[Announce] OpenBMC Discord Community

[Andrei Kartashev]

Hi Patrick, 

Is there a Matrix (Riot.IM) to Discord bridge configured (
https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bridge/matrix-appservice-discord)? Did
you try it? Can we connect Discord channel with IRC channel via the
bridge?
BTW, what was the problem with Matrix-To-IRC? I use it connect the
channel and it works fine to me.

PS: it may be also interesting option is gitter, which going to be
merged with matrix:
https://matrix.org/blog/2020/09/30/welcoming-gitter-to-matrix

On Thu, 2020-11-12 at 08:57 -0600, Patrick Williams wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> TL;DR: I have created an OpenBMC Discord community as a modern
> alternative to
> IRC.  Please join at https://discord.gg/69Km47zH98 .  I've included
> some FAQs
> below.
> 
> ---
> 
> Recently Kurt sent out a survey about messaging (IRC) and the results
> suggested that using IRC is an impediment to a large segment of our
> community[1].  75% of responders suggested "IRC is too confusing" and
> 65%
> responded they were unwilling to use IRC even if someone help them
> set it up.
> I was also told privately that there are some people who, due to
> corporate or
> country network restrictions, are unable to access IRC.  It seems
> that
> exclusively using IRC is putting a constraint on the collaboration of
> the
> community and so I am willing to try something different.
> 
> I did a simple investigation of the options available to us and
> usages of
> other similar communities and came to the conclusion that Discord
> would
> likely be a good fit for our needs.  A few of us have been
> experimenting with
> it and there do not seem to be any pervasive issues, so I am hereby
> announcing
> it to the community at-large.
> 
> Discord is widely used in the video gaming community and by some
> other open
> source communities.  It has a modern Slack-like interface, but has
> much better
> Free-tier limits compared to similar alternatives.  Discord also has
> built-in
> voice / video / screen sharing, which could be very beneficial for
> impromptu
> hands-on problem solving and hosting "Office Hours".  Like many
> alternatives,
> there is a browser, stand-alone, and mobile app options and sign-up
> is a
> simple email-verification process.
> 
> I'm pretty excited about the possibilities for our community and look
> forward
> to seeing many of you join!
> 
> ---
> 
> # Q&As
> 
> ## What are the rules?
> 
> We've never explicitly stated the rules for IRC, but IRC was set up
> before we
> had a Code of Conduct.  I have created a #rules channel in Discord
> and posted
> a link to our CoC; they should all be assumed to apply on Discord.
> 
> Discord does support private messages, but they are set up in a
> different way
> from some alternatives.  With Discord, PMs take place outside of our
> community
> but within Discord itself and we have no direct way to directly
> monitor or
> police.  You can choose to block all private messages, allow all
> private
> messages, or accept PMs from a subset of people.  This is similar to
> what we
> have today with IRC, so I expect there to be no issues, but if anyone
> feels
> they are on the receiving end of unwanted behavior please report by
> following
> the procedures outlined in the CoC.
> 
> 
> ## Can I use my existing Discord account?
> 
> Yes, but... since Discord is widely used in a less-professional
> setting
> (Gaming), I feel it is important to point something out.
> 
> With Discord you have a Username for your account and a Nickname
> within the
> community.  Your Nickname is displayed in chats, but it is easy to
> see your
> Username within your profile.  If you do not everyone to know your
> alter-ego
> as F0rtN1ghtKing007, you may want to create a separate account or
> change your
> Username.  (If your existing Username might be construed as a CoC
> violation,
> please change it or create a separate account before joining.)
> 
> 
> ## Won't this split the community into two messaging systems?  What
> happens
> with IRC?
> 
> Hopefully not, but maybe.  Just like software, sometimes someone
> comes along
> and refactors the solution to make it better.  Sometimes the new
> solution
> loses a few features along the way.  Sometimes the new solution
> doesn't pan
> out and it isn't fully adopted.  I don't see this as any different;
> if it is
> better, people will adopt it, and if not so be it.
> 
> The survey results and sentiment I have heard from some TSC members
> indicate
> to me that IRC might be an impediment to bettering the
> community.  So, this is
> an option for us to try.
> 
> For the time being, I personally will be on both IRC and Discord.  We
> can
> revisit in the future to decide if one should be deprecated.
> 
> 
> ## Why didn't you choose Slack?
> 
> Some companies have chosen Slack as their internal messaging solution
> as have
> some open source communities.  It is, overall, a good offering in
> many
> settings.
> 
> For open source communities, the Free-tier of Slack has some
> limitations that
> I feel make it difficult to build a community around.  The biggest is
> a limit
> of 10,000 messages in the history.  After 10k messages, Slack starts
> deleting
> older messages.  In one community I participate in less-active
> channels end up
> losing their messages in only a few days, which means that meaningful
> conversations can only take place in the most active channels among
> the most
> active users.  That community has recently moved off Slack and onto
> Discord
> for this reason.
> 
> The paid-tiers of Slack are pretty expensive for our community.  We
> typically
> have ~75 active participants on IRC.  Assuming we grow this
> engagement and we
> count transient users, we'd probably be looking at $10,000 per year
> for the
> lowest tier of Slack.  Not only do we not have a budget as a
> community but
> that does not, to me, seem like a very effective use of any funds we
> might
> have.
> 
> Discord is as good or better than Slack, as best I can tell, in every
> way
> except one: threaded messages.  Hopefully, Discord will add that as a
> feature
> in the future.  I feel the elimination of Free-tier limits and
> voice/video
> features of Discord will make it a better choice for us.
> 
> A reasonably objective article as a comparison between the two
> suggests that
> Discord is better for large open source communities[2].
> 
> ## Why didn't you choose <X>?
> 
> Whatever option we pick some people will be pleased and some will
> not.
> Looking at the TSC member companies, I think each company has chosen
> a
> different product as their internal messaging solution.  Some of them
> have
> their own competitive offering to Slack.  I did not do an exhaustive
> feature-by-feature comparison of all competitive offerings.
> 
> In terms of Open Source communities, and similar communities
> utilizing a free
> or low-priced option, Discord and Slack seem to have the most
> usage.  Many
> other large open source have Discord communities as well (some
> official and
> some unofficial).  Rust, Vue, Angular, Fedora, OpenSUSE, and Electron
> are a
> few I recognized on a list by Discord[3].  The Python Discord
> community has
> over 100,000 members.
> 
> There are some fully open source alternatives to Discord.  The two
> most
> popular are Riot.IM and Mattermost.  Mattermost would require us to
> host the
> service, similar to what we do for Gerrit.  We have an existing
> Riot.IM bridge
> to IRC but we have had reliability issues with it.
> 
> If something better comes along and/or Discord presents problems for
> us, I
> suspect the community will be nimble enough to move along to the next
> great
> thing.
> 
> 
> ## Does this mean _you_ control the Discord community?
> 
> I originally created the existing IRC set up and have given some of
> the other
> long-time members administration on it.  The permissions I set up on
> Discord
> are identical and two other people currently have administrator-level
> permissions there as well.  If the TSC decides on a particular
> governance of
> our communities, such as IRC or Discord, I'll happily transfer
> ownership as
> requested.  Discord ownership can be transferred to another account
> very
> easily.
> 
> As stated earlier, no one with admin-level access has the ability to
> read
> private messages either on IRC or Discord.
> 
> ---
> 
> 1. 
> https://lore.kernel.org/openbmc/bb565e15-f5a7-b0b2-d987-41b1a5e9acbb@gmail.com/
> 2. https://droplr.com/how-to/productivity-tools/slack-vs-discord/
> 3. https://discord.com/open-source
> 
-- 
Best regards,
Andrei Kartashev