Re: [Tools-implementation] Rough draft of message to the community re Zulip and Matrix

[Russ Housley <[e-mail]>]

> On Sep 21, 2020, at 4:18 PM, Robert Sparks <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> a couple of quick responses inline
> 
> On 9/21/20 3:10 PM, Russ Housley wrote:
>> Robert:
>> 
>> Comments below.
>> 
>> Russ
>> 
>> 
>>> On Sep 21, 2020, at 3:20 PM, Robert Sparks <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> All -
>>> 
>>> First, note that Glen is offline this week, and I do not expect him to see any of this conversation until he returns. But please don't wait for him to refine this. I would like to have it in a form that we can send by early next week.
>>> 
>>> Please point out (and offer text for) missing things that need to be addressed in this initial message.
>>> 
>>> ====
>>> 
>>> We are deploying trials of the matrix and zulip chat services to gain
>>> operational experience and get community feedback about how well these services
>>> meet the need for IETF related chat.
>> Is thee a sentence or two you can add about the things that we hope will be better than the current solution?
>> 
>> We expect the chat to support face-to-face IETF meetings, virtual meetings, interim meetings, and virtual hallway discussions.  We should say that all of these are dimensions to consider.
>> 
>>> The installs currently have almost no local configuration or customization.
>>> Over the next few weeks, we will be exploring reconfiguring them to use
>>> datatracker credentials for sign-in, and explore bridging between these systems,
>>> Slack, and Jabber.
>>> 
>>> The secretariat is operating each instance. We've chosen this path for these
>>> trials over third party hosting to learn what would be needed if the community
>>> felt self-hosting was important in the longer term.
>>> 
>>> The services can be found at matrix-trial1.ietf.org and zulip-trial1.ietf.org.
>>> 
>>> Any matrix client can be used with the trial matrix server. We are also hosting
>>> an instance of the element web client at matrix-trial1.ietf.org.
>> ... there is also a web client available at matrix-trial1.ietf.org.
>> 
>> It currently refuses to create an account with "common" names that are easy to guess.  This does not seem ideal for the IETF community.
>> 
>> This should tell people what convention we want to use for these accounts.
> 
> Expand please?
> 
> I don't think this initial message should be speaking at the level of "what your account name can look like". I also don't think we want to try to start changing the configuration to route around this kind of issue (unless we're forced to to make progress). Letting people see these kinds of edges are part of why we're running this as a trial set of services.

Do we want them to use their email address or some handle?  I was surprised that "housley" was rejected.  I think we want to tell people enough that they do not get surprised.

> 
>> 
>>> Similarly any zulip client can be used with the trial zulip server, which has a
>>> built in web interface.
>> It currently uses your email address, which is not bad for the IETF.  However, I never got the email when I tried to create an account.
> 
> Something we'll have to wait for Glen to get back online for to diagnose.

It came, but it took a long time.  We may want to tell people to expect that ...

> 
>>  Probably needs plumbing into the IETF mail system.
>> 
>> This should tell people that their email address will be used, and ask them ti use the email address known to the datatracker.
> 
> Well, as we get a week or two in, we may integrate accounts with the datatracker anyhow, so it may be moot.
> 
> But I don't think we should wait on getting that integration working beforew we start getting feedback. I've already called out that we will be making changes like that.

It will be easy if the user names are the same.  It will be a bigger pain if they have to make a new account.

> 
>> 
>>> Around December, we will assess our experiences and the feedback received to
>>> inform what chat services we provide in the future and how we will operate
>> Where do we want them to provide feedback?
> I think tools-discuss
>> 
>>> them. In January, these trial instances will be taken down. We do not intend to
>>> preserve or migrate any account configuration or chat history from the trial
>>> instances as we move forward.
>>> 
>>> This does add to the potentially confusing large number of places conversation
>>> might take place. We hope to address that with some level of bridging, at least
>>> with Jabber, but have been cautioned by the respective development communities
>>> that bridging between Zulip and Matrix is unsatisfying since the conversation
>>> models in the two applications are so different.
>>> 
>>> The chat services are intended to be explorational and informal. However,
>>> please treat them as contexts where participation rules apply (See
>> ... IETF participation ...
>> 
>> Some would argue that NOTE WELL applies to contributes, not participation.  You may want to word smith to avoid that tussle.
>> 
>>> https://www.ietf.org/about/note-well/).
>>> 
>>> We are not, at this time, planning to host jabber accounts. We may revisit that
>>> as an option as we continue to gather more feedback.
> 
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