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w3c / modern-tooling

Work of the modern tooling task force
http://w3c.github.io/modern-tooling/
MIT License
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Replacement for IRC #16

Open darobin opened 9 years ago

darobin commented 9 years ago

A lot of our users are not familiar with IRC and struggle to figure it out. While the issue is likely less painful than with mailing lists, it is worth thinking about an IRC replacement.

So far however I have not been convinced with the alternatives. Any suggestions? Gitter? Slack? Any experience using those at scale?

ara4n commented 4 years ago

Heads up that we're running a matrix<->irc bridge at #_w3c_#wherever:matrix.org these days, and the bridge should be pretty stable (plus we now have 2 people paid to work on it).

However, I'd strongly suggest standing up a proper federated Matrix server, similar to Mozilla, KDE, GNOME, and others who will be announced shortly :)

plinss commented 4 years ago

So allow me to make an offer. I recently started a company, Startup Stack, that provides managed hosting services to startups, small, and medium businesses. Among others, we provide private, managed Matrix servers.

I'd be willing to provide a proper, federated, Matrix server to the W3C, complete with IRC bridge for no charge, in exchange for some reasonable 'sponsored by' or 'managed by' links to the company home page in W3C web space (and any public announcements about the service).

Like all of our other servers, it would be hosted at Linode under an independent account, and the W3C IT team can have sudo shell access and/or take over full ownership and management of the server at any time. All I'd need are a few DNS records set under the w3.org domain. If we can give the server access to the W3C LDAP servers (or a SAML compliant SSO server), then users can sign in with their W3C credentials rather than have to make new accounts.

plehegar commented 4 years ago

So far, no group came to me and indicated an interest for Matrix at the moment. Certainly, there is a desire to replace IRC. I can certainly survey the groups but I'll need to check if our systeam folks are willing to switch. We have several bots running on top of IRC and we're not ready to revamp them for a new protocol at the moment. Would this IRC bridge allow bots like Zakim, trackbot, or RRSAgent to keep operating normally?

plinss commented 4 years ago

Just to be clear, what I'm proposing (and offering) is not switching away from IRC. There would be no changes to the existing IRC systems and the existing bots would continue to function as they do now.

The Matrix server would be a stand-alone system (for those that aren't familiar, it's somewhat like Slack, just open and federated). Bridging the Matrix server to the IRC server means that users can log in to either system. However, everything that happens on the Matrix server in the IRC bridged rooms will be reflected on the IRC server, and vice-versa.

With this in place, users currently using IRC will not see any difference. Users wanting to use Matrix (they can use any client, and log in to any Matrix server), will be able to join the IRC rooms and participate normally (from the IRC server's perspective), IRC users (and the bots) will see them as though they were using IRC. They will, however, get the full Matrix experience, full room history, push notifications, etc, and can also participate in any other Matrix rooms with the same client.

Over time, if using the Matrix server becomes the norm, and IRC usage drops to zero (or near zero), the W3C can opt to migrate the bots to Matrix and then decommission the IRC servers. In the interim, users will simply have a choice.

FWIW, as I said previously, I've already been using a Matrix <-> IRC bridge and have been participating normally in W3C IRC rooms, though I haven't launched an IRC client in about a year.

The only thing the W3C systeam would have to do to support this would be to create a few DNS records (A and AAAA records for the new server, and a SRV record), and put a single file at w3.org/.well-known to properly support Matrix federation. Ideally also giving the new matrix server access to the W3C LDAP server as well so users can use their W3C credentials to log in to the W3C Matrix homeserver (and as I mentioned above, since Matrix is federated, users can also log in to any other Matrix homeserver and still join the W3C rooms).

plehegar commented 4 years ago

@plinss , thanks for additional info, very helpful indeed.

frivoal commented 4 years ago

FWIW, as I said previously, I've already been using a Matrix <-> IRC bridge and have been participating normally in W3C IRC rooms, though I haven't launched an IRC client in about a year.

