Hi all, In the IRC there's been talk of making it easier to join and contribute in the chat by setting up a bridge between the IRC channel and another chat service. Both Slack and Discord have been mentioned as possibilities. In the last 24 hours, I just set up a basic functional bridge, so we know its possible, and that it works relatively well. However, Nicholas pointed out (rightly so) that we should proceed with caution, and ensure we get everything down pat before we consider it finalized.
The Freenode policies (freenode.net/policies) state that to "publish logs", we must follow several guidelines: "If you operate a service that scrapes internal channel content or publishes logs, always make sure to obtain permission from the channel owner or freenode staff before you start publishing logs or other data, and ensure that there is an easy way for projects to opt-out later and to request removal of previously published logs or data. You must respect the opt-out requests in a timely manner." There appears to be no other specifics about operating bots or bridges to other services. So, with that being said, I understand that mwedel is the "official" CF project manager, and Leaf is the IRC "owner". Could I get one or both of you to weigh in with thoughts on whether this is something that we want to do, and if so, what limitations should be imposed? In particular, some things that should be addressed: * Which bridge services should be acceptable * Chat history retention time * Either querying or notifying the "active people" on IRC to ensure they consent * Moderation and regulating access to the Discord (will there be a need to appoint moderators, for anti-spam or other reasons?) Of course, input from all others is welcomed as well! And now, my personal thoughts: I think that one of CF's greatest problems is that of attracting and retaining new players. After all, the bigger the community is, the more likely it is to survive, and have active development. Currently, there are several issues that make it more difficult for new players to pickup the game, enjoy it, and join in the community, but one of those issues is that communication is handled almost exclusively through ingame chat, IRC, and the mailinglist. Unfortunately, the mailinglist web server is down, and IRC is not a popular chat system these days, so new community members find it difficult to engage using either of those methods. Many people who play videogames are already familiar with other chat services, in particular Discord, so I believe it would greatly increase the ability for others to join if we had a bridge set up to such a service. There are other things that I think it would help too, such as those who do not have an IRC client running perpetually in a shell account, or or those who would like to communicate using their smartphones while away from their computer. For example, if my machine crashes, or I reboot and forget to relaunch my IRC client, I may miss some hours of discussions in chat, but with a service like Discord, I can access it from any device, and simply scrollback to see what I missed. There are certainly valid objections to be made, and so I would like to hear what everyone has to say. One of the biggest items is that of privacy, and rightly so. From my perspective, Discord as a company is minimally different from that of Freenode, I have to trust them to keep my chat history private, and to "not be evil". Some people may take offense at Discord's desktop app being a bloated Electron-style system, but remember, they also have mobile apps and a web interface as well. And besides, for those who prefer IRC, this is merely a bridge, not a replacement. Another common objection is that of stored history; IRC traditionally has the feeling of being rather ephemeral. I personally enjoy having all the scrollback on tap (and searchable), possibly more so because I never really assume privacy on the internet anyway. However, if the amount of material contained in the scrollback becomes a problem, then there are certainly some solutions available, depending on what chat platform we would be integrating with. Thoughts/comments/questions/concerns? --DraugTheWhopper _______________________________________________ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire