IRC, Matrix, and fragmentation

Haskell Foundation
#1

I think fragmentation is unavoidable, and I think it’s fine and healthy. Imagine if the entire community of Java developers tried to have a single realtime chat room!

On the other hand, there’s the limited “Haskell” namespace that will suffer the tragedy of the commons unless we pump against entropy a bit. This seems like a job for the Foundation. :slight_smile:

As there is currently some concern about Freenode leadership, Matrix has come up again. There is a Haskell channel, and someone in the Reddit thread about Freenode says they just created a (separate) Haskell space. I think there’s a lot of potential in Matrix. But there’s the namespace question.

Right now, the Haskell channel has a single admin, who has been unresponsive for months. We just had our first spam comment, and no way to combat it. (Pinging @thekyriarchy in case you are here.) Can the Foundation take a role in ensuring that this limited resource is kept healthy and available for all?

I’m happy to assist and invest in the Matrix-based community(ies), and send greetings to fellow Haskellers, wherever you are. :slight_smile:

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#2

Happy to know there is a Haskell presence on Matrix. Sad to see the shenanigans happening behind the curtains on Freenode, it was a beacon for OSS for the last twenty years.

1 Like
#3

Also happy to see matrix being mentioned.

and someone in the Reddit thread about Freenode says they just created a (separate) Haskell space.

Not me, but I’ve also created a Haskell space here: https://matrix.to/#/!pZFfqwPvNuLROTqRRy:matrix.org?via=hpdeifel.de&via=matrix.org

Spaces (a way to group rooms and people) are currently a beta feature and lack important functionality such as discoverability. It’s entirely possible to adopt matrix without caring about Spaces.

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#4

One way we’re avoiding fragmentation, to be clear, is that the #haskell channels on freenode are migrating enmasse to https://libera.chat/ (which is where former freenode ops and admins have been migrating as well)

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#5

A cross post from the NixOS community, which just up and moved to Matrix , haha: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/join-us-on-matrix-at-nix-nixos-org-migrating-from-freenode/13166

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#6

Discoverability can be helped by putting a reference to the suggested/available spaces up in docs on haskell.org. There is even an existing page for community resources, so adding references to those spaces should be easy. The repo is up at https://github.com/haskell-infra/www.haskell.org/issues if you want to update the doc, make a PR (or ping for help with that).

#7

Easy enough, but is there buy-in? :slight_smile:

I’d prefer to see the HF make the financial/governance decision to sponsor a haskell.org home server on EMS before enshrining some room on the haskell.org website.

Or to not do so!

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#8

Isn’t migrating to Matrix a better way to avoid fragmentation as it offers far superior bridging capabilities?

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#9

I would prefer having a matrix backbone with IRC and whatnot tie-ins, than yet another IRC bridged into matrix bridged into something else.

(gosh, I really don’t like *-serv shenanigans…)

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#10

+1 for building up our Matrix presence. (IMHO it is the future, with IRC remaining as the proven backup technology.)

Yes we do need to get wider admin access to that main Haskell room on Matrix, #haskell:matrix.org. I had a couple of productive chats with @thekyriarchy earlier in the year but have been unsuccessful in reaching them via matrix chat over the last week. Other contact info is not apparent. I believe they were last known to be active on Matrix within the last month or two. So we could keep trying for some period of time - how long should it be ? After that probably the next step would be to ask support@matrix.org for help.

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#11

FWIW, libera.chat is bridging to matrix:

RIGHT! It’s beta, but we have a Matrix bridge up for @liberachat
: you can connect to #foo:http://libera.chat where #foo is the channel. Huge thanks to the team for letting us expose the network on Matrix! We are also working through fixing the bridge bug backlog :slight_smile:

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#12

Can you show me a proper matrix cli client that isn’t awful? I’ve basically tried all of them and there was no satisfaction. The only properly maintained and feature complete client is Element… and ofc on desktop it’s a bloated electron app. Yeah… no.

Despite that, whenever I tried it, latency was bad. That may or may not be an infrastructure issue… or inherent to the design of the protocol. I cannot say.

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#13

I tried direct messaging on 5/25 and 6/2. Is it time to ask support@matrix.org for help ? I’d be happy to try it but I expect they’ll need to hear from an official representative of the Haskell Foundation.

Once the room is manageable, a good first task will be to update its topic, particularly the out of date references to the old Freenode IRC channel.

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#14

What about merging #haskell:libera.chat and #haskell:matrix.org? I think this is doable in matrix and would solve the fragmentation

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#15

I believe the #haskell:matrix.org admin is uncontactable (though this information may be out of date).

#16

This has come up frequently, maybe even in this thread. :slight_smile: I like what NixOS has done: there’s a Space for all the Nix channels so there’s some linkage, but the bridged room is separate from the main Matrix room.

The problem with bridging a huge channel is that it makes the experience worse for both sides.

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#17

An update for the record: we reached @thekyriarchy and the channel now has a larger group of Admins and Mods (including srid, hpd, myself, chreekat, joe). Good news!

I’m not sure that any of us has any official (Haskell Foundation) standing - I think it would still be useful to add a HF person, as that helps when we need to get things done that require action by the Matrix staff.

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#18

Great news! Happy to be that person if you want.

1 Like