Replace or Combine LHS Live Chat Options

Leeds Hackspace currently has a number of ways to get in touch which is laid out on the 'contact us' page of the website:

https://leedshackspace.org.uk/contact/

The main live chat options being:

- Slack

- Telegram

- IRC (was on Freenode, now Libera(?) chat)

It regularly comes up in discussion that we should try to consolidate or combine our chat so that new and current members alike don't get confused, and have one place where they can all communicate. Replacing the google group mailing list is considered out of scope for this, but if there's an opportunity to combine functionality then that can also be considered.

Suggestions so far:

- Setup 'matrix'

- Use 'discord'

Requirements for whichever new live chat platform are:

- Have a mechanism that's easy to use for a newcomer to the Hackspace that may also be new to live chat technology

- Have some ability to log the conversation(s) of chat and export it

- It should not erase history without it being requested to be erased

- There should be the ability to cache offline messages (presumably for sending/retrieval/not having to re-download <x> number of messages every time on connect)

- Logging / history should be accessible to all users without technical knowledge of how to access it

- Preferably be 'on premises' hosted or 'self hosted' or at the very least, not rely on an always moving/changing platform controlled in a proprietary or heavily corporate/third party manner.

- Have API access for integration with automation or interaction, or other platforms

- Support rich media embedding / linking, preferably without relying on third party services, or if it does rely on third party services then they should be affordable or reasonably accessible publicly