Replace IRC with Discourse, or just link to SO?

[daisylb]

I'm pretty flaky with IRC (it really depends on whether or not I've got an active IRCCloud subscription, since even though I've got alerts switched on for all messages, the free tier there doesn't keep you connected for more than 2 hours of inactivity). I also don't like how beginner-unfriendly and stuck-in-the-90s IRC is (IRCCloud helps to fix some of this, but as mentioned you have to pay for it). I also don't think live chat is great for a very-low-traffic open community like we need for virtualfish, so I'm thinking we ditch the IRC channel and replace it with a Discourse installation set up somewhere.

The other alternative is that we just link to the Stack Overflow tag for virtualfish (which I've just created). SO seems like an appropriate place for most of the queries we got on IRC, and it would save me the effort of keeping a very-rarely-used Discourse server running, but on the flip side while (unlike IRC) the interface is fine, the wider SO community can sometimes be not very beginner-friendly.

[techalchemy]

What about a slack group or something?

[daisylb]

I'm opposed to Slack groups for this sort of thing in general, both on principle (it's a closed-source SaaS with a ToS that's dangerous for third-party clients) and for practical reasons (each additional workspace added to the Slack client seems to have a performance cost, and I already have about seven).

[techalchemy]

I'm open to alternatives but SO is pretty bad for general discussion and basically any alternative is better. I use VF pretty heavily and am happy to make contributions (but am a very recent convert to fish), though real time communication can be advantageous. If you're on IRC i'm happy to jump on there though

[Freso]

I'm opposed to Slack groups for this sort of thing in general, both on principle (it's a closed-source SaaS with a ToS that's dangerous for third-party clients)

But you're open to Discord… ? How is Discord any better/less bad than Slack on this account? (I'm genuinely curious.) Or is it just that Discord is less bad on the practical reasons side?

[justinmayer]

I believe you’re confusing Discourse — the open-source forum software that is actually mentioned in this issue — with Discord.

[Freso]

I was indeed. My bad! (And I even run/manage a Discourse instance myself!)

[XenGi]

For me matrix solved the "IRC is old" issue quite nicely. Gives you the same chat in a nicer interface. I just bridged the IRC channels into my matrix client.
It's quite easy to setup a matrix space or just a channel for virtualfish.

[justinmayer]

I totally agree that Matrix is the leading contender. I utilized my new project, Fortressa, to deploy a Matrix server and have been really impressed with it.

When I can find a free moment, I'll set something up for VirtualFish.