Subject: Trial chat service: xmpp

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2020 12:45:09 -0500

In addition to the trial instances of the matrix and zulip chat services,
we have deployed a trial instance of an xmpp service that allows local 
accounts
to be registered, allows guest account access, and provides a web client.

These services are available at xmpp-trial1.ietf.org.

As noted earlier, we are deploying these services to gain operational
experience and get community feedback about how well they meet the need for
IETF-related chat.

We have clear evidence from the IETF 107 post-meeting survey
(https://www.ietf.org/media/documents/ietf-107-survey-results.pdf) that many
IETF participants find jabber a significant problem.  This is partly due to
difficulties in finding a free jabber service and partly due to client 
issues.
There are two paths to try to resolve these problems, one is to improve the
IETF jabber service and the other is to switch to an alternative groupchat
solution. This addition explores the the first path.

This install has very little local configuration or customization.  As 
with the
other trials, over the next few weeks, we will be exploring 
reconfiguring the
service to use datatracker credentials for sign-in.  Bridging between the
systems is already being explored. Please remember that one consequence of
these explorations is that there will likely be times, outside of meetings,
when accounts will be disrupted or even removed and will have to be 
recreated.

We would like feedback on how well any of these services meet chat needs 
during
meetings, both the full online IETF 109 meeting, interims, adhocs, and 
hallway
conversations.

Around December, we will assess our experiences and the feedback received to
inform which chat services we provide in the future and how we will operate
them. In January, these trial instances will be taken down. We do not 
intend to
preserve or migrate any account configuration or chat history from the trial
instances as we move forward.

The chat services are intended to be explorational and informal. However,
please treat them as contexts where contribution rules apply (See
https://www.ietf.org/about/note-well/).

Please send feedback on the services to [email-masked]

There are several community members who have put in significant effort
helping us to set up these trial instances. Please join me in thanking
Tim April, Matthew Hodgson, and Matthew Wild for their assistance.

Robert Sparks - Tools team project manager