It doesn’t seem like it’s available on discourse, so I didn’t do it.
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The way I think it should be interpreted is to add all platform subcategories together (i.e. zulip + zulip without discourse, matrix + matrix + discord), and we get discord bridging if matrix + discord is >= 50%, since that’s the only way we get discord integration at all, and a vote not for this is a vote against discord. If it’s close between platforms, (say like ± 10% of each other, we can decide if we want to redo the poll with the smaller ones dropped.
Unlisted: XMPP multi-user chatrooms
XMPP MUCs are way, way lighter weight both in terms of storage & server resources than Matrix Spaces while still being decentralized & offering E2EE when desired (OMEMO, PGP, or OTR). Many communities have had to give up their Matrix servers since the cost was too high to run since all servers must duplicate the entire history of all messages + attachments for every users & as a result folk had to move to Matrix.org & servers ran by that org which gives them essentially all the metadata & makes Matrix more centralized in practice than they lead on. A lot of folks aren’t self-hosting their own servers either either which means they aren’t in control of their data. If you want a highly-accessibly centralized chat, then you might as choose the lower common denominitar of IRC(v3). By contrast, ejabberd for XMPP can handle up to 2 million concurrent connections on a single server, & I was able to easily run a server on a repurposed 2014 smart phone with postmarketOS with a potato processor that could connect to any other server. Like Mattermost + Matterbridge or Matrix + bridges, XMPP has a slew of gateways to marshal data to other platforms as well.You should not be relying on chat anyhow to hold the entire history as the sort of data that should be persisted for a long time should be move to the forum for archival–this creates the search blackhole that Discord has.
I think an initial solution of having a space on matrix.org would be okay. Much like my reasoning for the forge choice, we have some limitations on what we can do while fulfilling our requirements.
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the space can always be moved later, IIRC matrix supports this pretty seamlessly
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I think that a chat service is a more reasonable thing to self host given that we don’t have any of the baggage from nix chats – it’s our own community. And while Matrix is winning in the polls right now, that may be because some are steadfast in their discord support, not expllicit support for matrix. I think we should let this poll collect votes as we let people filter in, and then maybe another poll without discord as an option. It seems that people are very opinionated on this topic, so I think we should wait and let the community come to a consensus. Also, I don’t think we need a chat service this instant because it’s still in its infancy and I think forums are better for that anyway.
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Like the issue of storage with Forgejo, you will run into storage issues pretty fast if self-hosting Matrix where you expect users to join accounts on your server & those users start connecting with each other & other servers do to the fundamental architecture of that system. There are lighter weight alternatives that use less resources & storage … & considering cost keeps being brought up, it should be considered.
I host my own matrix servers with around 200 people and storage doesn’t seem to be an issue. There’s not a lot to store. Matrix server with 500gb hdd, is it enough to be public? - r/selfhosted. I don’t have any concrete numbers, but this could realistically be hosted on a vps somewhere pretty easily.
Disroot & Solarpunks are two communites that come to mind having a storage bill too high for storage & needing more CPU before migrating
… but if there is bridging/gateway support, it doesn’t matter too much. So long as Discard is not bridged too as too much spam gets into rooms. Actually IIRC last ejabberd release supported Matrix & XMPP out of the box. 
Edit: 24.02 has a built-in Matrix gateway, not Matrix hosting Matrix gateway setup with ejabberd / ProcessOne
A good compromise between those who are interested in bridging and those who aren’t might be to selectively bridge matrix rooms/discord channels - for example, bridging the Support rooms to corresponding discord channels for accessibility while leaving everything else on Matrix only. Then we’d have a discord server where users can ask quick questions and stuff, while pointing them towards the Matrix space for anything more involved or important.
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Additionally, this would lighten the moderation workload on the Discord side significantly compared to if it was all fully bridged.
What is more “serious” than help?
Auxolotl shouldn’t have off-topic, general-purpose channels. Enough Matrix/Discord servers exist for this purpose. I am for bridging all channels because this can help discord and matrix moderators eachother.
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If it shouldn’t have off-topic channels at all, then personally I don’t see the reason to have Discord in the first place other than making help more accessible. Maybe that’s another topic to discuss ig. But then again, probably someone will pop up with an unofficial server containing off-topic channels, and I think it would better if a subset of the aux team could moderate, I don’t wanna see it get out of the control. Preferably without endorsing as the team or making it serious “official channel”
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My main concerns with not having any planned Discord presence is that
A. We’d be casting a smaller net in terms of community engagement. The unofficial Nix Discord server is very active, and it is almost entirely used for user support and casual community discussion. The problem is that lot of people are very dug in to using proprietary platforms like Discord; As long as we don’t rely on Discord for anything, there’s no reason not to treat it just like having an official Aux Twitter, Reddit, or Youtube account as a means of community outreach.
B. If we don’t provide a space for the people who want to use Discord to interact with the community, they will inevitably end up making their own unofficial servers, which may end up having different rules and moderation practices than the core group follows. This could reflect poorly on the entire community from the perspective of users who see the unofficial servers as the de facto meeting place of Aux users in lieu of an official one.
As for how or if the Matrix should be bridged to such a Discord server, I think it should ultimately be determined by what the moderation team feels they can handle better; We can always bridge or debridge after the fact if needed.
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Discord is certainly a whole beast - in terms of “community chatroom platforms”, no one else has the same level of dominance. I find most people tend to have a “primary platform” they want to use as their community touchpoint, and given the relative dominance of Discord in that space, I do kind of worry we’d be losing a lot of reach without a community there. Matrix has worked fairly well for Nix (and IMO, when it comes to core planning/contribution conversations, that’s where it should live), but having at least a community support space on Discord would make it easier for a lot of users to get support and assistance with using Aux.
There’s the downside of additional moderation load, of course - which is probably a discussion for our Moderation team to have. Community fragmentation is also a concern, but could also be alleviated through bridges (although, many Discord bridges tend to have their own issues).
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I believe that wherever possible we should avoid endorsing unfree software and platforms, and I believe this is the direction we’re moving in since of the Matrix+Discourse voters only 31%~ voted in favor of a bridge so far.
If we take the decision of still creating a semi-official Discord, I think we should not endorse the platform (i.e. by linking it on websites). If we set up a Matrix bridge we might want it to be a dedicated channel on Matrix because Matrix users might not want their messages to be bridged to a proprietary platform.
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While I have exactly the same concerns as @jacab, that’s similar to my point of view. And that’s why when I came up with the idea of semi-official, I leaned away from bridging. I believe
- Keeping official serious discussions on free platform
- Being able to moderate Discord for casual discussion in any form, without endorsing. This also has the benefit of being able to pointing them to Matrix for anything serious
may be enough, not necessarily bridging as it can be endorsement itself
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I personally feel that if there will be a semi-official discord, it shouldn’t be listed anywhere and shouldn’t be bridged. I don’t want my messages to end up on there.
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I personally like Matrix (I’m using it for several other stuff), so I’d be happy if Aux ended up using this for real-time communication. I like discourse too, and find it well-suited as a forum and less instantaneous Q&A.
I haven’t used Zulip much, but I know I’d be fine using it as a replacement for both.
I’ve used mattermost for several years, on a small self-hosted instance. I feel like it would put heavier loads on the server than other solutions, but I don’t actually have any idea how resource-consuming are the other solutions. If that’s true, I wouldn’t consider it a good solution.
Anything closed-source or that can’t be self-hosted is a no-go for me.
For now though, I think that whatever works. Migrating can be a pain, but I feel like it’s more important to get the basics up. If another solution is worth a shot, I think it can be done with care and planning later on.
I’m wondering how valuable it is to use both a “forum” and a “live chat”. I’ve always found it a bit confusing when project fragment information across a myriads of media. Nix had a forum, a bunch of matrix rooms, a wiki, several official manuals, plus manual-tutorial hybrids like nix pills or nix.dev, etc. So I’m thinking maybe if Zulip can provide both what discourse and matrix would provide, using that alone might be my preferred solution actually.
Regarding discord, I don’t really want to interact with them. But I completely understand why some would prefer. I think I would dislike it being considered “an official communication channel”, because I don’t think Discord is aligned with Aux’ values whatsoever, but I get that if people are going to use discord anyway, it could or should be moderated (By some Aux moderators), because that’s not endorsing or advertising the platform (imo), that’s taking care of the community. There are very valid reasons to choose Discord or reddit over other platforms. I don’t agree with them, but I can empathize, and disregarding them is a kind of elitism pitfall I think is hard to avoid once you start approaching it.
(edit: typo)
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