The chat situation

[Kenny Duffus]

On Thursday, 11 June 2020 07:20:55 BST Kevin Ottens wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> On Thursday, 11 June 2020 01:16:55 CEST Nate Graham wrote:
> > Carson's email about bridging #kde-devel to Telegram got me thinking: we
> > should have a discussion about the situation we're in regarding chat
> > services in KDE.
> > 
> > The current Matrix solution does not seem not optimal to me. I have
> > really tried my best to be a good citizen and use Matrix as much as
> > possible over the last year but I find myself gravitating back towards
> > Telegram because of how much better the overall UX is, especially for
> > fast-moving discussions and those involving images.
> > 
> > I haven't found a Matrix client that offers both a half-decent UX and
> > also a reasonable featureset. The service suffers from lag, sometimes
> > severe. Periodically the federation breaks, or the bridge between IRC
> > and Telegram breaks, leading to people's messages silently vanishing.
> > The implementation of the bridge itself impedes discussions between
> > Telegram users and IRC/Matrix users because when a Telegram user replies
> > to a post made by someone on IRC or Matrix, that person person can't see
> > the message being replied to. Overall it just does not feel like a great
> > user experience.
> > 
> > This situation really needs to be fixed, somehow. I'm not knowledgeable
> > enough regarding chat software to be able to propose solution, but I
> > don't feel like the status quo is something we should live with. Can we
> > fix Matrix? Or should we migrate to something that offers a better UX?
> 
> I've not been a good citizen like you and stuck mostly to IRC so I got a 
> question out of curiosity (and because I think it'll impact the decision 
> making).
> 
> Regarding the lags and the breakages, do they happen only to bridged channels? 
> Or do they happen also for "pure" Matrix channels as well?
> 

Bridging is the main issue. The community not using things other than IRC would remove these problems. However going back to that state is probably unlikely

I think it is unfair to lay all the blame at Matrix's door. Bridged Telegram is a bad experience for users on both IRC and Matrix. While the IRC <> Matrix integration experience is very good, except on those odd occasions when there are problems with the bridge

-- 

	Kenny
	(Pronouns: he/him)