Subject: Re: [Tools-implementation] Draft 2 (was Rough draft of message to the community re Zulip and Matrix)

From: Glen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 09:52:38 -0700

Hi team -

Hope you all had a good week.

I've read the announcement below, I have only one comment.  The 
paragraph starting with "The secretariat is operating" seems unnecessary 
from my point of view.  The current expectation/perception of the 
community is that the secretariat operates the IETF's IT services. 
That's what we're contracted to do, that is in fact my job.  In 
addition, we already know that the community has privacy issues, so we 
could assume that self-hosting is at least not an aversion point. 
Therefore, the things stated in that paragraph are already the norm.

I could expand on this if desired, but, to keep things brief, I'd 
recommend removing that entire paragraph.  If we decide to go 
public-cloud later, we can and should open that as a separate topic. 
For now, the paragraph says nothing new, and adds unnecessary wording to 
the announcement.

Other than that (and Robert's subsequent tweak) I have no further 
thoughts right now!

Also I saw the commentary about "[email-masked]" in the emails.  When 
running the initial install script, the script takes two parameters - 
the server FQDN, and the server (human) administrator account.  I 
provided my own email address as the first account to create, which is 
where Zulip got this.

This was unanticipated, but I guess something to "learn" through these 
tests.  If we end up using Zulip in a permanent state, we will of course 
know about this and choose a better address/account/alias for this.  For 
now, I will look through and see if this can be safely changed via a 
setting, as I have time.

I note that the message doesn't *require* contact, but just *offers* my 
address as a human contact point:

 >> Contact us any time at [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]> if you 
run into trouble, have any feedback, or just want to chat!

I don't think we should delay announcement until this can be changed; I 
don't think for a test instance this is a big deal, but I will still 
look, because I don't want those emails.  :-)   But I'm fine with 
whatever you all decide.

Glen

> We are deploying trials of the matrix and zulip chat services to gain
> operational experience and get community feedback about how well these 
> services
> meet the need for IETF related chat.
> 
> We have clear evidence from the IETF 107 post-meeting survey
> (https://www.ietf.org/media/documents/ietf-107-survey-results.pdf) that many
> IETF participants find jabber a significant problem.  This is partly due to
> difficulties in finding a free jabber service and partly due to client
> issues.  There are two paths to try to resolve these problems, one is to
> improve the IETF jabber service and the other is to switch to an alternative
> groupchat solution.  The community has already taken a step on the latter
> path with the introduction of an IETF Slack space, and we want to ensure 
> that
> this path is properly explored by widening the range of options to well
> established free/open source tools.
> 
> The installs currently have almost no local configuration or customization.
> Over the next few weeks, we will be exploring reconfiguring them to use
> datatracker credentials for sign-in, and explore bridging between these
> systems, Slack, and Jabber. One consequence of these explorations is that
> there will  likely be times, outside of meetings, when accounts will be
> disrupted or even removed and will have to be recreated. Initially, we
> suggest you use an email address for the username on each service.
> 
> The secretariat is operating each instance. We've chosen this path for these
> trials over third party hosting to learn what would be needed if the 
> community
> felt self-hosting was important in the longer term.
> 
> The services can be found at matrix-trial1.ietf.org and 
> zulip-trial1.ietf.org.
> 
> Any matrix client can be used with the trial matrix server. There is also a
> web client available at at matrix-trial1.ietf.org.
> 
> Similarly any zulip client can be used with the trial zulip server, 
> which has a
> built in web interface.
> 
> We would like feedback on how well each client meets chat needs during
> meetings, both the full online IETF 109 meeting, virtuals, adhocs, and
> hallway conversations.
> 
> Around December, we will assess our experiences and the feedback received to
> inform what chat services we provide in the future and how we will operate
> them. In January, these trial instances will be taken down. We do not 
> intend to
> preserve or migrate any account configuration or chat history from the trial
> instances as we move forward.
> 
> This does add to the potentially confusing large number of places 
> conversation
> might take place. We hope to address that with some level of bridging, 
> at least
> with Jabber, but have been cautioned by the respective development 
> communities
> that bridging between Zulip and Matrix is unsatisfying since the 
> conversation
> models in the two applications are so different.
> 
> The chat services are intended to be explorational and informal. However,
> please treat them as contexts where contribution rules apply (See
> https://www.ietf.org/about/note-well/).
> 
> We are not, at this time, planning to host jabber accounts. We may 
> revisit that
> as an option as we continue to gather more feedback.
> 
> Please send feedback on the services to [email-masked]

