Matrix channel bot summaries for This Week in Fedora

pbokoc commented

2026-09-08 12:44:27 +00:00

Owner

Recently @abompard, the maintainer of This Week in Fedora (https://abompard.fedorapeople.org/twif/), told us that he added our Matrix channel to the list of channels watched by the bot which generates these summaries. It's the same LLM that generates meeting minutes, just with different instructions. Here's Aurélien's original message:

Hey folks! I the latest edition of This Week in Fedora, I have added the possibility to gather messages exchanged in this Matrix channel. Even if the channel is public, someone brought to my attention that it would be nicer to ask first if that's fine with you, because contrary to mailing-lists, reading the messages in this channel require a Matrix account and joining the channel.
If there's a consensus that you don't want messages to be part of the weekly summary, I can remove the bot from the room. But gathering them also has advantages: people can more easily keep up with your discussions and your work, your requests for help will reach a wider audience, etc. It's ultimately up to you!
Please react to this post with 👍️ and 👎️, and I'm happy to discuss all this with you if you want to!

Some Docs team members have expressed concerns that having discussions in the channel summarized and published may have a chilling effect on the more "social" aspects of the channel, so I'm opening this issue so we can discuss it in one place.

Note that Aurélien says the bot is instructed to collect technical info relevant to others outside of Docs, not day to day chat:

I don't think you should worry about it gathering useless info, I am specifically asking it not to. I'm basically asking it to identify discussion themes and topics and prioritize what would be relevant to people outside the group.

And he has also offered an opt-out for anyone who would like to keep all of their messages from being summarized:

Yeah I understand that, Matrix rooms give the "incorrect" impression that things here are more private than in a mailing-list, because we're more used to chats being private. However, I am sensible to the fact that it would make participation harder for you and that's the exact opposite of what I'm trying to achieve.
From here we have 2 options:

if the consensus in the room is that we don't want the content to be summarized, I can remove the bot from the room and the content will not be collected.

otherwise, I can exclude your username from collection, and what you write will never end up in the summary sources

I'd like to ask everyone in Docs to vote either +1 to keep the bot around, or -1 to ask Aurélien to please remove our channel.

Recently @abompard, the maintainer of This Week in Fedora (https://abompard.fedorapeople.org/twif/), told us that he added our Matrix channel to the list of channels watched by the bot which generates these summaries. It's the same LLM that generates meeting minutes, just with different instructions. Here's Aurélien's original message: >Hey folks! I the latest edition of This Week in Fedora, I have added the possibility to gather messages exchanged in this Matrix channel. Even if the channel is public, someone brought to my attention that it would be nicer to ask first if that's fine with you, because contrary to mailing-lists, reading the messages in this channel require a Matrix account and joining the channel. If there's a consensus that you don't want messages to be part of the weekly summary, I can remove the bot from the room. But gathering them also has advantages: people can more easily keep up with your discussions and your work, your requests for help will reach a wider audience, etc. It's ultimately up to you! Please react to this post with 👍️ and 👎️, and I'm happy to discuss all this with you if you want to! Some Docs team members have expressed concerns that having discussions in the channel summarized and published may have a chilling effect on the more "social" aspects of the channel, so I'm opening this issue so we can discuss it in one place. Note that Aurélien says the bot is instructed to collect technical info relevant to others outside of Docs, not day to day chat: >I don't think you should worry about it gathering useless info, I am specifically asking it not to. I'm basically asking it to identify discussion themes and topics and prioritize what would be relevant to people outside the group. And he has also offered an opt-out for anyone who would like to keep all of their messages from being summarized: >Yeah I understand that, Matrix rooms give the "incorrect" impression that things here are more private than in a mailing-list, because we're more used to chats being private. However, I am sensible to the fact that it would make participation harder for you and that's the exact opposite of what I'm trying to achieve. >From here we have 2 options: > >* if the consensus in the room is that we don't want the content to be summarized, I can remove the bot from the room and the content will not be collected. >* otherwise, I can exclude your username from collection, and what you write will never end up in the summary sources I'd like to ask everyone in Docs to vote either `+1` to keep the bot around, or `-1` to ask Aurélien to please remove our channel.

pbokoc commented

2026-09-08 12:49:39 +00:00

Author

Owner

I'm +1, keep the bot.

hricky commented

2026-09-08 13:11:11 +00:00

Owner

+1, keep the bot.

cstrauf commented

2026-09-08 13:11:24 +00:00

Member

I'm -1, ditch it. We're watched, summarised and monitored enough as it is. Meeting minutes should be enough external references.

abompard commented

2026-09-14 07:57:30 +00:00

Hi folks! Thanks for your replies. Would it be fine if:

the channel is summarized
I add cstrauf to the individual exclude list.

Would that satisfy everyone? Should I wait one more week to get other member's opinions?

Hi folks! Thanks for your replies. Would it be fine if: - the channel is summarized - I add cstrauf to the individual exclude list. Would that satisfy everyone? Should I wait one more week to get other member's opinions?

hricky commented

2026-09-14 08:12:54 +00:00

Owner

I would suggest waiting for one more week to get other members' opinions.

