[HN Gopher] Disabling Matrix Portalling
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Disabling Matrix Portalling
Author : matricaria
Score : 77 points
Date : 2023-07-03 15:00 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (libera.chat)
(TXT) w3m dump (libera.chat)
| detaro wrote:
| Sadly not too surprising. Matrix can do _a lot_ of really cool
| stuff, but also is just wonky in random places, and at scale that
| really hurts. And the bugfixing seems to endlessly run behind the
| work piling features on the other end.
| jordemort wrote:
| I guess I'll add "set up Heisenbridge" to my TODO list; the
| number of "actual" Matrix rooms that I'm in is very few compared
| to the number of bridged IRC channels, and most of those are on
| Libera.
| dopa42365 wrote:
| Might as well just ditch IRC (it's dead, grandpa) and use Matrix
| directly.
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| Are there any metrics as far as how many normal users will be
| impacted by this?
| 3np wrote:
| Here's an alternative for Matrix<>IRC bridging for Matrix
| homeserver operators: https://github.com/hifi/heisenbridge
| jeltz wrote:
| A pity, and maybe they have good reasons (load, abuse, the bridge
| being too flaky, ..), but I do not like the user experience of
| plumbed rooms and the limitation of only certain rooms being
| plumbed even further makes this uninteresting so this would mean
| I would need to run my own instance of the bridge or stop using
| Libera. And, no, I am no fan of the proposed new channel mode
| either. It was how it just worked and included all channels which
| made the bridge so useful.
|
| I liked the bridge despite its occasional technical issues.
| progval wrote:
| What issues do you have with plumbed rooms that you don't with
| portal rooms, besides the initial plumbing?
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Why is using Matrix supposed to be easier than irssi and tmux?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Because by the time you're 30 minutes into explaining the
| phrase "userland daemon", Grandma and the preschoolers have
| already created a matrix account and signed into it on their
| ipads.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Not really the Matrix-to-IRC bridge demographic, are they?
| proto_lambda wrote:
| Unfortunate, but the IRC bridge is an absolute dumpster fire at
| least at these scales, and Element seems to have been unable to
| do much about this so far.
| Arathorn wrote:
| As a user, this is miserable. Matrix is used as a decentralised
| bouncer for tens of thousands of users to access IRC (including
| me) and while the bridge has certainly had problems over the
| years (e.g. occasional delays & a recent spate of dropped
| messages), it's also improved loads too - e.g. with support for
| restarting the bridge without reconnecting all the IRC users
| (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc/issues/1...)
| and all the other stuff in https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-
| appservice-irc/blob/dev....
|
| By now requiring users to go and contact chanops to ask them to
| explicitly plumb IRC channels to Matrix, it's just going to waste
| time for chanops, precipitate weird cross-plumbing failures, or
| fail outright (given plumbing channels with more than 100 users
| has to be done manually to prevent abuse).
|
| It's very unfortunate that it's come to this, and I can only hope
| that the whole "opt in with a chanmode" thing happens, if
| portalling is off the table.
|
| In fact, wouldn't it have been better to just ban the bridge by
| default, and let chanops unban it if they want people to be able
| to access via Matrix, rather than encourage people into the weird
| world of plumbing?
|
| EDIT: clarifying that i'm not neutral on this, given i'm project
| lead for Matrix, and also responsible for running the Libera
| bridge at Element.
| tredre3 wrote:
| I'm one of those who is affected by the decision, and I also
| hope the chan mode ends up being the chosen solution and
| implemented before times runs out.
|
| There's no need for hyperbole though. Libera overall only has a
| few tens of thousands of users, there's no way the vast
| majority are accessing it via Matrix like you say/imply. I'd
| wager we're less than 1000 impacted on libera.
| Arathorn wrote:
| I'm not being hyperbolic, i'm looking at the grafana stats on
| the matrix<->libera bridge, and the total connected users
| from Matrix fluctuates between around 10,000 and 12,000 users
| (bearing in mind that connections from Matrix get kicked if
| the user from Matrix hasn't been seen for >30 days).