---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 11:58:38 -0500

On 9/28/20 11:52 AM, Glen wrote:
> paragraph starting with "The secretariat is operating" seems 
> unnecessary from my point of view.  The current expectation/perception 
> of the community is that the secretariat operates the IETF's IT services.
The point of the sentence is to answer "why aren't we taking advantage 
of the offers other groups have made to host".
> recommend removing that entire paragraph.
I think it is quite necessary.
> If we decide to go public-cloud later, we can and should open that as 
> a separate topic. For now, the paragraph says nothing new, and adds 
> unnecessary wording to the announcement.
>
> tests.  If we end up using Zulip in a permanent state, we will of 
> course know about this and choose a better address/account/alias for 
> this.  For now, I will look through and see if this can be safely 
> changed via a setting, as I have time.
>
> I note that the message doesn't *require* contact, but just *offers* 
> my address as a human contact point:
>
> I don't think we should delay announcement until this can be changed; 
> I don't think for a test instance this is a big deal, but I will still 
>> operational experience and get community feedback about how well 
>> these services
>> path with the introduction of an IETF Slack space, and we want to 
>> ensure that
>> might take place. We hope to address that with some level of 
>> bridging, at least

---

From: Glen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 10:21:56 -0700

On 9/28/2020 09:52, Glen wrote:
> Also I saw the commentary about "[email-masked]" in the emails.  

I've located the setting, and can change it.

What do we want to change it to?

We could change it to [email-masked], but then our ticket system 
will get requests for help here.  Is that desired?

Maybe we should do a separate alias?

Or we could just leave the test as is, whichever.

Glen

---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 12:27:51 -0500

> Maybe we should do a separate alias?
Russ found "[email-masked]" surprising. I suspect other people will as 
well. Something @ietf.org seems less likely to trigger that surprise. 
Requests for help will likely come to you in any case. I think it's your 
choice whether you want them to be ticketed or not. It would be good to 
know, at the end, how much volume there was (though if the volume is 
high, I suspect we'll change strategies anyhow).

---

From: Glen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 11:24:05 -0700

> high, I suspect we'll change strategies anyhow).

Okay, I am going to be AFK for about 90 minutes.  If there are no 
objections, I will just change the address to "[email-masked]", 
since that's what the community will likely expect.

I expect I will have to restart Zulip for the change to be picked up; 
given the many moving parts, I will just reboot the dedicated instance.

Glen

---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 13:28:56 -0500

Sounds good to me.

On 9/28/20 1:24 PM, Glen wrote:
>> Requests for help will likely come to you in any case. I think it's 
>> your choice whether you want them to be ticketed or not. It would be 
>> good to know, at the end, how much volume there was (though if the 
>> volume is high, I suspect we'll change strategies anyhow).
>

---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 13:36:35 -0500

Here's a proposed edit inline:

On 9/28/20 11:58 AM, Robert Sparks wrote:
>> unnecessary from my point of view.  The current 
>> expectation/perception of the community is that the secretariat 
>> operates the IETF's IT services.
>> addition, we already know that the community has privacy issues, so 
>> we could assume that self-hosting is at least not an aversion point. 
>> provided my own email address as the first account to create, which 
>> is where Zulip got this.
>>
>> This was unanticipated, but I guess something to "learn" through 
>> these tests.  If we end up using Zulip in a permanent state, we will 
>> of course know about this and choose a better address/account/alias 
>> for this.  For now, I will look through and see if this can be safely 
>> I don't think for a test instance this is a big deal, but I will 
>> still look, because I don't want those emails.  :-) But I'm fine with 
>> whatever you all decide.
>>
>> Glen
>>
>>

We considered running these trials using instances run by the Zulip or 
Matrix
communities. We went with instances operated by the secretariat to learn 
what
would be needed if the community felt self-hosting chat was important in 
the long-term.

>>> them. In January, these trial instances will be taken down. We do 
>>> not intend to

---

From: Glen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 13:04:08 -0700

Okay, I've made this change.

And I found the email templates and took out the invitation to "just 
chat with" [email-masked].  :-)

I have not tested these changes, but I believe they will work.

Glen

---

From: Glen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 13:04:51 -0700

> would be needed if the community felt self-hosting chat was important in 

I like this.  Thank you.

Glen