Hi All,
Yesterday in the #fedora-flock channel there was some conversation around electronic messaging and Flock. I'm writing to summarize the ideas and get some feedback:
A recent survey done by the hubs team found that the top 2 communication tools used by respondents (community members) were IRC and Telegram. Last year at Flock we used both and we found that there was a lot of traffic on the Telegram channel and a moderate amount on the IRC channel. I personally attribute this to the fact that most folks don't have an IRC client on their phone.
The gut feeling from the group seems to be that we should continue to use both methods during Flock.
Therefore, I believe we should bridge Telegram and IRC
Goal: Prevent the conversation from being Split
There are existing ways of bridging an IRC channel and a Telegram group. This is currently done between #fedora-telegram on freenode and the Fedora Telegram Group (https://t.me/fedora)
Proposal: If people like this idea, I will talk to whomever is running the teledora bot and work to get it set up for #fedora-flock and the new Flock 2017 Telegram group.
During the conversation I also mentioned an idea for having the Telegram group require a FAS ID in order to join. This would allow us to prevent harrassment like what happened last year by non-attendee non-contributors showing up to cause problems during some sessions.
Unfortunately, the only way I can evision this happening requires a telegram bot be able to add a person to the channel. The Telegram Bot API does not include this call. Therefore a new bot would have to be written that used the Human API. Modifying a bot like teledora is a reasonable thing to do before Flock. However, writing a new bot before Flock seems unlikely unless someone wants to really devote some effort to this. Any takers? I can outline my ideas if you'd like.
regards,
bex
On 04/27/2017 11:22 AM, Brian Exelbierd wrote:
Hi All,
Yesterday in the #fedora-flock channel there was some conversation around electronic messaging and Flock. I'm writing to summarize the ideas and get some feedback:
A recent survey done by the hubs team found that the top 2 communication tools used by respondents (community members) were IRC and Telegram. Last year at Flock we used both and we found that there was a lot of traffic on the Telegram channel and a moderate amount on the IRC channel. I personally attribute this to the fact that most folks don't have an IRC client on their phone.
The gut feeling from the group seems to be that we should continue to use both methods during Flock.
Therefore, I believe we should bridge Telegram and IRC
I already told some of the following feedback to Brian, so most of this won't be new to him, but I wanted to share it publicly for the list as well. :)
Goal: Prevent the conversation from being Split
There are existing ways of bridging an IRC channel and a Telegram group. This is currently done between #fedora-telegram on freenode and the Fedora Telegram Group (https://t.me/fedora)
Proposal: If people like this idea, I will talk to whomever is running the teledora bot and work to get it set up for #fedora-flock and the new Flock 2017 Telegram group.
I'm currently running this bot along with a few more for other communities. It would take maybe five minutes to spin up a new bridge between a group / channel.
One afterthought I had about this is that we would want to be transparent about this. Assuming we use a Telegram supergroup, anyone participating via IRC or Telegram will have their messages permanently logged and searchable within the Telegram group. I don't see this being an issue so long as it's communicated and clear.
Also, as one more afterthought, files and images won't go over the bridge from Telegram to IRC. I don't think this is critical, but something I realized afterwards that might be worth noting.
During the conversation I also mentioned an idea for having the Telegram group require a FAS ID in order to join. This would allow us to prevent harrassment like what happened last year by non-attendee non-contributors showing up to cause problems during some sessions.
Unfortunately, the only way I can evision this happening requires a telegram bot be able to add a person to the channel. The Telegram Bot API does not include this call. Therefore a new bot would have to be written that used the Human API. Modifying a bot like teledora is a reasonable thing to do before Flock. However, writing a new bot before Flock seems unlikely unless someone wants to really devote some effort to this. Any takers? I can outline my ideas if you'd like.
Writing up a custom Telegram bot to authenticate with FAS to join a group is the only way I can see this being feasible (and I think would be technically feasible). I have no idea what the technical implications of this might be, but to me, it seems like it could be a lot of effort to prevent something that may or may not happen.
Instead, I see it more effective to have a wide range of individuals added as Telegram group admins (combined with a private group among group admins) to handle any situations that could arise. The problem with last year's incident was that there was a handful of individuals who were group admins, and when the problem happened, all of the admins were either giving or participating in a talk or workshop. So long as there is a direct communication medium between all of the people helping in this role, I see it being a more effective use of time to having multiple / many group admins to handle anything that does come up.
regards,
bex
On Fri, Apr 28, 2017, at 05:48 PM, Justin W. Flory wrote:
On 04/27/2017 11:22 AM, Brian Exelbierd wrote:
Hi All,
Yesterday in the #fedora-flock channel there was some conversation around electronic messaging and Flock. I'm writing to summarize the ideas and get some feedback:
A recent survey done by the hubs team found that the top 2 communication tools used by respondents (community members) were IRC and Telegram. Last year at Flock we used both and we found that there was a lot of traffic on the Telegram channel and a moderate amount on the IRC channel. I personally attribute this to the fact that most folks don't have an IRC client on their phone.
The gut feeling from the group seems to be that we should continue to use both methods during Flock.
Therefore, I believe we should bridge Telegram and IRC
I already told some of the following feedback to Brian, so most of this won't be new to him, but I wanted to share it publicly for the list as well. :)
Goal: Prevent the conversation from being Split
There are existing ways of bridging an IRC channel and a Telegram group. This is currently done between #fedora-telegram on freenode and the Fedora Telegram Group (https://t.me/fedora)
Proposal: If people like this idea, I will talk to whomever is running the teledora bot and work to get it set up for #fedora-flock and the new Flock 2017 Telegram group.
I'm currently running this bot along with a few more for other communities. It would take maybe five minutes to spin up a new bridge between a group / channel.
One afterthought I had about this is that we would want to be transparent about this. Assuming we use a Telegram supergroup, anyone participating via IRC or Telegram will have their messages permanently logged and searchable within the Telegram group. I don't see this being an issue so long as it's communicated and clear.
I think this is acceptable and we can alert based on a pinned notice in both places.
Also, as one more afterthought, files and images won't go over the bridge from Telegram to IRC. I don't think this is critical, but something I realized afterwards that might be worth noting.
During the conversation I also mentioned an idea for having the Telegram group require a FAS ID in order to join. This would allow us to prevent harrassment like what happened last year by non-attendee non-contributors showing up to cause problems during some sessions.
Unfortunately, the only way I can evision this happening requires a telegram bot be able to add a person to the channel. The Telegram Bot API does not include this call. Therefore a new bot would have to be written that used the Human API. Modifying a bot like teledora is a reasonable thing to do before Flock. However, writing a new bot before Flock seems unlikely unless someone wants to really devote some effort to this. Any takers? I can outline my ideas if you'd like.
Writing up a custom Telegram bot to authenticate with FAS to join a group is the only way I can see this being feasible (and I think would be technically feasible). I have no idea what the technical implications of this might be, but to me, it seems like it could be a lot of effort to prevent something that may or may not happen.
Instead, I see it more effective to have a wide range of individuals added as Telegram group admins (combined with a private group among group admins) to handle any situations that could arise. The problem with last year's incident was that there was a handful of individuals who were group admins, and when the problem happened, all of the admins were either giving or participating in a talk or workshop. So long as there is a direct communication medium between all of the people helping in this role, I see it being a more effective use of time to having multiple / many group admins to handle anything that does come up.
I will follow up with Jiri as he owns the group we used last year. I'll figure out how we can get more moderators in place.
regards,
bex
flock-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org
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Brian Exelbierd -
Justin W. Flory