[OOTB-hive] Use of / switch to Discord server?

[Angel Borroy]

This “Discord affair” has attracted more attention than any other “relevant” issue in this mail list in the last 2 years...

Angel Borroy
keensoft a UST Global company

email:   angel.borroy at keensoft.es
web:     http://www.keensoft.es
móvil:  +34 655 47 47 55

CONFIDENCIALIDAD:

La presente comunicación y, en su caso, los ficheros que lleve adjuntos, pertenecen exclusivamente a las personas a las que va dirigido y puede contener información confidencial. Si usted no es el destinatario de este mensaje (o la persona responsable de su entrega), considérese advertido de que lo ha recibido por error y que cualquier uso, difusión, reenvío o copia están prohibidos legalmente. Si ha recibido este mensaje por error, por favor notifíquelo al remitente y proceda a destruirlo inmediatamente.

This message and the attached documents may contain privileged/confidential information and intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient (or responsible for delivery of the message to such a person) be advised that you have received this message in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error please notify it to the sender and destroy it immediately.


On 17 September 2018 at 10:06:10, Axel Faust (axel.faust.g at googlemail.com) wrote:

I did take a short look at Matrix back when the Discord server for
#alfresco was created since it came up in discussion back then as well.
Maybe I made the mistake to focus on the wrong aspects of Matrix, but I
was turned off by the apparently early / unstable versions of the specs.
The theory of it is interesting though. If we were to consider using a
self-hosted service in the OOTBee, I would say it would require that at
least two people volunteer to become familiar with the tech, and to
maintain the service. As I mentioned initially, we felt an externally
hosted service was better (at this time) because we currently do not
have a consistently active team to deal with this.

Of course even with the backing of someone to take care of it
technically, we would have to deal with the concerns others have brought
up, i.e. "yet another account / set of credentials / system I need to use".

With regards to IRC + search history, we currently have a searchable
history for #alfresco by virtue of chat.alfresco.com + Google, and for
#orderofthebee via botbot.me + Google. I find myself looking for some
older conversation on IRC #alfresco once or twice per month when a
question/topic comes up again either in IRC or the community platform,
so I can correctly reference what was being talked about.
Though most may not care about history on #orderofthebee (given that
there has been very limited to no activity for a while) there may be
other channels we could set up that do, i.e. if we moved #support-tools
from Gitter to the new platform to be under one consolidated OOTBee
roof, or a private #board channel. As Andreas Steffan mentioned on a
Twitter thread referencing this topic, this of course can be dealt with
somehow even with Slack, but would require a secondary service managed
by us (or hosted by another party) where a Slack bot / app sent events.
If those that already use Slack have a ready-to-use, low maintenance
option for that, it would be good to know...


