Forum:SH:Discord and IRC

Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Discord and IRC

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. Tommy-Macaroni 19:17, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

The previous CT thread I opened on this topic was premature, so this is backing things up to the SH stage so we can discuss IRC and Discord in depth. The purpose is to determine which platform is better suited to be our main/official chat room, and how to better integrate the complement for users who prefer to use the other. Senate Hall is a discussion forum, not a voting forum, so we can really dig into the details this time.

As a recap, IRC is introduced on its policy page as this:

"Wookieepedia's IRC channel is the wiki's official chat room. In addition to being a general chatroom about Wookieepedia, Star Wars, and various other subjects, the channel is also where official Wookieepedia meetings, Mofferences, are held. IRC is also a quick way to report vandalism to admins as well as asking questions in general."

Further policies set out the rules of IRC use and describes various ways to join and access IRC. In addition, IRC's 1.2 Subchannels defines IRC as the host for channels related to WookieeProjects; status-article-review groups Inquisitorius, AgriCorps, and EduCorps; private administration channels and/or other community groups; and Mofferences.

Additionally, Discord is defined as a complement—secondary—to IRC.

"Wookieepedia's Discord server is a complement to our IRC channels. Our Discord channels exist primarily to foster communication and cooperation between Wookieepedians rather than being a general Star Wars chat. Official Wookieepedia meetings, Mofferences, are held on IRC."

(Since the prior discussion, integration of WookieeProject chats on Discord has begun.)

I'm setting up some initial topic headings based on subjects that came up previously to try to keep things semi-organized, but please feel free to add others as needed. Immi Thrax (talk) 05:29, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Accessibility, user-friendliness, and newcomers

(Barriers to entry, ease of use, familiarity for new users, etc.)

To put it simply, I think one of the most important benefits of Discord over IRC is that it means no one has to miss a conversation if they're offline. Since we started using our Discord channel, being able to go back and read and reply to important discussions that happened while I was offline has been one of the greatest boons to my day-to-day activity and participation in the community that any change has made in a long time. It's allowed me to more easily hear from and communicate with users in different time zones and means that when a decision on how something was implemented in an article was made, I can go back and just read the discussion that lead to that. This makes us better connected and means we're all better informed on what's happening on the Wiki.

In terms of user-friendliness and newcomers, while I don't think IRC is hard to learn or access, it's very clearly something that the majority of users aren't familiar with prior to coming to Wookieepedia, whereas most people have at least heard of Discord and many already use it. This means new users can feel more confident and comfortable jumping in to a new community rather than also having to use new and unfamiliar software while trying to find their place amongst us. While we do a great job of advertising our Discord and IRC, a wider familiarity with Discord means that new users who do miss all the links are more likely to specifically seek out our channel based on pre-existing knowledge of Discord, whereas with people being less aware of IRC it's unlikely that they'd specifically search for that. Overall we want our primary chat service to be as welcoming and findable as possible, and I think Discord is much stronger in both regards than IRC. Ayrehead02 (talk) 08:17, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
- Well, Ayrehead expressed my sentiment quite well, I would say, as my main concern with our "chat" is Accessibility. And Discord fit the bill quite well. -- NanoLuuke^{Cloning facility} 10:21, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
- Very well said Ayrehead, I very much feel the same way. When I came back to Wookieepedia after a long break a few months ago, I wanted to reconnect with the community, but after being away for 10 years I had completely forgotten how IRC works. I am however very familiar with Discord, several of the gaming communities I am a part of run discord servers and I actually run a small server or two myself. So, when I found that a discord server was also available for our community, I decided to join that instead of IRC. Overall, Discord is very userfriendly and many people already use either Discord or similar programs/apps. --Jedimca0^{(Do or Do Not, There is No Try)} 13:05, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Administrative tasks

(Appealing blocks, reporting vandalism in progress, admin-only meetings, etc.)

Mofferences

(The big ones. See the Mofferences discussion for Mofferences in general)

A discussion I think it's relevant to bring up here, but ultimately might need to be split into another thread, is if Mofferences are actually the best model for policy making in general. I personally have started to think that they're perhaps something we should move away from for several reasons, primarily because I think their nature encourages rushing policy through with less room for discussion or research, almost akin to policy barnburners.

