In the early days, we started out only communicating using the GitHub issue
+tracker,” Dan Allen recalls, “but we could see that it wasn’t going to scale. It
+doesn’t provide a channel for general dialogue.” The project tried IRC, but it
+was unapproachable for newcomers and lacked modern chat and moderation features.
+Asciidoctor set up a discussion list, but that wasn’t a good fit either.
+Contacting hundreds of people over email to ask a simple question always felt
+inappropriate, and the lack of real-time interaction ended up making
+conversations take longer.
+
+Looking for a web-based chat solution, Asciidoctor tapped into Gitter in 2014.
+“Gitter certainly looks modern and approachable. However, we quickly learned
+that the single, running thread of the channel was both chaotic and stressful,”
+Dan says. And the platform had mostly stagnated.
+
+Many users in the community pleaded for threads, but Gitter’s threading feature
+(finally added in 2020), only made the situation more problematic for the
+community. “Threads buried the replies. You had to either navigate to threads
+using notifications, or scroll back multiple pages to find the little ‘see
+replies’ link and rediscover the thread. It was just so tedious,” Dan recalls.
+
+
+> The conversations in Gitter were becoming more about Gitter and its
+> limitations and less about the project itself.
+>
+> — Project lead Dan Allen
+
+While Gitter allows users to create new rooms, what the project really needed
+was a single community space with “socially distanced” conversations going on.
+They needed a new model. And that’s exactly what they found in Zulip.
+
+
+## Asciidoctor moves to Zulip: “All the anxiety and stress was gone”
+
+With the community continuing to grow, Dan and fellow maintainers decided it was
+time to seek out a better solution. Drawing on advice from leaders of other
+open-source communities, the project decided to give Zulip a try in early 2021.
+
+[Zulip’s channels and topics model](/why-zulip/) immediately clicked. “Channels
+partition the community without making it feel divided. When someone has a
+question, they can find the most relevant channel and either make a new topic or
+contribute to an existing one.” This paradigm was a game-changer. “Literally the
+day we moved to Zulip, all the anxiety and stress of keeping up with the
+discourse was gone,” Dan says.
+
+With Zulip, Dan has developed a comfortable workflow for catching up on
+conversations after being away. “When I start my day, I open up the [Recent
+topics](/help/recent-conversations) page and work through the topics that have
+activity on-by-one,” Dan describes. More casual community participants can [skim
+the topic list](/help/reading-strategies) to find interesting discussions, and
+mark topics they don’t care about as read with a single click.
+
+
+## Powerful moderation tools help keep conversations on track
+
+Zulip’s topic model helps discussions stay focused. “Zulip starts the
+conversation out on the right foot by giving it its own space as a topic,” Dan
+explains. “As a result, conversations don’t have to be branched from an
+arbitrary spot, and the discussion is much more likely to stay focused and
+succinct.”
+
+> Zulip starts the conversation out on the right foot by giving it its own
+> space as a topic.
+>
+> — Project lead Dan Allen
+
+If a topic starts in the wrong place or veers off course, Zulip’s [moderation
+tools](/help/moderating-open-organizations) make it easy to fix. Community
+moderators can keep the dialogue organized by reclassifying topics and posts
+without disrupting the ongoing conversation. “If someone accidentally posts to
+the wrong channel or topic, Zulip allows me to [move those messages
+around](/help/move-content-to-another-channel) so they land in the right spot,”
+Dan says. “Moving messages also sends a subtle hint to the person posting about
+where to post the next time. And I can use [topic
+references](/help/link-to-a-message-or-conversation#link-to-a-topic-within-zulip)
+to link to the new topic location, or to a related topic. That’s incredibly
+powerful,” Dan says.
+
+The ability to [mark topics as resolved](/help/resolve-a-topic) helps moderators
+see at a glance which topics require their attention. “Many topics reach a
+logical conclusion when the initial question has been answered, and the initial
+poster will typically express that they’re satisfied. At that point, one of us
+marks the topic as resolved,” Dan explains. “When I’m looking for topics that
+need my attention, I can focus on the ones that aren’t yet resolved and try to
+help get them to that state.” Later on, community members can use resolved
+topics [as a reference source](#zulip-makes-information-easy-to-find).
