tl;dr :
- Hexchat IRC client app development stopped
- Linux Mint team was building IRC client to replace Hexchat
- The team tried Matrix and liked it
- Linux Mint’s communication channels are moving from IRC to Matrix
- The desktop app will be named Matrix to avoid confusion
I think Matrix is the future, it just needs better designers and implementation.
They really, really shouldn’t do things differently than discord just to be different.
Looks like you’re saying federation is the future, but Matrix is a bad federation implementation. And that sounds good.
I still think forums are the best way to handle support. Even phpBB is better than any chat. Have a bot alert a chat channel that the project team hangs out for every new topic or something, if that’s a concern.
Giving the users the choice to have IRC and a forum sounds nice to me. Forums for the longer conversations and be able to look up things with a search engine, and IRC for quick questions and informal chat.
the issue isn’t so much with IRC, XMPP, Matrix, or Discord per se (aside from Discord having its own issues) – it’s that every dev/org/group is trying to use a chatroom as a replacement for support channels, wikis, knowledgebases, FAQs, forums, announcements, mailing lists, etc.
[as the meme states: “I don’t want to join your fucking Discord server just to get basic information that should be on a proper website instead of hidden away in the archives of a fucking chatroom”]
Discord is the Gold Standard for you ? Why ?
It’s the easiest to use.
While this is true IMO, it’s needed to say that the redesigned Discord mobile app is complete shitshow.
It didn’t take over most of its competition’s userbase magically, they have a well designed system despite its flaws.
Taking away being Electron based, the UI/UX of desktop app is really good.