Advantages and disadvantages to Teleirc bridges

Are you considering a Teleirc bridge? This page attempts a neutral view on pros/cons to using a Teleirc bridge for your sub-project, team, or SIG.

Advantages

  • More accessible discussion: Supporting another client than IRC allows more people to participate and engage with a team based on their personal preference

  • Easier participation from mobile: Open source Telegram mobile clients allows easier participation from mobile devices

  • Lower barrier of entry: Less options and complexities from Telegram clients than traditional IRC clients

  • Guaranteed delivery: Easy to verify a message is actually sent – no netsplits or packet losses to prevent messages from being sent

  • Threaded conversations: Replying to past messages simplifies discussion spanning long periods of time (e.g. someone catches up on past conversation)

Disadvantages

  • Multiple moderators required: Active moderation is needed both on IRC and Telegram – not possible to mirror between IRC and Telegram

  • Telegram’s server code is proprietary: Server code is not free software and there are no plans to release it under free software licenses

  • Chatting across bridges is not perfect: Sometimes context may be missing for IRC users if Telegram users reply to old messages

  • No Fedora IRC bot support: No Telegram-to-IRC support for Fedora’s bots, like zodbot (but bot messages will carry from IRC to Telegram)