KDE Connect has a Telegram group with 660 members (vs 100 on matrix). I don't know if we are the exception with such a big group on Telegram, but this is going to be a hit to our community :(
On Tue, 22 Aug 2023, 09:02 Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss, <jos...@kde.org> wrote: > Hello KDE community, > > apologies for cross-posting! > > The time has finally come: both Telegram <-> Matrix bridges will be shut > down in 4 weeks on *Wednesday 20 September*. Let's start the > co-ordination process now so everything goes as smoothly as possible. > > For all KDE contributors: please read at least the "Five To-Dos" below > to be informed about what will happen and what needs to be done. > > Below that there is some additional information about the bridging > situation at KDE. Consult these notes if you want more background > information about why the Telegram bridge is being retired. > > Cheers, > Joseph > > _Five To-Dos_ > > 1. *General*: On Wednesday 20 September the Telegram bridging to KDE > Matrix rooms will be shut down. To make the transition go smoothly, > teams should start co-ordinating for the shutdown now. The Matrix room > for co-ordination is "Telegram shutdown co-ordination" at > https://go.kde.org/matrix/#/#telegram-shutdown:kde.org. > > 2. *Co-ordination*: This includes: (i) migrating all contributors to > Matrix, and (ii) deleting the Telegram rooms before the bridge is > shutdown or -- at most -- one day after the shutdown. Keeping Telegram > rooms open when they are no longer being used will cause unnecessary > confusion. Importantly, do not later add a non-KDE Telegram bridge to > KDE's Matrix rooms as that will not solve the problems from doubled user > accounts and lack of control over Telegram; see below for operational > issues with Telegram bridging. > > 3. *Action needed by Telegram room admins*: Due to the unexpected > shutdown of the public Libera.Chat bridge, we will have to move rooms > over to the matterbridge (ircsomebot) bridge as we work through moving > channels over to our own Libera.Chat IRC bridge. This will require > someone with admin in the Telegram room to ensure @ircsomebot is in the > Telegram room with admin. This needs to be done after we unbridge the > Matrix bridge from the Matrix side, so the room can continue to be > bridged until the Telegram shutdown on 20 September. > > 4. *Are there exceptions?": There /may/ be some rooms that focus on > interacting with people external to the KDE Community who would benefit > by having a Telegram bridge. We are thinking teams like those involved > in the KDE Network program: https://community.kde.org/The_KDE_Network. > Not all will need an exception, and it may turn out most don't. We would > like to start putting together a list of these rooms so we can review > for potential exceptions and estimate the scale of how much support is > needed. However, this should be kept to a minimum; see below for > operational issues with Telegram bridging. We understand that there are > large internal KDE communities which rely heavily on Telegram, and we > understand that shutting down the Telegram bridge is less than ideal for > these rooms, but the issues we have with the Telegram bridge mean we > need to keep exceptions to a minimum and only for those teeams whose > work has a primarily external focus. > > 5. *Getting a Matrix account*: We can offer KDE Contributors (usually > those in the developers group, but will consider other requests) a > Matrix account on our KDE Matrix Homeserver. To request an account > please file a sysadmin ticket https://go.kde.org/systickets. However, as > Matrix is federated you do not need to have an account on our homeserver > to access KDE's Matrix rooms -- you can use any homeserver! A list of > some alternative Matrix servers is available on > https://joinmatrix.org/servers/. > > To co-ordinate with other teams to make this transition go as smoothly > as possible, please reach out to the "Telegram shutdown co-ordination" > Matrix room: https://go.kde.org/matrix/#/#telegram-shutdown:kde.org. > > _Additional Information Re Bridges_ > > * Four years ago it was decided to add Matrix to IRC as KDE's > official IM platforms (bridged together). IRC is not planned to be shut > down. > > * Telegram is not Free Software and has never been an official > platform for KDE communications. However, it has been used unofficially > in a number of areas. > > * EMS hosts KDE's Matrix instance and the current Telegram bridge, > and the majority of issues our community have with Matrix are related to > bridges. Due to the huge extra load and poor performance Telegram > bridging has in the Matrix rooms, it was agreed with EMS that the bridge > would be only run for about a year until people had time to migrate to > Matrix. > > * However, instead of people migrating away from Telegram, we have > seen an increase in contributors using /both/ Matrix and Telegram, which > has doubled the number of users we have to cope with. Having twice as > many users as needed in the room slows everything down: longer joins, > more state events for each user, higher chances of room state developing > problems. > > * The public Libera.Chat bridge was unexpectedly shutdown, and we > have to move rooms over to the matterbridge (ircsomebot) bridge as we > work through moving channels over to our own Libera.Chat IRC bridge. > This is not as originally planned, which was to migrate to that IRC > bridge after the Telegram shutdown. > > * The vast majority of spam is from Telegram. Due to the Telegram > bridge account being reported for spam, the account has lost the ability > to do admin tasks in many rooms. At its worst the account was blocked > from logging in for weeks, making the bridge non-functional. Since then, > rooms often can't be bridged without deleting the Telegram room and > starting fresh, but this only has about a 30% success of working > long-term. We did not get anywhere attempting to get Telegram to help. > > * The current Telegram bridge doesn't work properly so it makes sense > to shut it down rather than trying to just change account phone numbers > (which would require removing the bridge from all channels then > re-adding to a new bridge, with high chance we end up in the same > situation in the future). > > -- > Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss > KDE Internal Communications & KDE Eco Community Manager > OpenPGP: 8FC5 4178 DC44 AD55 08E7 DF57 453E 5746 59A6 C06F > Matrix: @joseph:kde.org > > Generally available Monday-Thursday from 10-16h CET/CEST. Outside of > these times it may take a little longer for me to respond. > > KDE Eco: Building Energy-Efficient Free Software! > Website: https://eco.kde.org > Mastodon: @be4foss@floss.social > >
