<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<p>Hi,<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/22/23 12:45, Niccolò Ve wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAHWRx6TmbmVEODte1Z=fz4y+J2jd3ZxtusTdfdKmrKQ_dGJ2fw@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="auto">
<div>This is a terribly careless decision, for multiple reasons.
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Firstly, this is something that has a strong
impact on the entire community and, because of that, it
should've been discussed publicly before agreeing on this. I
had been told this was going to happen, but only through
private messages and without really any chance to argue
against this. No chance has been given to discuss the
consequences of this action, nor to discuss how to best
address the technical issues related to the bridge
maintenance. <br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
Some of the communication could have been a bit better, but this was
at least publicly known from a previous mailing list thread a few
months ago. There was also a BoF at akademy about
Matrix/IRC/Telegram and how we should proceed there. Noone showed up
to argue in favor of Telegram.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAHWRx6TmbmVEODte1Z=fz4y+J2jd3ZxtusTdfdKmrKQ_dGJ2fw@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="auto">
<div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Secondly, the transition timeframe is way too
small. There are a very big number of Telegram channels, and
some even lack a Matrix counterpart. Telegram links used in
multiple KDE wiki pages, and it will take time to shift all
the chats over to Matrix. Taking Promo as an example, who
knew this was happening some weeks ago: some chat have been
successfully ported to Matrix, but it will take much more
time to shift them all; this means that, after the 20th of
Sept., Promo coordinators like Paul will have to handle both
the Telegram and Matrix that's separately; or, we close down
the Telegram channels before the transition is completed,
which is even worse.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Thirdly, this will make KDE lose contributors.
The majority of developers I've worked with throughout my
KDE experience has used Telegram as their main channel, and
only a few switched over to Matrix when asked to. </div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
This is not the impression i get when looking at the numbers. Plasma
and KDE-Development aren't on Telegram at all. We have a "New
Contributors" Channel that's not on Telegram at all. None of the
rooms for the new goals are on Telegram, neither the rooms for most
new apps we've started developing in the last years. Somehow we've
just managed to handle akademy with a room that's not bridged to
telegram.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAHWRx6TmbmVEODte1Z=fz4y+J2jd3ZxtusTdfdKmrKQ_dGJ2fw@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="auto">
<div>
<div dir="auto">For many, this worked mean installing one
extra application(with terrible UX) just to be able to
contribute to KDE; it wouldn't be an issue if they were
employees, but we're all volunteers here and most likely
those people will either not switch at all or slowly open
that application less and less.</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAHWRx6TmbmVEODte1Z=fz4y+J2jd3ZxtusTdfdKmrKQ_dGJ2fw@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="auto">
<div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">This includes me; I have very little interest
in forcing myself to use e.g. buggy phone applications
exclusively to contribute as a volunteer and in my free
time.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Fourth, this will make onboarding so much
harder. All developers I've seen and helped onboard KDE have
joined through Telegram, because that's what they had and it
was easy for them. Again, same applies to me: I never
would've joined KDE if it wasn't for the Telegram channels.</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
Does it? We have a "New Contributors" channel that's usually quite
active and isn't bridged to Telegram. We expect people to create an
identity account, a bugzilla account, but having to create a Matrix
or IRC account is "so much harder"?<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAHWRx6TmbmVEODte1Z=fz4y+J2jd3ZxtusTdfdKmrKQ_dGJ2fw@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="auto">
<div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Fifth, the technological reasons given for
this choice are lacking. It assumes that we use UserBots
instead of normal bots (the limit of 1 message every 3
seconds is too restrictive?); it talks about issues with
admin privileges of the bridge, without explaining why they
would be necessary. It complains about spam over the
telegram side: some channels introduced a captcha when users
joined and that worked really well, why can't we use that
for all channels? And so on: there are tons of questions and
different approach that are lacking in the exploitation,
which is particularly bad considering just how damaging the