On 15/09/2018 18:21, Parker, Matthew wrote:
> At my company, we have been going through this same exercise (i.e. looking for chat app for internal dev and ops,) on paper Matrix (with Synapse server and Riot.im client) looks good: standardized protocol, open source, several clients, sdks, and it can 'bridge' irc, slack and others. In short, a open source upgrade to irc and an alternative to the walled gardens of slack, hipchat, teams, et al. I stood up server and clients yesterday and have been kicking tires. Seems ok. According a recent tweet the government of France selected it.  
>
> But not all that glitters is gold.
>
> Did you guys look at this? Aware of any downsides or gotchas?
>
> Matt
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: OOTB-hive [ootb-hive-bounces at lists.xtreamlab.net] on behalf of Jeff Potts [jeffpotts01 at gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, September 14, 2018 11:39 PM
> To: Axel Faust
> Cc: ootb-hive
> Subject: Re: [OOTB-hive] Use of / switch to Discord server?
>
> We don't have unlimited searchable history now with IRC and that isn't important to me, but maybe it is important to others.
>
> I guess everyone's experience with any of these tools will vary. I personally have multiple clients actively using Slack to collaborate with me daily. But I recognize not everyone uses Slack. For me personally, I'll create an account on whatever the group chooses and I'll hunt down a link eventually and I'll find you. :) What I'm more concerned about is reducing the friction that less motivated people have to endure to find the group.
>
> Something that strikes me about Slack is how many open Slack channels there are, especially for developer communities. Here is one list (not all dev focused):
> https://slacklist.info/. Here is a directory for Discord: https://discord.me/. Not sure if either of those are representative, but each certainly has a distinctive theme.
>
> My thought would be to go where the enterprise users and developers are, and my perception is that is more Slack than Discord.
>
> I don't think this has to be controversial or require a long, drawn-out evaluation. Once everyone has had their say, put it to a vote, then cutover quickly and move forward.
>
> Jeff
>
> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 1:28 PM Axel Faust <axel.faust.g at googlemail.com<mailto:axel.faust.g at googlemail.com>> wrote:
>
> Thanks Jim for pointing out the download link for desktop apps. The invite link for Discord has actually been in the #orderofthebee IRC channel welcome message since at least August 10th. Provided there is an agreement for Discord sometime down the line, our website would be adapted accordingly.
>
> Not having unlimited, searchable history was one of the primary reasons we have not looked at Slack. Additionally, when we looked at the situation, the Alfresco Discord had already been created and it looked like a majority or at least a significant subset of the active users had already made the switch or were willing to make the switch. This reduced the argument of "having to have yet another account" as a con. It also turned relying on IRC only to a potential liability, since it would force that user base to use multiple tools to keep being part of both communities.
>
> I also totally forgot that there was also an attempt to have an OOTBee slack (https://ootbee.slack.com), which was used primarily around / shortly after the first BeeCon in 2016.
> I am not sure about "the one that everyone is probably already using anyway: Slack". Same as with Discord, I have had zero contact with Slack, were it not for our 2016 trial and a lone customer from outside Germany, and there I have been frequently annoyed by the message storage limit. I know, with our current level of activity we are not in danger of reaching that limit in a reasonable amount of time, but I hesitate to consider the current level of (non-)activity as the final state, and am also thinking about potential notifications / integrations from 3rd party systems inflating that number.
>
> It was clear from the start that this could be a controversial suggestion. It was that way back in 2016/2017, and will likely be that way in 2030, unless some Zuckerberg clone manages to deliver a platform that succeeds in killing off / suppressing all alternatives. As always, any alternatives are welcome for discussion but that requires that somebody (typically the one proposing a specific alternative) step up and do the legwork for an evaluation.
>
> On 14/09/2018 18:29, Jim Tomonto wrote:
> There is a Mac app for Discord (just not in the app store) https://discordapp.com/download
>
> On the Mac App you just select the channel -> right click -> Invite People and then you are off to the races.
>
> Discord did start with gamers but has gotten real traction in the Blockchain/Crypto space.
>
> The cool thing with Discord is that the free tier has unlimited storage for each user locally to see the history. Slack requires you to pay once you exceed the dreaded history limit (which happens pretty quickly on most channels).
>
> Jim
>
> Jim Tomonto
>
>
>
>
> On Sep 14, 2018, at 10:20 AM, Jeff Potts <jeffpotts01 at gmail.com<mailto:jeffpotts01 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> When I first heard that some folks were using Discord I tried to figure out how to access it and was totally flummoxed. I couldn't find an invite link and didn't want to bother anyone. I ended up giving up. If we were to switch entirely to Discord, would people still need to hunt down an invite link? How will the community figure out how to find us?
>
> Is there a MacOS app for Discord (didn't see one in the app store) or must I use yet another browser window to keep it open? (Slack has a nice desktop app, for example).
>
> It is frustrating to have to go create another account for another service that I will only use for Alfresco stuff. Also, what's with the gamer iconography everywhere? Strange!
>
