Matrix Integration with BBB Chat (new for 2021!)
If you don't know what matrix is, or you are satisfied with joining the chat within the BBB room only, you don't need to read further. The following way to join the chat is entirely optional.
One big source of frustration last year was that the BBB Rooms Chat and the RocketChat were completely separate. This year we've implemented the chat feature in BBB using matrix. This means that for each BBB Room, we have created a matrix Channel and the chat for that room will occur in the corresponding matrix Channel. (For example, the Refereed talk chat will be in #Refereed Track (LPC 2021) and so on.)
How to Join the BBB Rooms Chat from matrix
Using the LPC provided account
Registered conference attendees are pre-provisioned with matrix accounts on our matrix server. We've also set up an element web client here, but you may join with your phone or desktop app. For linux desktop apps, the best source seems to be Fedora Copr if your distribution isn't yet supplying it.
Your matrix user name is the email you registered for the conference with the "at" symbol changed to a "dot", so if you registered as jejb@ibm.com your matrix user name is jejb.ibm.com and your federated identity on our server would be @jejb.ibm.com:lpc.chat We realise exposing email addresses may be a privacy concern for some, so you're free to join our chat rooms with your own matrix account instead if you prefer (our accounts on the matrix server aren't provisioned unless you log in, so if you never log in no-one will know the account).
Using your own Matrix account (Also works for Live Streaming)
If you have your own matrix account, the matrix client you're using has an "Explore public rooms" options under the "Add rooms" tab. When you click on the "Matrix Rooms" drop down there's an option at the bottom to "+ Add a New Server" select this and type lpc.events as the server name. This will show all the public rooms for plumbers conference and you can join as many as you wish.
Latency Issues for Streamers
People watching the conference over live streaming can still interact via their matrix account (as described above) with the attendees in the BBB rooms and ask questions. We've tried to ensure that the Live streaming is as low latency as possible, but with having a stream to China this year, we suspect Streaming viewers will be a few seconds and up to a minute behind the actual BBB live conference. For this reason questions over the chat from live streamers may be delayed, so please be tolerant of that.
Note: However note that if you open the BBB chat tab, you will not appear in the room with your lpc.events matrix account (trying to get the authentication to work was just too difficult). Instead you will appear as an anonymous guest numbered account, but with your name showing correctly. Each time you open and close the chat window, you'll get a different anonymous account. Additionally, the chat panel is running element embedded, which is a very cut down version of the element client (no reactions, no notification etc). For this reason you might prefer to use a full featured element client to participate in the chat instead of opening the panel ... the choice is yours.
Moderation Issues
We're hoping everyone will behave according to our code of conduct. However, we realise opening up the channels to all comers is a risk, so we'd like everyone to be on the lookout for bad behaviour in the channels. If you see any, please report it to the #Moderators channel (or via email to contact@linuxplumbersconf.org) and we'll take action to kick or ban the problem party.
