Bridge set up between Matrix and Discord
We set up a bridge between the Lemmy.world General Matrix room and the Public-1 channel on the Lemmy World discord server yesterday. It's not perfect as emoji reactions aren't visible and some minor things like how it handles edited messages but other than that it seems to be working well.
Now people on both chat clients can interact with eachother!
This is really cool!
Yeah, it's super neat letting everyone talk with everyone. Reminds me of the old IRC days! ❤️
bitlbee & Janus!
They do something like that for Jellyfin as well. Very cool thing to do!
It seem idea of fedderating has spread even beyong feerated network. It's good thing. Sort of antimonopolisti.
What is this for someone who has no idea?
Two different, incompatible chat services exist - Discord and Matrix. This allows users of either service to post to a channel that has been connected on each side and messages are basically cross posted between the two, allowing users on each service to almost chat like they are all on the same channel despite being on two different chat services.
Thanks! That’s nifty!
Thinking of it as two different rooms in a party being connected so they can all be involved in the same conversation.
Looks like a bot that sends messages between through chat platforms
What are recommended apps for Matrix on Android?
I'm considering using it, but I don't know much about Matrix clients.
There's:
For now I stick with Element. It's just seems to be the most feature-rich of them.
I recommend fluffychat to most people because it's simple and straightforward. I use Element because it's fully featured and a bit more complex. So choose your poison
I would also recommend fluffy chat to people because in addition to that it's also one of the only ones to support multiple accounts, an important feature for element because simply switching back and forth between accounts isn't feasible on a service with end-to-end encryption where you have to maintain a single login else lose your keys and prior encrypted messaging history.
I use the chat that is available in Thunderbird, my email client. It can connect to various types of chat (I dont remember them all) like Matrix.
Official client list https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/
Element is decent. Started playing around with Fluffy which also seems good.
i like cinny because it's the most discord like
I've personally been using Element and love it. I have a private matrix server for my family to use. Some of the members of the family have also loved FluffyChat.
Since it's been mentioned here but nobody's said anything else about it yet, Beeper is nice because it connects a bunch of different apps and everything syncs instantly between PC and mobile. I personally use it for Matrix, a couple of Discord servers, Messenger (for those friends who won't leave) and SMS.
Can you view all channels in a Discord server, just like you're using Discord?
Only text channels I believe. There's a sidebar sort of like the one in the actual Discord app that shows your inbox, SMS, Messenger, etc. Discord servers show up in there, then when you select one it shows you the list of channels as though they're regular conversations. You can set whether or not they show up in your inbox and/or notify you individually for each channel, and the ones you don't want you just set to low priority and they'll be hidden. It's not a perfect replacement, but if you don't need voice/streaming it works fine.
Could the bridge be used by bots that work with Discord but not with Matrix? 🤔Bc there's quite a few of those, and me as a Matrix user can't have anything
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Eh I just want a bot that will notify me of new posts and reports on Matrix
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Yea but I guess that's something the lw/bridge admins would have to set up with the bot makers, wouldn't they
Nope not directly doable. As the messages are webhooks and most bots ignore those
I'd just want to be passively notified, not looking to control the bot
this might be a good place for me to reach out into the void
i'm interested in migrating two of my servers over to a matrix server, but i also want to back-copy all the old messages to the matrix client.
does a matrix bridge do all this copying? i.e, if i was to setup a discord-matrix bridge, allow messages to sync, and then disconnect the bridge, does the matrix server then have a copy of all the old messages? it doesn't have to match to the old users or anything, i'm just interested in having the content migrate over.
this is currently the biggest hurdle for me, because one of my servers is a private family discord, and i really don't want to have to explain to my mum that "all the content of the last 4 years is gone" 😅
Short answer: yes. Longer answer: I have a matrix server with a whatsapp bridge. If I remove the connection between WhatsApp and matrix, I can still see a the contacts and messages (of WhatsApp) in matrix.
If you have questions reach out, no problem.
But it will only bridge messages that are sent AFTER you created the bridge. It looks like he's asking to copy the complete history of those discord channels over to matrix.
i do have a question, sure
for the avoidance of doubt, you are saying that a matrix bridge can copy all previous messages over from a discord server, to a matrix server, even the messages made before the creation of the bridge? i.e, transfer the entire conversation log over to the matrix server, going back all the way to the first message in a channel?
actually, phrasing this another way, i just caught myself in the XY problem. what i need really, is a copy of a given discord server's content, onto a fresh matrix server. bridge or no bridge. is there any way to (broadly) copy and paste the content of a discord channel over to a matrix server, one time only. i know how to extract the discord content using the discord chat log tool, tokens etc. so, say i have one of those html files with the full chatlog and contents - how do i put that into a matrix server, and have it roughly readable? (if that's possible)
thank you for your patience, i have tried search engines for months with no clear answers
Probably not. But why do you even need to do that? Chat platforms are ephemeral by nature. If there's anything important that needs to be kept, you should consider a different platform.