👍 2

jflory7 commented

2026-09-16 15:17:08 +00:00

Owner

Let's put this into the Tuesday, 2026-09-22 meeting agenda!

👍 1

jamesthegiantpeach commented

2026-09-16 15:49:28 +00:00

+1

egret commented

2026-09-22 12:52:53 +00:00

Member

-1 from me, sorry.

abompard commented

2026-09-28 14:03:59 +00:00

Hey folks, did you reach a conclusion? I've build this week's summary without the matrix channel, FYI.

jflory7 commented

2026-09-28 19:57:36 +00:00

Owner

@abompard I was absent in last week's Docs Team meeting, but it came up in the 2026-09-22 meeting discussion. For now, I think it needs more time for a team discussion. We can try and have this async without a meeting too.

<@pbokoc:fedora.im>: So. This kinda sucks because Christian Strauf isn't here and he's the only -1, so we're not gonna solve this today. I really would like this to be an unanimous decision, if there's a hard no, I'd rather drop it since I don't think anyone is a hard yes, this isn't some kind of a "must-have" thing, and any gain from being included in TWIF doesn't counterbalance a potential loss of contributors. So we're gonna have to discuss this further. Christian also hasn't replied to the offer of excluding his name specifically, but I think his objection is to the bot as a whole, not just him specifically being tracked.

<@pbokoc:fedora.im>: I've also been wondering what would happen if we pointed the bot at the alerts channel instead and had it monitor stuff like new issues/PRs and comments. And build failures. "This week in Fedora: pbokoc broke the build again"

<@egret:fedora.im> I gave a -1 as well. Okay with the alerts channel though.

Two weeks back, @pbokoc, @pboy, and I discussed this in our usual planning meetings. When we discussed it, we felt like this could be useful and interesting because there is a lot of activity in our Fedora Matrix chat room, and it could be a useful summary of current events, what we are thinking about as a team, and challenges we may be facing. Of course, there is also a risk that it gets it wrong or does not portray undecided matters and discussions fairly. We thought that the mechanisms to catch mistakes were sufficient, but we also valued the input of other team members here too.

The Fedora Docs Team has (to my knowledge) never had a formal voting procedure when there are differences of opinion. It seems sensible that most decisions could follow a "lazy consensus" model, similar to how the Fedora Council works. Petr, Peter, and I felt that it wasn't worth anyone feeling disempowered to contribute over something which could offer only a marginal amount of extra convenience.

I wonder about the Docs Team Alerts channel. I think TWIF already pulls from several different Fedora Forge repositories. I am not sure if it watches the entire Fedora Docs Forge org. But what might be more unique is the timeline of what events happened at what time, which exists in that Matrix room. It is an interesting thing to consider, and how much it would be different from what TWIF already pulls from now.

@abompard I was absent in last week's Docs Team meeting, but it came up in the [2026-09-22 meeting discussion](https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/meeting_matrix_fedoraproject-org/2026-09-22/fedora-docs-team-meeting-2026-09-22.2026-09-22-13.00.log.html). For now, I think it needs more time for a team discussion. We can try and have this async without a meeting too. > **<@pbokoc:fedora.im>**: So. This kinda sucks because Christian Strauf isn't here and he's the only -1, so we're not gonna solve this today. I really would like this to be an unanimous decision, if there's a hard no, I'd rather drop it since I don't think anyone is a hard yes, this isn't some kind of a "must-have" thing, and any gain from being included in TWIF doesn't counterbalance a potential loss of contributors. So we're gonna have to discuss this further. Christian also hasn't replied to the offer of excluding his name specifically, but I think his objection is to the bot as a whole, not just him specifically being tracked. > > **<@pbokoc:fedora.im>**: I've also been wondering what would happen if we pointed the bot at the alerts channel instead and had it monitor stuff like new issues/PRs and comments. And build failures. "This week in Fedora: pbokoc broke the build again" > > **<@egret:fedora.im>** I gave a -1 as well. Okay with the alerts channel though. Two weeks back, @pbokoc, @pboy, and I discussed this in our usual planning meetings. When we discussed it, we felt like this could be useful and interesting because there is a lot of activity in our Fedora Matrix chat room, and it could be a useful summary of current events, what we are thinking about as a team, and challenges we may be facing. Of course, there is also a risk that it gets it wrong or does not portray undecided matters and discussions fairly. We thought that the mechanisms to catch mistakes were sufficient, but we also valued the input of other team members here too. The Fedora Docs Team has (to my knowledge) never had a formal voting procedure when there are differences of opinion. It seems sensible that most decisions could follow a "lazy consensus" model, similar to how the Fedora Council works. Petr, Peter, and I felt that it wasn't worth anyone feeling disempowered to contribute over something which could offer only a marginal amount of extra convenience. I wonder about the Docs Team Alerts channel. I think TWIF already pulls from several different Fedora Forge repositories. I am not sure if it watches the entire Fedora Docs Forge org. But what might be more unique is the timeline of what events happened at what time, which exists in that Matrix room. It is an interesting thing to consider, and how much it would be different from what TWIF already pulls from now.

abompard commented

2026-09-29 08:29:34 +00:00

Petr, Peter, and I felt that it wasn't worth anyone feeling disempowered to contribute over something which could offer only a marginal amount of extra convenience.