| https://netsplit.de/networks/statistics.php?net=Libera.Chat
| implies there's around 42K users connected to libera overall,
| so we're talking about 23% of the total network participants
| here.
| tredre3 wrote:
| Thank you I stand corrected, 12k is 10x what I expected.
| Though I feel like "tens of thousands" should means 20k or
| more, so hyperbole is still at play..
|
| Knowing that at least 1/4 of Libera users are from a fairly
| unstable bridge is really depressing. IRC truly is dying...
| Arathorn wrote:
| Before I checked the figure, I thought it was around
| 22,000 (from memory, the I:line is set up for 25,000
| connections). However, as time has gone one we've been
| more aggressive about culling idle connections on the
| Matrix side (plus there seems to be less activity to
| bridge to on the IRC side), hence it being around 11K
| these days.
|
| In terms of the bridge stability: there have obviously
| been stability problems over the last few months, but
| overall it's certainly been better than nothing. Agreed
| that the situation overall is really depressing.
| jeltz wrote:
| Are there really that few of us? I feel Arathorn should have
| the numbers if anyone.
| tomaw wrote:
| Until you were called out in comments you were fine to be "just
| a user". I'm really disappointed in that.
| Arathorn wrote:
| hint: the giveaway is in my user profile, as well as most
| comments i post. sorry for any confusion or disappointment...
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| Good riddance. The random message drops problem has been going
| on for well over a month now, with a really long issue on
| GitHub. Almost zero messages from developers, as far as I can
| tell they neither have a clue what the problem is, nor are they
| working on a solution. This is absolutely pathetic. If anything
| this just cemented my aversion towards the whole matrix
| ecosystem.
| progval wrote:
| > Matrix is used as a decentralised bouncer for tens of
| thousands of users to access IRC
|
| Matrix as a whole isn't banned, only the bridge operated by
| Element. If anything, this could encourage more people to run
| their own bridges (eg. Heisenbridge).
|
| > while the bridge has certainly had problems over the years
| (e.g. occasional delays & a recent spate of dropped messages),
|
| As well as flood (multiline messages and edits), spam,
| harassment[1], leaking secret channels[2], leaking past message
| metadata and channel membership.
|
| [1]: https://twitter.com/AsahiLinux/status/1581103659013722112
|
| [2]: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-
| irc/releases...
|
| > it's also improved loads too
|
| The very room used to discuss the Matrix bridge
| (#irc:matrix.org) has been dropping all IRC messages for at
| least three days, and the one to talk to Libera's staff
| (#libera-matrix:libera.chat) was only fixed today [EDIT:
| actually it's still dropping some people's messages]. The room
| used to discuss the Matrix spec (#spec:matrix.org) has been
| dropping them for over a year.
|
| After two years of message drops, there is no way for users to
| know their messages are being dropped without using developer
| tools, causing miscommunication issues to many Free Software
| projects.
|
| There have been, as far as I know, no work on addressing UX
| issues on the IRC side (primarily multiline messages, edits,
| and replies) in the last couple of years; except my work on
| MSC3968 and MSC3969 which is still awaiting initial review from
| Element four months after I submitted it.
| brightlancer wrote:
| > As well as flood (multiline messages and edits), spam,
| harassment[1], leaking secret channels[2], leaking past
| message metadata and channel membership.
|
| > [1]:
| https://twitter.com/AsahiLinux/status/1581103659013722112
|
| What abuse? That link says "Matrix does not provide the
| moderation tools we need to keep our community safe", but
| doesn't say how their safety(?) was compromised.
|
| I also find it odd since Mozilla switched from IRC to Matrix
| specifically because they wanted to censor people, I mean
| "keep our community safe" though "moderation tools".
|
| https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/synchronous-messaging-at-
| moz...
| progval wrote:
| > What abuse?
