Re: [libreoffice-website] Proposal for Matrix-Based communication within The Document Foundation

On 18.5.2024 23.34, Philippe wrote:
> Dear members of the The Document Foundation,
>
> I am writing to you with a proposal that I believe could significantly 
> enhance our organizational efficiency and communication methods.
>
> As we all know, effective communication lies at the heart of any 
> successful foundation. Currently, our primary modes of communication 
> largely rely on email and IRC. While these platforms have served us 
> adequately in the past, I believe it's time for us to consider adopting 
> a more modern and versatile solution: Matrix.

Hello Philippe. It is normal to come with expectations to a new project. 
I was certainly prejudiced against the LibreOffice communication 
channels when I joined as a volunteer. Over time I was able to let go of 
my bias, especially in the case of mailing lists.

I am against the proposal as it would make onboarding new contributors 
more difficult. Currently the new contributors I interview do not have 
to create any account for their first chat. Having to create an account 
just to hear what I have to say would create inertia and would lead to a 
decrease in people agreeing to the interview.

We have used Matrix for several years in internal TDF communication and 
there have been constant issues due to the confusing/broken UX regarding 
encryption. Messages randomly don't get distributed to all participants 
in a room. Adding new devices becomes a small project in itself, with 
the verification process sometimes turning into an infinitely failing 
loop and leading to giving up and just living with the distracting alert 
messages. The idea that I would have to deal with these issues while 
mentoring ~200 people per year concerns me.

The issue with the IRC network we use is that mobile clients don't get a 
good experience as an active connection from the client side is 
required. One solution would be to host our own multi-user bouncer. 
However, the network is actually planning to switch to a new server 
software and offer always-on presence with unlimited chat history to all 
registered users. This is the software being developed: 
https://github.com/Libera-Chat/sable

When it comes to email, a chat solution is certainly not a replacement 
for it. We need asynchronous communication for long form discussions 
that might span over long periods of time, like a clear paper trail we 
can return to. An alternative to mailing lists is forums and we do 
deploy Discourse. However, web-based forums have shortcomings that make 
life difficult for people having to deal with a large volume of 
messages. An email client is superior to a forum in filtering and 
organising and even writing replies (anyone who ever tried writing an 
inline reply in Discourse knows this).

Both IRC (with text-based logs) and email clients offer very efficient 
searching capabilities for power users.

Ilmari

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