MSC2199: Canonical DMs

[turt2live]

or the One True DM™️ for a user, including optional immutability.

Rendered

Related issues:

• https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/7315
• https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/1255

Requires:

• MSC2212 or very similar.
• MSC2213 or very similar.

For project planning: https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/10415

[turt2live]

tentatively pushing this into the queue for a room version given initial steering of third party invite handling.

Edit: this has now been pushed to MSC2212, so removing label.

[turt2live]

@ara4n This should now reflect what happens in a world where we reuse old DMs people have left. If you get a chance, please take another look.

[erikjohnston]

There is nothing show stopping here, but it is quite fiddly and convoluted (understandably) so I think we should be careful that these are the semantics we want going forward.

One thing I think that is missing is a list of deficiencies with the current spec (I may be blind), as currently its hard for me tell whether this proposal actually solves the problem it sets out to solve. (For example will the handling of soft-tombstoned rooms be any easier than the handling of multiple DMs in the current system, etc).

[turt2live]

All: This is now called "Canonical DMs" to hopefully alleviate some confusion about what this is.

[turt2live]

I believe the conversations here have mostly petered off, and all concerns should have been addressed now. There's a new endpoint, but I believe this is ready to collect checkmarks for FCP:

@mscbot fcp merge

[mscbot]

This FCP proposal has been cancelled by https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2199#issuecomment-705575354.

Team member @mscbot has proposed to merge this. The next step is review by the rest of the tagged people:

• [ ] @dbkr
• [ ] @uhoreg
• [x] @turt2live
• [ ] @ara4n
• [ ] @anoadragon453
• [ ] @richvdh
• [ ] @erikjohnston
• [ ] @KitsuneRal

Once at least 75% of reviewers approve (and there are no outstanding concerns), this will enter its final comment period. If you spot a major issue that hasn't been raised at any point in this process, please speak up!

See this document for information about what commands tagged team members can give me.

[r4dh4l]

Hi,

sorry if this is not the right place but I wasn't sure if https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/10765 is for discussing the "Canoncial DMs" topicm so I hope it is okay to share my initial idea here as well:

I hope this is the right issue https://matrix.org/blog/2019/10/10/new-vector-raises-8-5-m-to-accelerate-matrix-riot-modular is referring to saying

Canonical DMs (having one DM per user, and have them feel clearly distinct from ‘rooms’)

Actually I was a little bit afraid reading this because the "everything is a room" concept of [matrix] is a fantastic feature. The problem is just that newcomers coming from WhatsApp etc. which used to think in "Direct chat" and "Group chat" are not introduced into this concept at all.

So may I suggest the following:

• Instead of thinking in usual messenger concepts just slightly redesign what happens when users press/click the + button:

1. It should open "create a new [matrix] room" in all cases (because this is what technically happens, don't hide this from users).
2. Explain what happens in a short note like:

All conversations in the [matrix] network take place in rooms. Like in real life a room can be empty, can contain just you or a fluctuating amount of people. There are no fixed "multi user chat" or "direct chats" (a direct chat can become a multi user chat and a multi user chat can become a direct chat, even just for you an your personal notes).

3. Use the wizard steps which are currently appear for "Start a chat", so just ask for "Who would youb like to communicate with?" because this can be just me, another user and me or a group of users and me. Finished.
4. All other settings the wizard "Create a private room" is asking for can be done later via rooms settings while

• "Make this room public" default is "no"
• "Block users on other matrix homeservers from joining this room (This setting cannot be changed later!)" default is "no" and only visible if the initially invited users are from the same home server

Overall: Don't hide a matrix core feature from the users but explain it well! Users are willing to learn if the explanation is done well.

• merge the categories "people" and "rooms" to "normal priority" (because this is canonical to "favorites" and "low priority") and completely hide what is not used
• let people define their own contact categories instead

[turt2live]

@r4dh4l The Riot issue is a better place to discuss the UX behind the feature, as you've done. This MSC fundamentally does not change the fact that the DM is a room.

[t3chguy]

I haven't had time to go through the whole MSC+Comments but would like to voice that this MSC should also include fixes to the Push Rules to make DMs not detected by num_members===2 - https://matrix.org/docs/spec/client_server/r0.6.1#m-rule-room-one-to-one

[turt2live]

This MSC does not meet the criteria for its status:

@mscbot fcp cancel

[Yadavji6380]

How to ban any whatsapp number