|
| Not sure, but here is what I can find in public logs:
|
| https://oftc.irclog.whitequark.org/asahi/2022-10-12#3151214
| 9
|
| https://oftc.irclog.whitequark.org/asahi/2022-10-13#3151695
| 8
|
| https://oftc.irclog.whitequark.org/asahi/2022-10-14#3152062
| 4
|
| https://oftc.irclog.whitequark.org/asahi/2022-10-14#3152231
| 6
|
| > I also find it odd since Mozilla switched from IRC to
| Matrix specifically because they wanted to censor people, I
| mean "keep our community safe" though "moderation tools".
|
| Mozilla had neglected their IRC network for years, so they
| were lacking the expertise. And they didn't try to reach
| out to other networks like Freenode (Libera Chat's
| predecessor) or OFTC to try to ask them for advice.
| MTRNord wrote:
| > Matrix as a whole isn't banned, only the bridge operated by
| Element. If anything, this could encourage more people to run
| their own bridges (eg. Heisenbridge).
|
| That won't help 80% of the users that are not techy people.
| So yes imho while not intended as one, it will backfire as a
| full ban of matrix.
|
| > except my work on MSC3968 and MSC3969 which is still
| awaiting initial review from Element four months after I
| submitted it.
|
| Honestly, as a Matrix user, I hope these don't land any time
| soon as they will strongly decrease usability for matrix
| users. (And yes, I am going as far as saying that I want a
| native feeling chat on matrix side. Not an IRC emulation. If
| I wanted an IRC emulation, I would use an IRC client. That's
| EXACTLY the one thing I DO NOT want as a matrix user.)
| progval wrote:
| > they will strongly decrease usability for matrix users
|
| There is an impedance mismatch between IRC and Matrix, and
| these try to find a middle-ground, by helping non-technical
| Matrix users follow social norms in a room they joined. As
| your own client dev, you are free not to implement these
| specs in your client to ignore these norms.
| MTRNord wrote:
| Well I am just saying that if people want irc semantics
| then please stick to irc. You are trying to poison a
| network here, quite honestly.
| progval wrote:
| I'm not trying to push these on all of Matrix, that would
| be ridiculous. My implementations only enable them in
| 1-on-1 chats with IRC users, and (hopefully) on portal
| rooms in the future.
| jeltz wrote:
| I totally agree with everything you said (as a normal user of
| Matrix and this bridge) but shouldn't you clarify that you work
| for Element? You are a user but also more than.
| Arathorn wrote:
| have clarified. i was posting from a user point of view,
| though (given i love lurking and hanging out in loads of IRC
| channels via the bridge today, and i'm gutted to lose that.
| it feels like the ultimate splintering of communities.)
| susam wrote:
| I have had my own share of problems with both portalled rooms as
| well as plumbed rooms on Matrix. Dropped messages, dropped
| connections, etc. were some of the problems. Sometimes the re-
| connection times can be several hours long. Despite these
| problems, the portalled rooms have been a convenient way to
| quickly set up a relatively persistent connection to the IRC
| network via the Matrix bridge.
|
| That convenience is now going to be lost unless the IRC channel
| operators opt-in to create an account on Matrix, then set up a
| plumbed room on Matrix, and then advertise the plumbed rooms
| sufficiently well. Of course, many regular IRC users set up an
| IRC bouncer (I use ZNC myself) to keep a persistent connection to
| the IRC network, so this move would not affect them. But the
| portalled rooms served as a good alternative to setting up IRC
| bouncers yourself and unfortunately, this nice alternative is now
| going away.
|
| As a channel moderator, I haven't been too happy with the plumbed
| channels either. For example, one of the things I have found to
| be a little problematic is that the Matrix bridge service joins
| the Matrix room with _Admin_ power level. To avoid these
| complications, I wrote my own tiny script to bridge the Matrix
| rooms and IRC channels I needed. Since my script joins the
| networks as an ordinary client, it does not need elevated
| privileges in the channels /rooms. In case, anyone is interested
| in the script, I have shared it here:
| https://github.com/susam/nimb
|
| The section "Differences from Matrix Appservice" at the bottom of
| the README in the preceding link explains some of the
| inconveniences I faced with the Matrix bridge service for plumbed
| channels and why I had to write my own script to avoid them.
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