FYI - I made a post to see what others know so far.
I’m only connecting via matrix, so not sure what our Libera channel ops belongs to to check.
Looks like the change happens July 31st - so we’ve got a week.
More info here: Matrix.org - Deportalling from Libera Chat
Is anyone familiar with how the Pulp rooms are set up? Are they plumbed or portalled? If plumbed, then it sounds like they should be fine.
Portalled (I think) - that’s the problem. W/ this change, our current connection w/ libera is going to break, no later than Monday. Addressing it requires changing the matrix channels, archiving the current set.
A question I have is, how worth it is it for us to go through this exercise? Our community “feels” largely matrix-oriented these days; is it time to just walk away from IRC? We actually don’t have a lot of current-expertise any more w/ the current state of libera.irc.
(full disclosure: I “grew up” on IRC, there are things about the Matrix/Slack world that drive me crazy - but The People Have Spoken, and the industry is never going back to IRC.)
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Here’s a link on how to check if rooms are portalled or plumbed: Matrix.org - Making Sure The Libera.Chat Bridge Keeps Working
I still use IRC so I’d like to see Pulp continue to support IRC. But then again, I am not the one who has to do the legwork. And I could see dropping the IRC chatrooms if they’re not plumbed as having to set up new rooms sounds like a huge pain.
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Yeah, we’re Portalled, we’re just relying on the irc-portal to libera.
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Maybe we can gather info with a quick poll:
- I am here only from libera.chat.
- I am here from a direct Matrix login.
0 voters
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@davidd are you aware of this convo and upcoming changes and have any thoughts? Would you be able to help out with maintaining the bridge if that’s a need from your side?
It’s all work on our/Matrix side. To continue working w/ IRC, we have to create new matrix channels and plumb them correctly, and then archive/close the current ones with a pointer to the New Hotness.
So it’s work and disruption for us and matrix-primary users if we do it, and becoming disconnected from IRC completely if we don’t.
Everything I read about plumbing makes it seem like a worse experience:
Perhaps most importantly, it will encourage plumbing, which can cause more problems than portal bridging.
Obviously I’d like to keep using irc because I find the matrix clients to be atrocious (especially the tui ones) but realistically I don’t think it makes sense for Pulp to switch to plumbed rooms.
Moreover the matrix posts make it seem like they’re hoping the situation isn’t permanent so switching to plumbed rooms would be a bad move if portalling ever comes back.
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@davidd thanks for the thoughtfulness, and the insight.
I’m currently leaning toward “don’t rock the boat, unless/until you have to”. Not a fan of reactive maintenance - but also not a fan of “make things worse for everyone”, if it can be avoided. We will continue listening to all y’all on this situation, and react as appropriate.
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Thanks @davidd and @ggainey for the sharing of info and thoughts.
Sounds like we can always make this change in the future if we get feedback that it’s really impactful to other folks. I will resist the urgency on this upcoming date given all the info here. Another thought is that for those users who are reliant on irc/libera - it’s also likely that this disruption won’t be isolated to just our rooms, so it might break access to enough other channels/rooms to force folks over to matrix thereby reducing the potential impact at the end of the day.
tl;dr We are aware of the upcoming impact and are going to do nothing for now.
Parting thought: We are open to feedback or may be proven wrong - but for now preserving energy.
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