I don't think that's possible. At least the bridge software we used you can only link one matrix room to one discord channel. And the chat history from discord is not transferred either.
We're currently using https://t2bot.io/
ahh that's unfortunate. thanks anyway!
Hop on discord/matrix. We chillin tonight.
Discord should be abandoned as it's not in the fediverse and especially because it's not open source. This platform should never be used a an official place for one's own platform.
We are not a bastion of Open Source software. We use it yes, support it yes. There are plenty of things we use FOSS for but we have zero obligations to lock us down to only use FOSS. We use what is convenient and try to listen to the needs of our users.
There is lemmy.world, there is mastodon.world, there is a matrix space and synapse server. Then there is calckey.world a firefish server and I probably forget a few other things that are hosted by @ruud@lemmy.world.
And then yes, there is a discord server.
I think @ruud@lemmy.world and our infra team do PLENTY for the foss community by hosting all of these services, making them available and filing bug reports. They are even in touch with a lot of developers on different foss projects.
Don't forget your manpower is limited. No one is a lemmy.world employee and people need sleep. That leaves 8 hours in a day for literally everything else a person needs/wants to do. Having one service that just works is a load off an all volunteer team's back.
We have people working for Lemmy World around the clock. Most of those services do not require a lot of maintenance once they are set up and configured. Lemmy itself is the biggest PITA but that's why we have a big team. So besides that we try to listen to the community and what they want and if it's possible we will do our best to make it happen. And as I said in my other reply, we will choose what is convenient over what is FOSS.
Bullshit. You should use the platform where most of your users are. And the users are on discord and do not give a single shit about open source.
This is the truth. Do people not have friends that mainly use mainstream services or are people just elitist about open source? This just sucks, because this kind of toxicity really drives normal users away from open source when more people should be driven to it.
For us it's about a community where we take care of our users and provide a environment to foster interesting and respectful conversation. Software is just a means to a end.
Why not just use Reddit then? Its simple and all users are there.
Use it for what ?
Not the same thing, I would use both anyway.
Especially for a company or a public project, you want your content indexed and keep the control. If you don't open a subreddit or sublemmy someone would do it.
For a chat, not the same thing. You want a discord to speak to your users, and a selfhosted matrix to manage your employees and private stuff
The reason people use Lemmy is because Reddit has a monopoly and does stupid things. How confident can we be that Discord won't do this? I'm sure they will because they are a for-profit company. So why don't we start from a platform that power belongs to the user? It is also tragicomic that a platform like Lemmy.world does this.
For your argument; I don't agree. I think Matrix has sufficient features for this job.
It has the features (not sure about that), but it has not the users...
I agree with you but it's just not how it works. Or else nobody would be using mac os or google products.
Also currently, almost nobody want/can/care about selfhosting.
There are definitely pros/cons. I'm not a FOSS monster. I would just expect a platform whose reason for existence is big corps to be more devoted in this regard.
How are we not devoted? We are devoted to our users, not to the FOSS only mantra. I see you run your own instance, I suggest you run that one the way you want it and we'll do our thing here.
You're right, manage it however you want.
How kind of you to speak for everyone!
I'm not speaking for everyone. I'm just expressing myself.
Isn't that a fact?
He said confidently, without any real experience to back this up
I've been using it for 2 months for both private and group chats.
As a user or as an admin ?
Why should a random admin be more trusted than discord ? (malicious, security, data leaks etc)
Matrix has E2E encrypted chats with user controlled keys and open clients.
Discord doesn't, at all, any of that.
Why should a random admin who can't read your chats, be more trusted than a corporation which logs them all?... well, for starters they can't read, modify, datamine, profile, or leak, what they don't have 🤷
They could use a corrupted version...
Also the risk of data loss, system failure, lack of maintenance...
If you host your own shit then yes go matrix why not.
If not discord is still better. Maybe one day they'il do shit, at this time this is not the case
This is why I asked "why don't just use Reddit" in the first place.
While Reddit worked seamlessly for more than 15 years, it turned to shit within 1 year. The worst part is that we cannot easily switch to a different platform because Reddit is mainstream, and the alternatives are not appealing enough because there are not enough people. Isn't it possible that we will experience the same thing with Discord?
