Matrix Chat Summaries

This post is a retrospective of #matrix meetings that happened between August 31st, 2023 and November 23rd, 2023. The meetings were conducted in the #meta channel of the Make WordPress Slack and, in parallel, on Matrix in the room #meta:community.wordpress.org. This was enabled by our SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/./Matrix bridge.

Summary of all meetings

  • The community.wordpress.org Matrix server is kept “in sync” with the Make.WordPress slack. Messages sent on Slack (in public channels) are automatically posted to a corresponding Matrix room. Newly-created public Slack channels automatically get a new Matrix room.
  • The Matrix rooms contain the complete history of the Slack channels, as if those rooms had existed since always.
  • We’re looking for community feedback on what tooling is needed to address administrative tasks on Matrix, like GDPR erasure, moderation, etc.
  • We’re in the process of migrating Slack integrations to Matrix (e.g, “slash commands”, Welcome Bots, RSS feeds, etc),  but there is still quite some work to be done on this front. We’ve started with making an inventory of all Slack integrations.
  • We have created documentation to visually explain how to join rooms via Matrix:

August 31, 2023

Start of the meeting on Slack / Matrix

  • Open floor.
  • Shared progress on the status of the Slack-Matrix bridge, so that messages sent on Slack are also sent to Matrix, and vice-versa.

September 14, 2023

Start of the meeting on Slack / Matrix

September 28, 2023

Start of the meeting on Slack / Matrix

  • Shared progress on import of private Slack channels. Mentioned users who wish to migrate the history of private channels should get in touch with @akirk @ashfame or @psrpinto.
  • Shared documentation on how to join the community.wordpress.org Matrix server, and on available Matrix clients.
  • Mentioned there are Matrix-based chat pages for each Make team, e.g. https://make.wordpress.org/meta/chat/
  • A Community member asked about how Matrix administrative tasks will differ from Slack (e.g. GDPR erasure requests). 
  • How will the administration differ from Slack? For example Slack has procedures for data erasure requests, that is very important that gets carried over. 
  • Clarified Matrix administration needs (e.g.GDPR erasure requests) are on our radar, but we would like to understand the kind of administrative operations that are more common, so that we can provide necessary tooling for those needs.

October 12, 2023

Start of the meeting on Slack / Matrix

  • Open floor.
  • Clarified what Matrix tooling exists and, what is possible to achieve with it, specifically on what concerns integrations (like at-group on Slack).
  • Clarified that there was not yet a date for an eventual Slack-to-Matrix “switch”, and that we were planning on operating both for the time being
  • Clarified that our goal would be to make Matrix the preferred way of joining Making WordPress chat for new people.

November 9, 2023

Start of the meeting on Slack / Matrix

  • Open floor.
  • Debugged an issue that prevented a community member from logging in to the Matrix server.

November 23, 2023

Start of the meeting on Slack / Matrix