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Well, I don't know Discord that well, but on Matrix there's a ton of FOSS and other communities to join from many different decentralized servers. After a long

by rapnie 5y ago

Well, I don't know Discord that well, but on Matrix there's a ton of FOSS and other communities to join from many different decentralized servers. After a long period of slow progress, Matrix seems to me like it is taking flight now. It bridges to IRC and with Github and new integrations become available all the time. And the UX, to me at least, is quite pleasant (maybe initially you have to get used to some stuff). Matrix it is for me, my default choice of chat app.

pizza234 5y ago
I've joined Matrix a couple of weeks ago, and the UX has been extremely confusing from the very first moment - logging in, private messaging, joining groups... everything is considerably more complex that a standard chat application (like Discord or Slack). In my opinion, there's no way Matrix can be a valid alternative, until it's as usable as the competitors.
- up6w6 5y ago
  Are you using Element? I find the web version good enough to be used, but I admit the mobile client is still a mess (they plan to improve it in 2022 though).
  - pizza234 5y ago
    I've used two of the webapps, however, the problem is in the workflow. On login, I was asked to validate from two devices. This is novel in this type of apps (at least, the mainstream ones), and it took me a while to figure it out. Part of the confusion was also the fact that notifications about validations started to pile up, and I wasn't sure about I was doing. I still don't know how I got the validation key (or however it's called) in this workflow. Another novel concept is that, as far as I've understood, sessions are associated to keys, so, I suppose, if I lose a key, all the (encrypted) communications are gone. This would be acceptable, but the warning is very pushy; it's not clear to a new user if it's very strongly advised to enable encryption or not (will the other people trust me without?). Communicating with other people is also confusing - I had two channels open with another user, and didn't know if any of it was valid. Joining groups was confusing as well. I had a name (which was also strange; I still don't know if it's normal for the names to be "strange"), and again, couldn't figure out if I joined it or not (until I joined via other means). This may be all necessary for a safe design, but definitely, it's a huge barrier to entry for somebody who expects a Slack-like experience.
Jnr 5y ago
Let's not sugar coat Matrix. Joining from federated networks to some larger rooms takes hours or even days. Tried it a few months ago, was not impressed. I spent a couple days debugging it and asking for some support, but it turns out the official server software is by design incapable of joining large rooms instantly. It literally took 2 days for the room to appear in my chat client. And the message delivery was also delayed and far from instant. To me personally IRC is way better than Matrix, when it comes to basic instant text messaging. For more advanced features I would rather use Discord, than spend days trying to get Matrix work.
- feanaro 5y ago
  Hours and days?! I've certainly never seen that, that's a bug. The most problematic rooms (like Matrix HQ) took no more than 20 minutes for me, and that's only for the first join -- subsequent users get to join "for free". Performance is going to be a major focus in 2022, with [fast federation room joins](https://matrix.org/blog/2021/12/22/the-mega-matrix-holiday-special-2021#fast-joins-over-federation https://matrix.org/blog/2021/12/22/the-mega-matrix-holiday-s...) and a new version of [the sync part of protocol](https://matrix.org/blog/2021/12/22/the-mega-matrix-holiday-special-2021#sync-v3 https://matrix.org/blog/2021/12/22/the-mega-matrix-holiday-s...).

by rapnie 5y ago

pizza234 5y ago

I've joined Matrix a couple of weeks ago, and the UX has been extremely confusing from the very first moment - logging in, private messaging, joining groups... everything is considerably more complex that a standard chat application (like Discord or Slack). In my opinion, there's no way Matrix can be a valid alternative, until it's as usable as the competitors.

up6w6 5y ago
Are you using Element? I find the web version good enough to be used, but I admit the mobile client is still a mess (they plan to improve it in 2022 though).
- pizza234 5y ago
  I've used two of the webapps, however, the problem is in the workflow. On login, I was asked to validate from two devices. This is novel in this type of apps (at least, the mainstream ones), and it took me a while to figure it out. Part of the confusion was also the fact that notifications about validations started to pile up, and I wasn't sure about I was doing. I still don't know how I got the validation key (or however it's called) in this workflow. Another novel concept is that, as far as I've understood, sessions are associated to keys, so, I suppose, if I lose a key, all the (encrypted) communications are gone. This would be acceptable, but the warning is very pushy; it's not clear to a new user if it's very strongly advised to enable encryption or not (will the other people trust me without?). Communicating with other people is also confusing - I had two channels open with another user, and didn't know if any of it was valid. Joining groups was confusing as well. I had a name (which was also strange; I still don't know if it's normal for the names to be "strange"), and again, couldn't figure out if I joined it or not (until I joined via other means). This may be all necessary for a safe design, but definitely, it's a huge barrier to entry for somebody who expects a Slack-like experience.

Jnr 5y ago

Let's not sugar coat Matrix. Joining from federated networks to some larger rooms takes hours or even days. Tried it a few months ago, was not impressed. I spent a couple days debugging it and asking for some support, but it turns out the official server software is by design incapable of joining large rooms instantly. It literally took 2 days for the room to appear in my chat client. And the message delivery was also delayed and far from instant. To me personally IRC is way better than Matrix, when it comes to basic instant text messaging. For more advanced features I would rather use Discord, than spend days trying to get Matrix work.

feanaro 5y ago
Hours and days?! I've certainly never seen that, that's a bug. The most problematic rooms (like Matrix HQ) took no more than 20 minutes for me, and that's only for the first join -- subsequent users get to join "for free". Performance is going to be a major focus in 2022, with [fast federation room joins](https://matrix.org/blog/2021/12/22/the-mega-matrix-holiday-special-2021#fast-joins-over-federation https://matrix.org/blog/2021/12/22/the-mega-matrix-holiday-s...) and a new version of [the sync part of protocol](https://matrix.org/blog/2021/12/22/the-mega-matrix-holiday-special-2021#sync-v3 https://matrix.org/blog/2021/12/22/the-mega-matrix-holiday-s...).