> IRC is free and open, has a variety of apps for all platforms, and does its job sufficiently well. I didn't see any concerns about IRC that couldn't be addressed. But, if we can't stay on IRC, and if we're going to move to a non-open source product, why wouldn't we move to the one that everyone is probably already using anyway: Slack.
>
> Jeff
>
> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 6:11 AM Axel Faust <axel.faust.g at googlemail.com<mailto:axel.faust.g at googlemail.com>> wrote:
>
> A quick follow up: To show that the Discord server is still in evaluation and even I have yet to learn more about it, I accidentally included the wrong invite link in my last email. If you want to check out the Discord server, please use https://discord.gg/wEvSqDG instead.
>
> On 14/09/2018 13:07, Axel Faust wrote:
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> in his last mail to this list, Younes has mentioned that we as the Board have been looking into improvements of the internal communication. One aspect of this is that we have setup a Discord "server" for the Order of the Bee, created various rooms and played with / implemented some integrations. All of this was done as an evaluation or at least an interim solution (with regards to how the new Board communicates among its members), but with this email I want to start the discussion about this potentially becoming a permanent solution.
>
> Now, some of you may ask "Why Discord?" and "Don't we already have an IRC channel?" / "What about our Mattermost (https://chat.orderofthebee.org<https://chat.orderofthebee.org/>) server?". So let me give some arguments on why we have looked at Discord:
>
> * In IRC we currently have one public channel on freenode. Some of the discussions (especially among the board members) may not fit in that central, public space. Having the ability to host multiple channels was also a reason behind the 2016/2017 trial of using Mattermost. This is also true for Discord, though other than in Mattermost there is no additional / superfluous concept of teams that separates the channels and you don't need to explicitly add/join to channels, so accessibility-wise it feels to be slightly better.
> * Using Mattermost requires us to run and maintain our own service on our infrastructure. Since we currently have infrastructure sponsored by Magenta Apps, the cost is not the main concern here, but the available resources in terms of people in charge of administration / maintenance. This was initially covered by the INFRA committee composed of Marsbard, Daren, Lanre, and Heiko. But as most of our committees, the level of activity has approached near zero over time. As the board, we felt it would be better to rely on a free, hosted solution to reduce our internal effort / dependencies, and allow any renewed activities in the INFRA committee (or any successor team / constellation) to be focused on more productive tasks.
> * Our internal Mattermost server has seen no activity since the 2016/2017 trials, and even then the interaction was extremely light.
> * We recognize that Discord is not open source as opposed to Mattermost. Still, it is a platform with a proven track record among open source communities, has a - in my eyes so far - mostly fair and transparent business practice, and - most essentially - provides unlimited chat history in the free tier.
> * A significant portion of the #alfresco IRC channel members have made the switch to a Alfresco Discord "server" created by Bhagyas Silva, which may at some time in the future be designated the official community channel by Alfresco. By having our own Discord server, we make it easier for members of #alfresco to engage in our organisation as well, without requiring separate credentials on a disconnected system.
>
> Currently we have the following channels on Discord:
>
> * #general: the main channel, synchronized with IRC via a bot, so that we can keep the IRC channel alive without cutting anyone off
> * #github-updates: collecting notifications from GitHub about events on any repository in the OrderOfTheBee GitHub organisation
> * #board: a private channel for members of the board to discuss / organise their activities
> * #support-tools: a channel dedicated to the OOTBee support tools addon, which may obsolete / succeed the previously separate Gitter channel (a custom integration with GitHub events provides the same type of notifications we had in Gitter)
> * #alfresco-irc-bridge: a read-only channel dedicated to keeping a complete history of #alfresco on IRC (chat.alfresco.com<http://chat.alfresco.com/> runs on a private server of Richard Esplin and may stop to work at any time when alfbot breaks or Alfresco demands the server be shut down / moved to a different name)
>
> There are also a couple of channels for specific tests that may come and go, i.e. a bridge to the Alfresco-internal Slack system to allow for interaction with Alfresco staff.
>
>
> TL;DR: We have set up a Discord server for evaluation (https://discord.gg/kbPSjum), I outlined the reasons why we chose it and what channels we currently have, and we want to know your opinions on this subject before we call for a vote on making it "official".
>
>
> Regards and my apologies for not being able to write a shorter mail...
>
> Axel
>
> _______________________________________________
> OOTB-hive mailing list
> OOTB-hive at lists.xtreamlab.net<mailto:OOTB-hive at lists.xtreamlab.net>
> https://lists.xtreamlab.net/mailman/listinfo/ootb-hive
> _______________________________________________
> OOTB-hive mailing list
> OOTB-hive at lists.xtreamlab.net<mailto:OOTB-hive at lists.xtreamlab.net>
> https://lists.xtreamlab.net/mailman/listinfo/ootb-hive
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OOTB-hive mailing list
> OOTB-hive at lists.xtreamlab.net<mailto:OOTB-hive at lists.xtreamlab.net>
> https://lists.xtreamlab.net/mailman/listinfo/ootb-hive

_______________________________________________
OOTB-hive mailing list
OOTB-hive at lists.xtreamlab.net
https://lists.xtreamlab.net/mailman/listinfo/ootb-hive
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.xtreamlab.net/pipermail/ootb-hive/attachments/20180917/6d25cfaa/attachment-0001.html>