Clojurians Log v2

@cfleming This channel has been created for discussion around moving to other services etc, thought you might be interested

@martinklepsch Absolutely, thanks.

I’ve been talking to @gjnoonan about it.

Yeah

It seems like Discord is the front-runner option.

I think the consent (here) right now is that unless Slack kicks us it will be non-trivial to move without loosing a large chunk of users

As long as we can create a logging bot to allow us to migrate content elsewhere if we want to.

I don’t agree with that.

I mean, presumably we can just lock this down so that no-one can post, and put a message saying “we’re now over here”

I’m also assuming we can automatically migrate users.

I do think that we’ll basically have to force users to move.

I’m still in the Matrix camp myself, it has bridging and is open.

Yeah, but the clients suck.

Or they did not long ago, I haven’t checked in ~6 months.

https://riot.im/app/#/room/#clojure:matrix.org

Not as polished as Slack or Discord for sure but “good enough” IMO

Ok, so I can’t log in using the password I’m sure I used, and I can’t reset because it says I have to enter a password, which I have done.

(which is sort of what I’m talking about)

You get “There was a problem logging in. (HTTP 400)“?

No - it said that I had to enter a password when I was resetting my password. I had done so, but with a password manager - perhaps it didn’t like that.

Their password reset flow is really weird too.

Now that I’m in it’s definitely nicer than it was.

So would this involve hosting a Clojure-related server?

Also, is there any precedent for Matrix channels with >9k users?

What are the mobile/desktop apps like?

I find the mobile app basic but solid

@cfleming You’d create a matrix node with it’s own collection of rooms

an alternative is to have rooms on the matrix server and provide a custom room directory server that allows for easier discoverability

My concern with Matrix is that it’s pretty complicated for users who just want to chat.

Figuring out the whole room/node/server/directory server thing is a pain - can we make something simple we can just point users to?

I think reducing friction is really important.

Agree

A custom version of Riot that only shows Clojurians rooms would probably not be too hard to maintain

What is the argument against Discord? Walled garden?

I started working on a small website that contains all clojurians rooms in an easy list

Walled garden, yes. I’m not against it per se I would just like to see a move to something more open

There are a few more notes here https://hackpad.com/The-case-for-Matrix-xRXYSO9zpyh

Here’s that basic directory that could become http://clojurians.net http://d3981087m4idf6.cloudfront.net/

Reading through that page makes me think that walled gardens are not so bad 🙂

I like the idea of Matrix in principle.

But I think that practically it has a lot of points against it in terms of providing a coherent Clojure-related space.

Whether we want that or not is another argument - I think yes, others might not agree.

Personally, since I basically use Slack for support, I want users to be able to find me easily, I want them and me to be able to use the thing without buggering around, and I don’t want messages to disappear.

I really don’t care that much about much else, but those 3 are really important to me.

And I’m assuming that e.g. file uploads and screenshot, code formatting etc are a given - IRC is out for me.

> Reading through that page makes me think that walled gardens are not so bad 🙂 > But I think that practically it has a lot of points against it in terms of providing a coherent Clojure-related space. What makes you think that / what are those points?

I see the main issue with discoverability but this seems solvable

@cfleming --cloudfront distribution may not work if you use something like httpseverywhere-- ignore also works with https

I guess it’s discoverability. Compare with Clojurians right now, or how it probably would be under Discourse. I get a list of Clojure-related chats right there, and I don’t have to filter out anything else. If I want to find someone related to Clojure they’re probably on there, so I can just search for them. Similarly if I want to use a new library or tool, it almost certainly has a channel there that I can trivially search for.

And I don’t have to download a custom client or anything to get that.

What would the user/room search UI be like in Matrix if we used a Clojure-related home server? Can I search for users by name, or do I need their email address?

If a new Cursive user wants to find me, can they use my name? Can they just type “cursive” into an obvious search box and find my channel without having to filter out handwriting channels?

In the bottom left are two buttons: one person icon and one directory icon. Both bring up inputs where you can put in usernames and room names respectively @clf

So if we had our own home server, that would only show rooms from that server?

I see.

Note the difference between “home server” and “room (directory) server” — to get a custom list there we only need the latter which is significantly simpler to operate and maintain

Are you on there? I can’t search for you by name, for example.

Ok, so that’s just a curated list of channels?

yes

Ok.

I’m there, I find you. If I type in martinklepsch you should find me

Ok, klepsch doesn’t.

Generally the fact that Slack’s search also uses the person’s real name is really useful for finding people.

But Matrix has no idea what my real name is, I guess.

Perhaps you haven’t entered your real name?

I have Colin Fleming set as my display name.

Have you tried with “Martin Kle” ?

I think it does a simple .startsWith type search. Admittedly not ideal.

So I think I still favour a walled garden.

Riot is not terrible, but the usability (particularly for getting started) isn’t ideal.

I like the idea though, and I’m sure it will improve.

I used Discord for the first time a while ago and was seriously confused about the UI 😄

Can we import old content to a Matrix room?

Actually, in Matrix it looks like you can’t edit old messages?

I think that’s possible, yes. Also we can bridge rooms as #community-matrix & https://riot.im/app/#/room/#clojure-community:matrix.org

What does that mean?

Bridge from Slack to Matrix?

yes

and vice versa

it works pretty well

Honestly, I think if we want to get the community somewhere else, we should just move and shut down the old Clojurians.

I think, basically, I could live with Matrix but I’d prefer something like Discord, since I care more about functionality and stability than openness.

@cfleming you can only “redact” messages. I think they might built editing on top of that in the future

Can you @-message people in Matrix? It doesn’t seem to let me.

@cfleming yeah but you just type their nick and tab, no @ in front