Sure, let's not include the Matrix channel then.

I wonder about the Docs Team Alerts channel. I think TWIF already pulls from several different Fedora Forge repositories. I am not sure if it watches the entire Fedora Docs Forge org. But what might be more unique is the timeline of what events happened at what time, which exists in that Matrix room. It is an interesting thing to consider, and how much it would be different from what TWIF already pulls from now.

I can make a draft build for the current week with this channel's data if you want, and you can decide if it looks useful. I can also collect from the ticket tracker directly (I'm currently collecting from this tracker only).

> Petr, Peter, and I felt that it wasn't worth anyone feeling disempowered to contribute over something which could offer only a marginal amount of extra convenience. Sure, let's not include the Matrix channel then. > I wonder about the Docs Team Alerts channel. I think TWIF already pulls from several different Fedora Forge repositories. I am not sure if it watches the entire Fedora Docs Forge org. But what might be more unique is the timeline of what events happened at what time, which exists in that Matrix room. It is an interesting thing to consider, and how much it would be different from what TWIF already pulls from now. I can make a draft build for the current week with this channel's data if you want, and you can decide if it looks useful. I can also collect from the ticket tracker directly (I'm currently collecting from this tracker only).

👍 1

hricky commented

2026-09-29 10:15:54 +00:00

Owner

@abompard wrote in #63 (comment):

I can make a draft build for the current week with this channel's data if you want, and you can decide if it looks useful.

That makes sense to me.

@abompard wrote in #63 (comment):

I can also collect from the ticket tracker directly (I'm currently collecting from this tracker only).

I don't understand this. Can you please explain it?

@abompard wrote in https://forge.fedoraproject.org/docs/tickets/issues/63#issuecomment-1361103: > I can make a draft build for the current week with this channel's data if you want, and you can decide if it looks useful. That makes sense to me. @abompard wrote in https://forge.fedoraproject.org/docs/tickets/issues/63#issuecomment-1361103: > I can also collect from the ticket tracker directly (I'm currently collecting from this tracker only). I don't understand this. Can you please explain it?

abompard commented

2026-09-29 13:49:51 +00:00

I can also collect from the ticket tracker directly (I'm currently collecting from this tracker only).

I don't understand this. Can you please explain it?

My understanding is that the docs-alert channel contains notifications of events in the trackers, so I thought I could get the updates from the tracker directly instead of reading the matrix channel, but maybe I misunderstood something.

> > I can also collect from the ticket tracker directly (I'm currently collecting from this tracker only). > > I don't understand this. Can you please explain it? My understanding is that the docs-alert channel contains notifications of events in the trackers, so I thought I could get the updates from the tracker directly instead of reading the matrix channel, but maybe I misunderstood something.

hricky commented

2026-09-29 16:45:10 +00:00

Owner

The webhook for alerts-docs room triggers on all events in the Documentation Team org, except for the Action Run events, which are set on a per-repo basis. I don't know if the bot can follow links from the events in Matrix. If you set it to get the updates from the tracker (assuming you mean only this), I don't know if it would see events outside of this repo.

The webhook for `alerts-docs` room triggers on all events in the [Documentation Team org](https://forge.fedoraproject.org/docs), except for the Action Run events, which are set on a per-repo basis. I don't know if the bot can follow links from the events in Matrix. If you set it to get the updates from the tracker (assuming you mean only this), I don't know if it would see events outside of this repo.

hricky commented

2026-09-29 16:54:32 +00:00

Owner

Here is the Fedora Docs Alerts room for reference.

Here is the [Fedora Docs Alerts](https://matrix.to/#/#alerts-docs:fedoraproject.org) room for reference.

abompard commented

2026-09-30 08:39:07 +00:00

If you set it to get the updates from the tracker (assuming you mean only this)

That's it, I meant I would be following all the trackers in the docs org. The advantage of doing that is that I would get more context in the LLM (comments from previous weeks for each ticket), and the amount of context is usually the key to get relevant output from an LLM.

> If you set it to get the updates from the tracker (assuming you mean only this) That's it, I meant I would be following all the trackers in the docs org. The advantage of doing that is that I would get more context in the LLM (comments from previous weeks for each ticket), and the amount of context is usually the key to get relevant output from an LLM.

jflory7 commented

2026-09-30 12:33:56 +00:00

Owner

I was under the impression that the bot was only watching this repo. If the entire Forge org is used for the report, then I think it matters less about the alert chat room.

abompard commented

2026-10-01 08:19:58 +00:00

It is currently only watching this repo, but I can make it watch the others. Should I do that? No exceptions?

pbokoc commented

2026-10-02 15:55:59 +00:00

Author

Owner

Yes please. Let's see how it goes.

👍 1

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Matrix channel bot summaries for This Week in Fedora #63