Users are realistically only given minutes to read through a policy and consider all its implications, which doesn't really leave a lot of room for going and finding relevant examples or areas of effect on the wiki and so basically means voters have to make a gut reaction. The busy agenda of multiple things can also lead to people feeling less comfortable "making a fuss" and potentially holding proceedings up, especially if they're newer and less certain of things and don't want to dive into potentially very fast moving conversation that they're having trouble keeping up with. With the general vagueness of most items on the agenda, Mofferences also don't really allow for people who are unable to attend to leave absentee votes, which makes the decisions less accessible to those in certain time zones or with certain jobs. The length of some Mofferences, especially for those who are staying up late to attend, can also lead to items later in the agenda being less critically analysed as people become keen to just see it pass and have the meeting end or become more sleepy and less focused.

You could argue that we should just make the pre-meeting list of agenda items more detailed, but then if we're going to have a list of all the proposals up for some time in advance, why not just have them be CTs instead? Another argument in favour of Mofferences is that it makes it quicker and easier to pass simple proposals, but since you have to wait for the Mofference to actually happen it doesn't really end up being implemented any faster and can lead to good proposals taking longer to be implemented then if they'd just been proposed as a CT when they were first thought up. For people worried about simple proposals taking longer than necessary to pass in CTs, I've seen some suggestions from others about potentially slightly reducing the length of CTs in some ways so that could be an option worth thinking about. Ultimately, although Mofferences are a fun idea with a lot of community heritage, I think it's time to consider their practicality for something as important as policy. Ayrehead02 (talk) 07:28, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
- Although "What about Mofferences?" was one of the major topics that arose in the prior discussion, I agree that we probably need a separate discussion about Mofferences, period, not just Mofferences in relation to chat platforms. So, I'm saving up my thoughts on Mofferences for such a discussion... how about you start it, huh? ;) Immi Thrax (talk) 07:36, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
  - Cool, I'll start a new thread with this at the top. Just didn't want to say nothing while people potentially did a lot of work here to make Mofferences work on Discord and then immediately say "actually I don't think any of this was necessary". Ayrehead02 (talk)
    - Alright, I've split this into a new thread here, so any comments on Mofferences in general can go there and discussion here can be kept to purely how Mofferences work in relation to IRC/Discord. Ayrehead02 (talk) 07:50, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Relays, chat history, and Discord-IRC connectivity

(Ways that Discord and IRC may work in tandem/support each other, such as relaying IRC to Discord.)

I know we have an #irc channel on Discord, but it kind of... don't work for me? I'm always getting a Discord notice that says (pardon my French): "Tu n'as pas la permission de consulter l'historique des messages de #irc". Translation: You don't have the permission to consult the #irc message history. Not sure why, so I'm not going to assume anything, but I know that at least another user also had this problem. -- NanoLuuke^{Cloning facility} 10:27, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
- Well, no, that actually works as intended. It's just that it works the same as IRC does. If you're present there, you receive the messages. If not, not. Imperators II^(Talk) 11:04, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
  - Well, that kind of half-defeat the purpose, doesn't it? -- NanoLuuke^{Cloning facility} 12:19, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
    - The purpose of that channel was to allow users to participate in IRC discussions without themselves having to connect to IRC, so no. Imperators II^(Talk) 12:32, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't see any reason why we couldn't just relay #wookieepedia on IRC into #wookieepedia on Discord, and enable message history. That way everyone can participate from both sides without any restrictions. 1358 ^(Talk) 09:20, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
- I agree. I think a good next step would be to relay all IRC channels to their discord counterparts with history enabled. That'd let people remain on IRC if they wanted, but also means nobody on either platform is missing anything. Tommy-Macaroni 09:22, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
  - Yeah relays make a lot of sense. I see no reason for IRC to be entirely shut down, if people would prefer to use it to avoid the third party data issue then that's entirely fair; however, I think it makes more sense to keep it as an alternative rather than our primary chat service and to move any of our official processes across to Discord. Ideally no one would need to have both services to see all the channels relevant to them, but instead be able to pick one and see as much as possible through it. Ayrehead02 (talk) 09:47, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
  - When I initially opened the prior CT, I didn't know that relaying and message history to that extent was even possible—now discussing and learning that it is, I love the idea. If I understand right, that would let people use whichever platform they prefer, participate in the conversation, and keep a message history? What are possible drawbacks to consider and address (like what Ayrehead pointed out about not splitting things)? Immi Thrax (talk) 10:01, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
#wookieepedia (IRC) now relays to #wookieepedia (Discord) without any message history hassle. 1358 ^(Talk) 08:23, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
- That's great, thanks! --NanoLuuke^{Cloning facility} 13:31, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Review boards and other meetings

(The little ones.)