+
+
+## Zulip enables organized, inclusive and thoughtful discussion
+
+After a successful launch of the Asciidoctor community on Zulip, Asciidoctor’s
+sibling project [Antora](https://antora.org) adopted it as well. For both
+projects, using Zulip has been night and day compared to other platforms. “I can
+manage hundreds of participants across two communities extremely efficiently,
+and I don’t feel stressed,” says Dan. “I used it for my company chat as well.
+Zulip is calm and organized. I can immediately see what people are asking
+and jump to respond when I need to.”
+
+> I can manage hundreds of participants across two communities extremely
+> efficiently.
+>
+> — Project lead Dan Allen
+
+The sense of space created by Zulip’s topic model has made the community more
+inclusive. “Using Zulip gives space to a much broader range of voices.
+We’re seeing people participating who never participated before,” Dan says.
+“People who are less extroverted, who don’t speak English natively, or just
+can’t type as quickly now all have a chance to be part of the dialogue. Zulip
+offers a more manageable pace.”
+
+> We’re seeing people participating who never participated before.
+>
+> — Project lead Dan Allen
+
+Even the tone of conversation has shifted, becoming more respectful and
+thoughtful. “People are more relaxed. They can think and take their time to
+reply. Topics give people space. People don’t feel like they are trying to talk
+over someone else. That means you can have more constructive dialogue because
+the volume level is lower,” says Dan. At the same time, Zulip enables
+lightweight interactions. “Often times, I participate just [using
+emoji](/help/emoji-reactions). I must use the 👍 and 🎉 reactions dozens of
+times a day,” Dan says.
+
+Channels have also helped the community get to know one another better. “When we
+created the instance, we set up a #social channel. We seeded it with the topic
+‘introduce yourself’, and new members took full advantage of it,” Dan says. The
+social channel has brought a more personal touch to the community. “In real life,
+no one just walks in and starts asking questions out of the blue,” Dan points
+out. “In the social channel, we’ve talked about non-technical topics like TV
+series, screen setups, and holiday wishes just to get to know the people behind
+the screen name and enrich each other’s lives in other ways. What we learned?
+Everyone enjoys a lot of British TV. ;)”
+
+
+## Zulip makes information easy to find
+
+As a community grows, its conversation history becomes a trove of reference
+information. However, this history provides value only if the information is
+findable. “Once a conversation went out of view in Gitter, it was essentially
+lost,” Dan says. “The search was global across the whole Gitter instance, and it
+only returned excerpts with no sense of context. It was often faster to just
+scroll through the history in an attempt to try to find where the conversation
+happened than it was to search.”
+
+In contrast, Zulip offers a [faceted search](/help/search-for-messages) that
+lets you find past discussions with pinpoint accuracy. “You can narrow the
+search to a channel or topic (with autocomplete!),” Dan points out. The results
+are presented with topic headings, making it easier to see whether the message
+is relevant. “You can click the topic to see the message in context,” Dan says.
+“It’s not only a great way to search, but it’s a great way to catch up on
+messages too. You can also search for all messages you sent, which turns out to
+be a great navigation tool and a memory saver!”
+
+
+## “Zulip is the heart of our community”
+
+Dan is passionate about supporting Zulip’s development. “If we don’t sponsor the
+open source projects we love, we’ll have no one else to blame if we live in a
+world of proprietary software,” Dan says. “We truly feel heard by Zulip
+developers when we provide feedback. We also love that Zulip is [truly open
+source](https://blog.zulip.com/2021/04/28/why-zulip-is-on-github-sponsors/), not
+open core like some alternatives. And we very much appreciate Zulip supporting
+open source by hosting our Zulip instances.”
+
+“Zulip is the heart of our community, and nearly everyone who participates
+absolutely loves it,” Dan says. “It really does provide [everything we
+need](/features/) to manage the discourse, including topic-based threads,
+mentions, faceted search, moderation controls, polls, and emoji.” Speaking on
+behalf of the Asciidoctor and Antora projects, Dan wholeheartedly recommends
+that other communities give it a try. “Many communities have been strained to
+the limits during the pandemic,” says Dan. “Zulip brings health back to these
+communities.”
+
+---
+
+Check out our guide on using Zulip for [open source](/for/open-source/), and
+learn how Zulip [helps communities scale](/for/communities/)!