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2024-06-25 21:47:39 +00:00
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2024-06-24 13:57:30 +02:00
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2024-06-25 21:47:39 +00:00
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2024-06-24 13:57:30 +02:00
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2024-06-25 21:47:39 +00:00
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2024-06-24 13:57:30 +02:00
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2024-06-25 21:47:39 +00:00
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<p><a href="/blog/posts.html">Back to posts</a></p>
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<h1 id="matrix-needs-an-instant-messaging-upgrade.">Matrix needs an Instant-Messaging upgrade.</h1>
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<p>Hello there! Your favourite nerd (or not!) on the internet is here to talk about Matrix again.
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</p>
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<p>I wanted to write this a little less formal this time, so here we go:</p>
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<p>Every time I get someone to switch to Matrix from literally <em>anything</em> else (“unable to
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decrypt”-memes aside) there is usually some “building-block” to the instant-messaging puzzle
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missing. Once this was Media Captions, which <a
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href="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/2530">is merged</a>, but not
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practically usable anywhere because no client apart from <a href="https://beeper.com">Beeper</a>
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actually implements it yet, or Rich Forwarded Messages, where you can actually see from whom a
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message was forwarded kind of like how Telegram does it.</p>
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<p>Truth is, whilst I love Matrix, there are some things I'm missing now that I've not been using
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Telegram for the past ~6 months or so, and this blogpost serves as a one-stop shop for me to
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reference different things that I'd like to see progress and actually have implementations
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landed for. As such, <em>let's start listing things…</em></p>
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<h2 id="rich-extended-profiles">Rich / Extended Profiles</h2>
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<p>Yeah this is quite the pain-point right now, <strong>profiles are essentially just your name,
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MXID and avatar</strong>, although on basically <em>every other platform on earth</em>, you
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actually get options to customize your profile.</p>
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<p>Let's take (the dreaded) Discord as an example, where you get: - Avatar / Profile Picture - A
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banner - Badges (depending on different attributes your account has, e.g developer or
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contributor status) - A description / “about me” section</p>
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<p>That is quite a selection there (and I've left some things out), and it makes for some quite rich
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profiles that can have lots of info on a person. I can link a blog, accent my avatar with an
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extra banner, and maybe show off that I work on some project using a badge<a href="#fn1"
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class="footnote-ref" id="fnref1" role="doc-noteref"><sup>1</sup></a>, it's quite nice!</p>
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<h3 id="mscs-that-relate-to-this-issue">MSCs that relate to this issue:</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/1769">MSC1769:
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Rooms-as-profiles</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/3755">MSC3755: User
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Pronouns</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/4133">MSC4133: key:value
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pairs for profiles</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="better-forwarded-messages">Better Forwarded Messages</h2>
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<p>Right now, there is a couple of MSCs (see below) that try to tackle the issue of…forwarded
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messages not really existing in Matrix. Forwarding a message is <em>about as good</em> as just
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doing a Copy & Paste manoeuvre; Practically useless.</p>
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<p>Comparing this to something like Telegram or even WhatsApp makes it clear to see why:
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<strong>There is no indication that you're actually viewing a forwarded message</strong>. It
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will be completely out of context.
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</p>
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<h3 id="mscs-that-relate-to-this-issue-1">MSCs that relate to this issue:</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/2723">MSC2723: Forwarded
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event metadata</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/2730">MSC2730: Verifiable
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forwarded events</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="rich-activity-indicators">Rich activity indicators</h2>
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<p>Probably one of the most useless seeming, but actually most <em>useful</em> features that we
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could “steal” from Telegram is rich activity indicators, or just “more typing indicators” as
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it's also sometimes called.</p>
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<p>The concept is simple: Usually you can see when someone types, but not when they are sending
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media, or are otherwise waiting on something else to send. Rich Typing Indicators fixed this by
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adding <em>all kinds of extra indicators</em> to the platform that showed when you were sending
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media, picking a sticker, or doing other actions.</p>
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<p>Whilst I think we should not go quite as… <em>deep</em>, some of the more basic things like
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“[user] is sending media…” would definitely add value to the instant-messaging experience in
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Matrix.</p>
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<h3 id="mscs-that-relate-to-this-issue-2">MSCs that relate to this issue:</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a
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href="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/travis/msc/typed-typing-notifs/proposals/3038-typed-typing-notifications.md">MSC3038:
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Typed typing notifications</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="games-and-interactive-content">Games and interactive content</h2>
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<p>Pulling straight from Telegram and iMessage again, I think interactive content in chats is
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actually quite fun. This could be a game a-la <a href="https://webxdc.org/">WebXDC</a> (which
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could integrate with existing Matrix widgets 👀) or maybe something entirely different!</p>
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<p>I envision this kind of depending on the rich typing indicators, as it could tell the people in a
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room whether someone is currently playing a game. Additionally, I don't see why people wouldn't
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be able to play games together using MatrixRTC :3; Oh, and another thing would <em>probably</em>
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be sending state events to capture the current state of a game, like the high-score and who
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holds it, or the current layout in a game of chess.</p>
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<h3 id="mscs-that-relate-to-this-issue-3">MSCs that relate to this issue:</h3>
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<ul>
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<li>again, <strong>none</strong>! Couldn't find any, maybe I'll get the discussion started on my
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own…</li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="live-location">Live Location</h2>
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<p>Quite self-explanatory, what about sharing our location <em>in real-time?</em></p>
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<p>There is quite a lot to unpack here on the Client-Side, e.g it needs to stay active on mobile
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devices even when the screen is off, across multiple operating systems, but the idea is quite
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simple: <strong>let me share my location, for X amount of time, updating every X
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Seconds/Minutes/Hours</strong></p>
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<p>There is some existing work on this if I recall right (e.g legacy element), but it has been
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mostly abandoned and isn't found in Element X.</p>
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<h3 id="mscs-that-relate-to-this-issue-4">MSCs that relate to this issue:</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/3672">MSC3672: Sharing
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ephemeral streams of location data</a> (this isn't the <em>only</em> MSC regarding this,
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but the most comprehensive one I've found.)</li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="replying-with-media">Replying with media</h2>
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<p>Technically, some clients do not prohibit this, and I don't think the spec does either, but
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<em>basically no client allows you to do this!</em>
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</p>
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<p>Wanna reply with an image? Bad luck, most clients won't allow you even when they can display that
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just fine.</p>
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<h3 id="mscs-that-relate-to-this-issue-5">MSCs that relate to this issue:</h3>
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<ul>
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<li>None? Mostly unnecessary from what I can gather.</li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="inline-bots">Inline Bots</h2>
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<p>Oh boy. A friend suggested this and I don't even know where to start.</p>
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<p>Inline Bots are a Telegram feature that allows you to input the handle of a given Telegram bot,
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and have the rest of your chat input field be fed to the bot, which is useful to embed an image
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search for instance.</p>
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<p>I have no idea where this would even fall, Client-Server? Maybe needs to open a room with bots?
