The choice of Matrix as a main communication channel and closing the registration for me personally has created a substantial obstacle to contribute to KDE
I’ve tried to get involved with KDE about a year ago, but ended up spending like an hour figuring out which Matrix public server to pick to get in contact. And in the end got so frustrated so as to just forget about this idea for the time being
Today once more had to read a couple wiki articles (Get Involved → Matrix), browse through a list of public servers (half of which are very specialized, the best choices at this day and hour have closed registration and the other being very local).
And I realized that the easiest and safest way for me to get in contact with the community is to host my own instance of the service I don’t otherwise use at all.
The good thing is it had led me to register for the forum
To contrast, I’ve previously contributed small tweaks to other open source projects and helped new members in their community channels thanks to easy access in Discord and self-hosted IRC (not saying KDE should go for those ways of communication), it was a mere one-click action to get into the community from README.md in the repo or link inside the app.
I don’t want to sound like I’m saying it’s wrong to use Matrix instance with closed registration. It’s just that for me it has created several complex steps just to begin contributing to KDE. My opinion is that it should be incredibly easy to contact the community, so that even non tech-savvy people could get in touch.
So I want to hear your opinion: do you think getting in touch with KDE is hard for the (especially non tech-savvy) beginner, should it be easier? Do you like it the way it is and if so, why?
I was already busy with some KDE ports for Haiku (following up on previous work done by those before me) before I came in contact with matrix, getting an account for me was quite easy as I registered on one of the major ones (matrix.org), having done that has been a blessing sinse then, the list of KDE rooms I’m using/visit are growin over time and help is mostly never far away.
Great comunity there!
I did as well register on the matrix.org, but got confused by the interface probably.
As I thought the matrix.org was so loaded, so as to cause infinite loading of the chats. Hearing that you’ve had positive experience with it, encouraged me to look deeper and find my mistake
Matrix is convenient, but completely optional - if you don’t want to, you can just skip using matrix. The real work happens on Invent and Bugzilla anyway.
Most rooms are also bridged over irc, so you can use that if you prefer and have a setup for that. (That has the usual technical hiccups sometimes, but a lot of people join via irc).
FWIW, I went with tchncs as my matrix home server, it was quick to setup and has worked out alright (on occasion i get timeouts for image/file downloads I guess, but that might be a general matrix thing and it’s free).
Yeah, I totally get where you’re coming from. I had a similar experience trying to join KDE discussions, Matrix felt like a weird barrier instead of a gateway. I ended up just lurking on the forum and mailing lists instead because it was way easier. I do think they should simplify the entry point a bit, especially for newcomers. First impressions matter a lot.
Reading about the barriers with Matrix is interesting, as I had set up a Matrix account before joining any KDE rooms - for the folks here who found that process confusing and/or difficult, was some part of it related to the number of choices presented in the Matrix Community Wiki guide?
For example, rather than directing folks who are unfamiliar with the protocol to lists of possible homeservers and clients, should new folks maybe just be directed to set up a matrix.org account and use NeoChat - with links available at the end to full lists of alternatives? Like a “here’s the simplest path”, then after that, “here are alternatives you can choose at each step”?
The only thing I might debate there is, if that wiki page is geared to folks who are unfamiliar with Matrix, then they probably wouldn’t have existing encrypted messages to decrypt. If that’s the case, then they shouldn’t have to go through that process?
Do you think it’s too “aggressive” in the direction of matrix.org to phrase it as:
I’m only thinking about something like that because, as a newcomer myself a while back, seeing that list of homeservers was pretty overwhelming and confusing - I didn’t feel equipped to make the decision that was required in the face of that info, and thought I was doing something “wrong” by signing up through matrix.org. The users page there might argue that I am, which…could be true I guess the guidance on the KDE page kind of has to strike a balance between ease for new folks and adherence to principles?
Well yes, but then you could have situations where:
user starts with Neochat
gets curious and tries another client, eventually logs out of Neochat
changes their mind and goes back to Neochat
“Wth, I can’t see my old messages :(”
Which is not fun.
Either way it is still mentioned there, just not the first link to try.
I guess the guidance on the KDE page kind of has to strike a balance between ease for new folks and adherence to principles?
Yeah. I was going to write a whole paragraph about that in my previous message but it got too long. In the end you just have to weigh pros and cons. I put your phrasing there now.
I guess the guidance on the KDE page kind of has to strike a balance between ease for new folks and adherence to principles?