TL;DR: We are moving our Slack instance to the new Mozilla Matrix. Both systems are currently bridged but the Slack instance will be decommissioned the week of March 24th 2020. Please check the instructions on how to join the new system.
Dear Common Voice Community,
As some of you already know, Mozilla has been working for some time to replace its official synchronous communication tool, and earlier this year we decided to launch our own Matrix instance to host our public conversations.
At Common Voice we historically maintained an independent Slack instance to enable synchronous communications for this project, and now we want to transition it to the new Mozilla Matrix.
Which problems are we trying to solve?
- Our current Slack instance is limited to the last 10K messages.
- You need to create an independent account to use Slack, you can’t reuse your Common Voice account or integrate it with Mozilla’s systems.
- Absence of good moderation tools to keep the conversation civil and safe.
- Data is stored by a third party organization.
- Private messages can’t be end-to-end encrypted and can be accessed by the provider.
- The system is a silo that can’t be discovered/accessed from other Mozilla systems.
Why is Matrix a good solution?
-
Visibility: Mozilla owns the server and data, you can use your existing Common Voice account to log in. Linked from various Mozilla systems. -
Discoverability: Common Voice rooms can be easily discovered by other Mozillians and people using the Matrix network. -
Feel at home: A lot of other Mozilla projects, volunteers and employees are already actively collaborating on the new system. -
Safety: Community Participation Guidelines are enforceable through its moderation tooling, support for end-to-end encryption on private conversations. -
Mission aligned: Decentralized protocol, both server and client code is open source. -
Tech-friendly: Extensible & integrable via diverse clients, bridges and bots.
Timeline
- Feb 11th: Slack general is bridged to the new Common Voice room over Matrix. People can start reading messages from both sides.
- Week of Feb 25th: References and links to slack on voice.mozilla.org replaced by the matrix room.
- Feb 24th to March 16th: Reminders and support for people to start using the new system.
- Week of March 24th: Slack instance decommission.
How do I join?
Mozilla wiki has a great page explaining how to join the new system, please check it out. You’ll find instructions on how to access from web, desktop app or mobile.
Direct link to join Common Voice room
On top of the main English room, there are already other language-based rooms:
If you want to create a room for your language, please make sure the room alias has the following format #common-voice-localecode:mozilla.org for example #common-voice-fr:mozilla.org
Please, help us spread the announcement to all community members and support them during this transition. Feel free to add any questions on this topic.
Thank you everyone!