decision is to KDE,</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Of course, please don't bother replying to
this paragraph with answers to my questions: this should've
happened in the discussion phase of the choice, which you
entirely ignored. I had expressed interest in helping out
figuring out a solution to the bridging issue, but of course
- since I had only been told about this privately - I had
done that privately. I could've done that publicly if you
had warned about what was going to happen.</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
As mentioned before, this was known and discussed previously, in
mailing lists and at Akademy. If you're just here to have an
attitude, please leave that at the door.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAHWRx6TmbmVEODte1Z=fz4y+J2jd3ZxtusTdfdKmrKQ_dGJ2fw@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="auto">
<div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">I will be happy to do everything I'll be asked
to as part of my work; but as far as free time goes, this
choice makes it harder for me to contribute to KDE and - as
a result - I'll most likely fade out my free-time
contributions over time.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">~Nicco</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>If I go to <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://community.kde.org/Telegram">https://community.kde.org/Telegram</a> and have a look at
the rooms, a bunch of the links are broken and some rooms are
inactive. Some of the rooms are on Telegram only, meaning that at
least as far as bridging is concerned, there's no problem there
either. The distro channels (at least those that are not Neon) are
outside of our control. This leaves a relatively small number of
rooms where removing the bridge is even somewhat problematic IMO:
VDG, some of the app rooms, and some local communities. Like
Joseph said, there can be exceptions, for rooms where this is
really needed.</p>
<p>Cheers,</p>
<p>Tobias</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAHWRx6TmbmVEODte1Z=fz4y+J2jd3ZxtusTdfdKmrKQ_dGJ2fw@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="auto">
<div><br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Aug 22, 2023, 9:02
AM Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss <<a
href="mailto:joseph@kde.org" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">joseph@kde.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hello
KDE community,<br>
<br>
apologies for cross-posting!<br>
<br>
The time has finally come: both Telegram <-> Matrix
bridges will be shut <br>
down in 4 weeks on *Wednesday 20 September*. Let's start
the <br>
co-ordination process now so everything goes as smoothly
as possible.<br>
<br>
For all KDE contributors: please read at least the "Five
To-Dos" below <br>
to be informed about what will happen and what needs to be
done.<br>
<br>
Below that there is some additional information about the
bridging <br>
situation at KDE. Consult these notes if you want more
background <br>
information about why the Telegram bridge is being
retired.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Joseph<br>
<br>
_Five To-Dos_<br>
<br>
1. *General*: On Wednesday 20 September the Telegram
bridging to KDE <br>
Matrix rooms will be shut down. To make the transition go
smoothly, <br>
teams should start co-ordinating for the shutdown now. The
Matrix room <br>
for co-ordination is "Telegram shutdown co-ordination" at
<br>
<a
href="https://go.kde.org/matrix/#/%23telegram-shutdown:kde.org"
rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://go.kde.org/matrix/#/#telegram-shutdown:kde.org</a>.<br>
<br>
2. *Co-ordination*: This includes: (i) migrating all
contributors to <br>
Matrix, and (ii) deleting the Telegram rooms before the
bridge is <br>
shutdown or -- at most -- one day after the shutdown.
Keeping Telegram <br>
rooms open when they are no longer being used will cause
unnecessary <br>
confusion. Importantly, do not later add a non-KDE
Telegram bridge to <br>
KDE's Matrix rooms as that will not solve the problems
from doubled user <br>
accounts and lack of control over Telegram; see below for
operational <br>
issues with Telegram bridging.<br>
<br>
3. *Action needed by Telegram room admins*: Due to the
unexpected <br>
shutdown of the public Libera.Chat bridge, we will have to
move rooms <br>
over to the matterbridge (ircsomebot) bridge as we work
through moving <br>
channels over to our own Libera.Chat IRC bridge. This will
require <br>
someone with admin in the Telegram room to ensure
@ircsomebot is in the <br>
Telegram room with admin. This needs to be done after we
unbridge the <br>
Matrix bridge from the Matrix side, so the room can
continue to be <br>
bridged until the Telegram shutdown on 20 September.<br>
<br>
4. *Are there exceptions?": There /may/ be some rooms
that focus on <br>
interacting with people external to the KDE Community who
would benefit <br>
by having a Telegram bridge. We are thinking teams like
those involved <br>
in the KDE Network program: <a
href="https://community.kde.org/The_KDE_Network"
rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://community.kde.org/The_KDE_Network</a>.
