$10k project idea #1 - Accessibility & Rocket.Chat

[mgifford]

The government is starting to use Rocket.Chat for internal & external messaging in GCMessage.

Identify accessibility problems within this open source platform, search to see if they are already known in the community and if they aren't already known problems, submit them to the issue queue here https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/issues

If time allows, provide patches, screenshots or provide links to documentation to help existing issues be better understood and resolved.

[colans]

The open source community is moving towards the Matrix.org protocol, and it looks like there's interest from Canada as well.

I wrote about the trend at https://colan.consulting/blog/representing-drupal-gsoc-2017-mentor-summit . In there, I mention that the Rocket.Chat folks are working towards that protocol. See Matrix and Riot confirmed as the basis for France’s Secure Instant Messenger app for France's involvement with a Canada mention.

I'm actually not sure that Rocket.Chat is the way to go when Riot is supported by the Matrix team.

[mgifford]

Like so many choices, we can only know in hindsight. Matrix.org looks cool.

I just know that the Drupal community has chosen Rocket.chat for their Slack alternative:
https://www.drupal.org/node/2958812

I know that Riot was looked at too.

I don't see this as being an issue to debate Riot vs Rocket. Both have accessibility problems.

Please set up a new issue to look at addressing or identifying accessibility issues in Riot.

[colans]

I just know that the Drupal community has chosen Rocket.chat for their Slack alternative:
https://www.drupal.org/node/2958812

That's news to me! I thought it was Matrix. I've been following all of those conversations, which led to https://www.drupal.org/project/matrixchat.

In any case, I won't be opening another ticket for this as I'm not super-invested in the topic. I just wanted to make sure that folks are aware that energy has been invested in other products, and that should be considered before investing resources into Rocket.Chat.

[mgifford]

You could be right. Could be that it's a segment of the IRC community that is going that way. There seems to be reasonable support for Rocket.Chat as a module https://www.drupal.org/project/rocket_chat

Very good to know that there are reasons for looking at other options too. $10k to improve an open source project that the government is presently using (but might not be for long) isn't a waste. Might even be solutions that could get migrated over to other platforms.

[MaryBethBaker]

From Medium post: https://medium.com/@mgifford/i-would-definitely-update-it-with-or-without-covid-19-e326e1882603

Update on issue from May 2020
#1 — Rocket.Chat is still great, as is Riot! But the GC seems to have completely failed to promote it internally. The hope that Microsoft Teams was going to solve the problem of messaging. From what I understand Teams tends to cement silos rather than dissolve them. I don’t agree with the strategy, but if the plan is to only use MS Teams, there’s not much point in investing in anything else.

[mgifford]

Just adding the Riot accessibility label on github https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/labels/accessibility