Closing down Perthchat.org

As interesting as it has been we've found ourselves at a crossroad, the administrative and financial costs of continuing this service have risen. While the personal situations and priorities of the volunteers involved (particularly myself) have changed. Today we regretfully inform the public that the service is coming to an end.

What started as a hobby that only consumed a small part of my time has seemingly escalated into a full-time job. It takes a lot of energy to maintain a communications service, from handing migrations and expansions of the service, maximizing uptime, ensuring security and reliability. As well as lesser seen jobs like technical support, moderation, community organisation, conflict mediation and abuse management.

It's funny how the things we once thought were so important can change. How we can fall into the habit of maintaining systems which we initially believe are serving us, but later end up controlling us and consuming our lives. How the thought of moving on can seem daunting, as it leave us unsure as to what our priorities really are, or what's even the right thing to do. For myself I'll be stepping back from hosting fediverse services, so that I can spend more time taking care of myself and my own family.

What happens now?

The community of public rooms we created will be downsized somewhat, with less popular rooms being shut down. With our more popular rooms, we'll be continuing to maintain them though alternate Matrix accounts. It's important to note that, due to federation all the "rooms" you were experiencing on the service will still be there. It's just your https://perthchat.org Matrix account that will soon be disabled.

On the 27th of August, exactly 6 years after starting the service, we will be closing up shop. Please attempt to find another Matrix homeserver to use before then. Migrating your account and existing rooms can be done more easily with: Element's Matrix Migration tool

Thanks for choosing Perthchat.org!