<br>
Not all will need an exception, and it may turn out most
don't. We would <br>
like to start putting together a list of these rooms so we
can review <br>
for potential exceptions and estimate the scale of how
much support is <br>
needed. However, this should be kept to a minimum; see
below for <br>
operational issues with Telegram bridging. We understand
that there are <br>
large internal KDE communities which rely heavily on
Telegram, and we <br>
understand that shutting down the Telegram bridge is less
than ideal for <br>
these rooms, but the issues we have with the Telegram
bridge mean we <br>
need to keep exceptions to a minimum and only for those
teeams whose <br>
work has a primarily external focus.<br>
<br>
5. *Getting a Matrix account*: We can offer KDE
Contributors (usually <br>
those in the developers group, but will consider other
requests) a <br>
Matrix account on our KDE Matrix Homeserver. To request an
account <br>
please file a sysadmin ticket <a
href="https://go.kde.org/systickets" rel="noreferrer
noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://go.kde.org/systickets</a>.
However, as <br>
Matrix is federated you do not need to have an account on
our homeserver <br>
to access KDE's Matrix rooms -- you can use any
homeserver! A list of <br>
some alternative Matrix servers is available on <br>
<a href="https://joinmatrix.org/servers/" rel="noreferrer
noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://joinmatrix.org/servers/</a>.<br>
<br>
To co-ordinate with other teams to make this transition go
as smoothly <br>
as possible, please reach out to the "Telegram shutdown
co-ordination" <br>
Matrix room: <a
href="https://go.kde.org/matrix/#/%23telegram-shutdown:kde.org"
rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://go.kde.org/matrix/#/#telegram-shutdown:kde.org</a>.<br>
<br>
_Additional Information Re Bridges_<br>
<br>
* Four years ago it was decided to add Matrix to IRC as
KDE's <br>
official IM platforms (bridged together). IRC is not
planned to be shut <br>
down.<br>
<br>
* Telegram is not Free Software and has never been an
official <br>
platform for KDE communications. However, it has been used
unofficially <br>
in a number of areas.<br>
<br>
* EMS hosts KDE's Matrix instance and the current
Telegram bridge, <br>
and the majority of issues our community have with Matrix
are related to <br>
bridges. Due to the huge extra load and poor performance
Telegram <br>
bridging has in the Matrix rooms, it was agreed with EMS
that the bridge <br>
would be only run for about a year until people had time
to migrate to <br>
Matrix.<br>
<br>
* However, instead of people migrating away from
Telegram, we have <br>
seen an increase in contributors using /both/ Matrix and
Telegram, which <br>
has doubled the number of users we have to cope with.
Having twice as <br>
many users as needed in the room slows everything down:
longer joins, <br>
more state events for each user, higher chances of room
state developing <br>
problems.<br>
<br>
* The public Libera.Chat bridge was unexpectedly
shutdown, and we <br>
have to move rooms over to the matterbridge (ircsomebot)
bridge as we <br>
work through moving channels over to our own Libera.Chat
IRC bridge. <br>
This is not as originally planned, which was to migrate to
that IRC <br>
bridge after the Telegram shutdown.<br>
<br>
* The vast majority of spam is from Telegram. Due to
the Telegram <br>
bridge account being reported for spam, the account has
lost the ability <br>
to do admin tasks in many rooms. At its worst the account
was blocked <br>
from logging in for weeks, making the bridge
non-functional. Since then, <br>
rooms often can't be bridged without deleting the Telegram
room and <br>
starting fresh, but this only has about a 30% success of
working <br>
long-term. We did not get anywhere attempting to get
Telegram to help.<br>
<br>
* The current Telegram bridge doesn't work properly so
it makes sense <br>
to shut it down rather than trying to just change account
phone numbers <br>
(which would require removing the bridge from all channels
then <br>
re-adding to a new bridge, with high chance we end up in
the same <br>
situation in the future).<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss<br>
KDE Internal Communications & KDE Eco Community
Manager<br>
OpenPGP: 8FC5 4178 DC44 AD55 08E7 DF57 453E 5746 59A6 C06F<br>
Matrix: @joseph:<a href="http://kde.org" rel="noreferrer
noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">kde.org</a><br>
<br>
Generally available Monday-Thursday from 10-16h CET/CEST.
Outside of <br>
these times it may take a little longer for me to respond.<br>
<br>
KDE Eco: Building Energy-Efficient Free Software!<br>
Website: <a href="https://eco.kde.org" rel="noreferrer
noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://eco.kde.org</a><br>
Mastodon: @be4foss@floss.social<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>