Also, I really respect Lemmy.world's decision. It's not my job to interfere in internal affairs because I'm not a user or admin here. I just wanted to express my opinion, after all, that's what the comment field is for, right? But not again, I will not comment on instance meta communities, as it supposed to be :)
Discord already "shares" data with third parties (has been doing it for years), has full control over your client, and doesn't need to "corrupt" anything to already have access to read, erase, and modify everything.
Matrix servers can't access encrypted content, no matter how "corrupted" they are. Data loss is on the user, you can keep a backup of anything... or not, your choice. System failure and lack of maintenance, are mitigated by identity servers being separate from the chat relay servers.
If you want to trade privacy, message integrity, and user non-supplantation, for some more system stability, then sure, go ahead and use Discord, WhatsApp, Messenger, or whatever (...actually, WhatsApp is slightly more secure than Discord).
It really depends of your activity.
If your country is dangerous or there is any kind of risk with what you do (journalist etc...) then I totally agree with you.
If it's for a gaming community that just need to spam memes and a vocal channel, then you won't convince anyone with these arguments because most people simply don't care.
When you’re constantly getting attacked and having issues, sometimes you need to do stuff you don’t want to do, just to be able to get stuff done.
In a perfect world I think devs wouldn’t want to use Discord, but it’s one of the only options that won’t be constantly taking down with attacks.
Plus Matrix is something that is still new to people and some users are more comfortable with Discord. Many users are still adjusting to the concept of Lemmy and how federation works. Fortunately this bridge will help the two groups connect to each other and maybe in the future we can move to only using Matrix.
Good points and appreciate the perspective!
What has Discord anything to do with any attacks, or preventing any of them?
If lemmy is being attacked, mods need a platform to coordinate.
Discord has DDOS protection through their hoster, which was the primary means of attacks on lemmy.
Did the Matrix servers get attacked?
I can’t answer that, but my rebuttal would be these are targeted attacks, I don’t doubt they would attack matrix if lemmy was using it to coordinate.
Matrix is federated, supports private channels, encryption, and cryptographic user signatures. It's basically un-attackable (unless you open a channel to everyone).
The average user will not give a damn about any of the things you mentioned.
And tell me how to set up a matrix server that is invite only with one link instead of having to invite them all one by one?
Yes for most of the stuff matrix is good and I like it. But pretending it's s complete replacement for discord is simply not true.
Even besides that, which one is more popular do you think? Which one has the most reach and people are most familiar with? Most people don't care if it's foss or not, they'll use what everyone is using.
Ok... let me start by saying that I'm not trying to tell you what to do, just that I don't think those arguments are all that solid.
The topic was to coordinate in case of an attack, so you'd probably want to verify identities and avoid imposters, which Discord "kind of" does through things like its integrations with other ID services... but there's nothing like a good cryptographic signature. Discord has a "report raid" option for a reason, it isn't bulletproof.
Maybe.
A whole server, can be done, but why? A private space, or private room... I guess you still need to use a bot to invite from a link.
There are some bots out there with other interesting features though, like a "knock" option to let admins/mods know of join requests and accept/reject, or a setup where they use two rooms: one public, for everyone to join, with a bot that you can ask nicely for an invite to the private one.
Strictly speaking, all Discord features and more are possible via Matrix bots... but probably not yet available through a user friendly GUI, if that's what you mean.
Nowadays, either is a click away; whether the web UI, or some app in an app store.
Why would you need to verify identity’s to avoid imposters when this is set up ahead of time?
I’m user x here and user y there….
How is this so hard for you to comprehend?
If you think any of that matters (they’ve been attacked before… so I really don’t know why you think it’s not possible) you are hella naive.
And most of those apply to lemmy, and other federated communities, and guess what, all been attacked!
Except the private, encrypted, and verified identities parts. So essentially nothing other than being federated.
Lots of registrations are private, it’s a choice and some require email verification, arguably the same and agin, it’s a choice on your instance.
That... only partially mitigates the identity issue, it doesn't address the others.
How are they supposed to make announcements if the site is down?.. That was the whole point when there were so many attacks/site outtages.
There is this thing called "a status web page". Here, check the one for Lemmy.world: https://lemmy-world.statuspage.io/
Those were not working properly at that time of the DDOS attacks. I'm not sure if that's been fixed now or not tho.
We did fix it. We also updated the text at the top to clarify. It's only will post announcements if one of us is actively working on a outage. This keeps the noise down for small bilps in monitoring. We have https://dash.lemmy.world if you would like up to the second info.
Nice! Appreciate it.