A discussion channel for ATS : why not create one on Discord ?

[Yann Le Du]

Hello,

I tried the irc channel mentioned on the ATS website, but there was nobody there.

I already mentioned the idea of creating such a channel on Discord, with which I have excellent experience (as long as you do not sidetrack too much on the personal side...), but that was buried under a pile of other questions...

So would anyone else here also see a benefit in such a discussion channel ? I personally think it would help build the community and spread the word.

If that proposal was found to be interesting for a large enough number of people, there would have to be a administrator of the channel, and of course that cannot be me except if I create an unofficial one, clearly marked as such, and in which I would put a big disclaimer : "created by a total noob, participate at your own risk".

Of course, having Hongwei create it is the only meaningful option, but perhaps that would be too much of a hassle ?

Let me add that this channel could be an invite-only one, which would thus avoid the problem of having to deal with trolls and advertisers.

If that could be of any help : https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/204849977-How-do-I-create-a-server-

Trivia : By the way did you know that "a type" in french, apart from the semantics that befits ATS, also means "a guy" ? So the right translation into French of ATS is "Système de typage avancé" where, apart from the total reversal of the letters, you might notice the use of the word "typage" instead of "type", otherwise the meaning would completely change.

Yann

[Michael Truog]

Hi Yann,

There are many reasons to not use Discord.  Centralizing all public communication with Discord and a login session is mainly for marketing and advertising purposes.  While using Google Groups may have a similar situation, email remains more reliable because it is closer to a peer-to-peer architecture.  Other reasons provided elsewhere are accessibility (e.g., vision impaired access) which is better with email.  Having public transparency with persistent communication is best with email.  I haven't yet seen a good comprehensive list of problems with Discord but perhaps that content may grow as programming language communities get confronted with Discord more (i.e., their mailing-list mode is not a solution).

One list of problems is provided at https://sneak.berlin/20200220/discord-is-not-an-acceptable-choice-for-free-software-projects/

Best Regards,
Michael

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[Yann Le Du]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for sharing what I believe is a well founded concern. I think the easy solution is to use a bot that relays messages between Discord and IRC :

https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge

I happen to be on some channels that use that solution, and it works nicely : messages arising from such a relay are marked "bot" but keep their pseudo, so it is really seamless. That would perhaps solve the privacy problem (identity of users) though not the content, but I don't think that would be a problem given we would talk about ATS, would it ?

That means reactivating the irc channel, and then have a go for it. Would you find that an acceptable solution ?

[Yann Le Du]

We could also very probably set up a relay between Discord and the ATS users group here that would send a daily/weekly digest from Discord to here, and maybe also reciprocally on Discord a notification that a new email has arrived on the users group. I'm not sure about that, but worth investigating IMO.

[Michael Truog]

Hi Yann,

Unfortunately, freenode had its drama related to ownership and operation which impacted all its usage in a way that they will likely never recover from.  I understand some of the freenode staff started Libera.  Other open-source IRC use switched to using oftc.net .  I think oftc.net is the best option currently for IRC, though it is smaller than Libera.

I don't see Discord as a solution for real-time chat communication because it is really a forum concept (an old idea with a new layout).

Best Regards,
Michael

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[Yann Le Du]

Hi, I created an unofficial Discord channel for ATS : https://discord.gg/BVsma5qS

I tried to set it up nicely so as to make users feel warm and cozy, but it's an experiment in progress and of course if Hongwei wants an official one and can find the time to set it up it would be much better !

I'm now setting up the link with the irc on libera thanks to Michael's suggestion (I tried oftc.net, it is really not as good for me). I get it that Michael is not a fan of Discord, but it is my belief that it's a medium adapted to our day and age to build a community around a programming language.

The unofficial ATS channel on libera is `##ats_noob` and the double # is not a typo, it means "an informal channel". To create a real community channel #ats with a single # we need a justified claim to the name ats, so only Hongwei probably can do that.

I'm struggling to set up the irc link through matterbridge, so if anyone knows how to do it, help would be greatly appreciated since I'm not too much into these things.

[Simon Nielsen]

Hello Yann

I would personally prefer matrix [1] or any other service which can be hosted by the project or a member of the community.

 

Having control over the service and/or giving the user an option of how they wish to connect is something I value which discord doesn't provide.

Simon

 

26.01.2022, 18:33, "Yann Le Du" <yann.l...@gmail.com>:

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[Yann Le Du]

Hello Simon,

I don't know matrix, but in many servers on Discord people participate from matrix using that same bridge "matterbridge" I mentioned earlier.

[Hongwei Xi]

For some reason, this one has not yet shown up in the group.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Yann Le Du <yann.l...@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 9:00 AM
Subject: Re: A discussion channel for ATS : why not create one on Discord ?
To: ats-lang-users <ats-lan...@googlegroups.com>

The bridge between the ATS Discord server and  the irc channel `##ats_noob` on libera works ! People who want to use the new ATS community chat through the privacy friendly libera irc can connect to the `##ats_noob` channel on libera, with TWO `##`. I personally used https://web.libera.chat/

We can of course change the irc channel name, see 3. below.

I thank the matterbridge community for their bridging software which I used to set up the communication bridge, and specifically Mike Gebirge for his help answering my questions on the matterbridge Discord server.

Thanks to Michael Truog for pointing out the privacy question, and thanks to Simon Nielsen for letting me know Matrix might be another interesting medium for ATS.

What now needs to be done :

1. I need someone to configure matterbridge with myconfig file (takes 10mn max, there's binaries available) on a 7/7 24/24 server, because matterbridge currently runs on my laptop and that is not a good solution for obvious reasons ;

2. Simon, could you set up an ATS server on Matrix that we could then add to matterbridge ? Or perhaps is it too much time consuming (I know it took quite some time on Discord to have something which I find nice even if it will improve).

3. Hongwei, would you like (and have the time) to create a real `#ats` channel on libera irc ? I checked, and it is free for registration ! See here for the process : https://libera.chat/chanreg/ I can do it for you, but I will perhaps need to provide your email or something so that people can check that there is a right to claim that name. They also say that one can register a community channel and later if there's a problem with a legal name it can be solved. Let me know how you want to proceed.

cheers,

ianxek

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