As a further testimony that this is doable, I've been doing it too.

jgraham commented 4 years ago

FWIW I think the Mozilla switch from IRC to Matrix has been considered a big success. We also had IRC bots that are slowly being replaced with Matrix bots, so I think that's possible (but I haven't personally been involved, and obviously it takes some effort). I venture that many of the reasons Mozilla adopted Matrix also apply to W3C c.f. https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/synchronous-messaging-at-mozilla-the-decision/50620

plehegar commented 4 years ago

side note: the TAG has been using Matrix apparently.

plinss commented 4 years ago

To be clear, the TAG has a Matrix homeserver, and it has a bridge to W3C's IRC server (which is the bridge I've been using personally), but most of the TAG's day-to-day is on Slack currently because many of the TAG members use Slack in other contexts and didn't want a second client.

There are Matrix to Slack bridges, which would allow TAG members to use either service as their primary client, but I haven't set that up at the moment (will do soon, I experimented with it briefly a while back and the Slack bridge was lacking at the time, but I understand it's improved significantly since then).

autonome commented 3 years ago

@plinss do you have any info about the TAG's Matrix homeserver? Would be great to use that, as that all my IRC is through Matrix now and after joining W3C it is the lone wolf doing IRC only.

dannycolin commented 3 years ago

@plinss do you have any info about the TAG's Matrix homeserver? Would be great to use that, as that all my IRC is through Matrix now and after joining W3C it is the lone wolf doing IRC only.

See https://github.com/w3c/modern-tooling/issues/16#issuecomment-605287942

plinss commented 3 years ago

To use the TAG's IRC bridge just join a room from your matrix client: #irc.w3.org_#:w3ctag.org. You can control the IRC side of your connection by starting a direct message chat with @irc-bot:w3ctag.org, see https://matrix-org.github.io/matrix-appservice-irc/latest/admin_room.html

chaals commented 3 years ago

This thread has been running for 6 years.

W3C has been using IRC for 6 years since the thread started (and 20 before then).

A system that doesn't require moving from IRC, but has an upgrade path to something better seems like a good one. Has the entire W3C staff contact team had a technical and user review? Are they convinced that rolling out a change is worthwhile?

If not, is there an active plan to "soft launch" this and let the W3C community know that the option is there, to update pages and repos that tell people about tooling for each group (including AC)?

frivoal commented 3 years ago

Agreed. Setting up a Matrix server would mean no need to turn off IRC. It can be fully bridged so that users can pick whichever protocol / client they like. We can keep the bots as they are (since they too benefit from the bridge).

This is not a massive project. It's likely a matter of a few hours for an experienced sysadmin, and that includes the time to figure out how this works. Maybe a couple of days to wrestle through scalability issues.

And if it turns out we don't like it, we can always turn it off later. If this took months to roll out, it would be appropriate to take time to evaluate all our options, but it doesn't. I don't see any reason to wait.

(Btw: Mozilla has switched to Matrix, so has the WHATWG. So has Web-Platform-Tests. We'd be far from alone)

plinss commented 3 years ago

With Startup Stack I have ansible playbooks ready to setup the server and bridge, there's no 'figuring it out' phase, and yeah, we're talking about a couple of hours. I'm just waiting for the go-ahead if the W3C wants to accept my offer of a free managed Matrix server and bridge (and a web client as well).

npdoty commented 2 years ago

The issue has been in discussion for 6 1/2 years, for at least the last year it's seemed like a clear path forward is a Matrix server with a bridge to allow retaining existing IRC channels, and since August there have even been clear offers on how to set one up.

Any Team updates on setting up a Matrix server, or accepting a homeserver and bridge operated elsewhere?

I'm occasionally hearing comments on how to scroll back and see IRC logs (which would be one feature addressed by a Matrix server), and it would make it easier to have asynchronous or semi-synchronous chat discussions in groups, which is especially useful when people are in different timezones.

sideshowbarker commented 2 years ago

Any Team updates on setting up a Matrix server, or accepting a homeserver and bridge operated elsewhere?

I plan to set up a Matrix homeserver during Q1, hosted on W3C infrastructure, with me taking primary responsibility for managing it.