What should obviously be done in case it is decided to move away from IRC in favor of Discord is to figure out how to transfer logs of review panel meetings to Wookieepedia for permanent record that would be accessible to anyone regardless of how easy it is to use Discord. Imperators II^(Talk) 08:07, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
- Yeah making sure we can still record and post review board logs should definitely be our priority before discussing the pros and cons of a potential move. Ayrehead02 (talk) 08:24, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
  - I don't think that's going to be a problem. If you go to the Discord settings and change the appearance of Discord to "Compact" the chat looks similar to IRC. If you try copy-pasting a conversation, it copies the timestamp, name, and message. The only information missing is the date. Here is an example from #stardust: [2:50 PM] Editoronthewiki: For [[Mission to Panna Prime]], are there any legends sources that depict an earlier meeting between boba and Chewie or Han than the mission? Or were there no such contradictions--DarthRuiz30 (talk) 08:57, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
    - Excellent. Imperators II^(Talk) 09:00, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
      - This was my number one concern, and that actually works perfectly. The date is in the page title for the log anyway! MasterFred(talk) 15:25, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Security/data privacy

(Registration requirements, who owns your data, what data is stored, etc.)

Registration is a standard username/password/verify e-mail situation. While you can verify your phone number, and activate 2FA through a third-party authenticator app, these are not (I believe) required.
This page is meant to guide people who have asked for a download of their data, but it summarizes the main data Discord collects from you. Kaspersky has some notes on how to maximize your privacy on the service. Basically: data is collected no matter what, but you can disable some of it. Slant's comparison of IRC and Discord does note some privacy concerns. While I'm pro-Discord, and use it frequently, I'm a little less attentive to privacy issues than some. Not sure which of these would be of particular concern, but have some information. Minnabird (talk) 13:16, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
- I think it's somewhat problematic to require that users register with a third-party service to appeal blocks (or participate in community discussions, although Mofferences might be a moot issue at this point). Hence why I think keeping IRC around wouldn't be a bad idea. 1358 ^(Talk) 15:29, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
  - Besides IRC and Discord, are there any other ways to appeal a block? And are there any statistics on how often blocks are appealed through Discord/IRC/other options? --Jedimca0^{(Do or Do Not, There is No Try)} 16:07, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
    - I suppose you could use the contact email address, which goes to the entire administration. Though of course that does also have a privacy element, as it reveals your email address. And I don't think there would be any such stats, sadly. Tommy-Macaroni 16:09, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you for that info, Minnabird. Looking at previous discussions, the privacy element was one of the strongest arguments against switching purely to Discord. To quote Forum:SH:Discord proposal: "Accessing Discord requires the creation of an account with Discord Inc., an American company, and the usage of Discord's closed-source clients. Freenode, on the other hand, is an implementation of the IRC protocol and can be accessed with any IRC client. Mofferences are worth considering. It can be argued that it is unethical to require Wookieepedians to utilize closed-source applications to participate in community discussions." While I can certainly see the point being made here, I do wonder how private IRC actually is. Although IRC as a protocol is open-source, surely the clients are closed-source and run by companies just as Discord is? Wookieepedia itself is also worth considering. In order to vote on site matters, we also require users to make an account via Fandom, another American company, which also uses closed-source software. I'm probably missing something here, I won't pretend I understand the complexities of closed-source privacy, and I have no doubt Discord is less private than IRC. But, I think it's interesting to consider that these limitations of Discord may not be exclusive to that platform, and indeed may already be present for IRC or regular editing. Tommy-Macaroni 15:40, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
  - I'm curious how IRC works with functions like block appeals. My impression is that you can only see messages that were posted while you had it open. Do appeals happen at scheduled times, or is the hope/assumption that there's always someone present to hear appeals? Minnabird (talk) 15:48, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
    - The latter. Many admins have IRC open at all times, so see all messages, and there's normally an admin online at a given time anyway to deal with such requests. Tommy-Macaroni 15:51, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
      - The IRC protocol is open-source, the freenode implementation is open-source and the vast majority of clients, including freenode's webchat, are open-source. Joining IRC also does not require any sort of registration (so no email addresses involved) and a minimal amount of data is transferred (less than any website in 2021, i.e. no cookies etc). 1358 ^(Talk) 15:59, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
        I see. Thanks ecks. Tommy-Macaroni 16:09, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
I have a feeling I'm a little late to the party here, but I wanted to say that privacy should be a concern here. I am on Discord more frequently than IRC these days, but it's nice to know that the option for a free chat room which would not steal data is there, and I do consider it a good thing to not require people to register with a third party should they need to appeal a block. Fan26 (Talk) 03:23, 24 April 2021 (UTC)