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No damn clue.</p>
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<h3 id="mscs-that-relate-to-this-issue-6">MSCs that relate to this issue:</h3>
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<ul>
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<li>Absolutely 100% none.</li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="scheduled-messages">Scheduled Messages</h2>
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<p>Honestly, I don't know how this isn't already implemented, as it is quite self-explanatory and
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the MSC seems to be progressing nicely.</p>
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<h3 id="mscs-that-relate-to-this-issue-7">MSCs that relate to this issue:</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/3277">MSC3277: Scheduled
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Messages</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="content-warnings-media-spoilers">Content Warnings / Media Spoilers</h2>
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<p>Whilst there is already spoilers in matrix<a href="#fn2" class="footnote-ref" id="fnref2"
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role="doc-noteref"><sup>2</sup></a>, you've never been able to set them for <em>media</em>.
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This means you can't share an image or a video without someone in the room seeing a preview. If
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you're sharing images about a movie, or maybe a video going over a story, using a spoiler to
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indicate that you might not wanna view this is a nice feature to have</p>
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<h3 id="mscs-that-relate-to-this-issue-8">MSCs that relate to this issue:</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/3725">MSC3725: Content
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Warnings</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="media-albums">Media Albums</h2>
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<p>Yet Another Gripe With Media On Matrix™ that I've had for a while is that I can only send one
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image per event at a time; even clients that let me send multiple things will just send them one
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after another.</p>
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<p>Media Albums would mean we can <em>finally</em> put a buncha things together into one message</p>
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<h3 id="mscs-that-relate-to-this-issue-9">MSCs that relate to this issue:</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/3382">MSC3382: Inline
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Message Attachments</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="user-notes">User Notes</h2>
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<p>Sometimes you just wanna leave a little note about someone. This feature would be about adding a
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note to the profile of a user that only you can see, I got it suggested when asking on <a
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href="https://wetdry.world/@cyrus">wetdry.world</a> about input on Matrix features.</p>
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<h3 id="mscs-that-relate-to-this-issue-10">MSCs that relate to this issue:</h3>
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<ul>
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<li>None? Not sure.</li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="sharing-drafted-messages-between-devices">Sharing drafted messages between devices</h2>
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<p>Ever wanted to continue writing a message on your desktop, only to then having to copy the
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message manually? This would allow you to automatically have your drafted message available on
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other devices.</p>
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<h3 id="mscs-that-relate-to-this-issue-11">MSCs that relate to this issue:</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/4146">MSC4146: Shared
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Message Drafts</a></li>
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</ul>
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<hr />
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<h1 id="important-to-mention">Important to Mention</h1>
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<p>There are some things that I'd like to address in here that I explicitly didn't put into their
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own categories, these include:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>The issue of State Resets</li>
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<li>Trust & Safety struggles</li>
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<li>Portable Identities</li>
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<li>Relationship with Element</li>
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<li>etc…</li>
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</ul>
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<p>Generally my thoughts on all of the above are quite similar, a lot of these issues are only
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slowly being addressed <strong>due to a lack of funding.</strong> The Matrix Foundation has been
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struggling to get a good source of income for a while now, to the point Element was given
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ownership of Synapse under the AGPL so that they can make money from selling license
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exceptions<a href="#fn3" class="footnote-ref" id="fnref3" role="doc-noteref"><sup>3</sup></a> to
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try and fund important work that way, but even then the foundation is still largely dependant on
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entities (e.g schools or other government-adjacent bodies) that do not care about core Matrix
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work and instead only care about new features (that is why Polls exist in Matrix, but is only
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supported by Element).</p>
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<p>Without independent funding (from users, advocates or enthusiasts and alike) there is barely
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anything the foundation can do on their own right now. Especially state resets is a hard problem
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as it - to this day from my knowledge - is barely entirely understood, and fixes that have been
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proposed would require <em>more</em> than just a new room version, which is already quite a hard
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sell.</p>
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<p>Of course I'd like to see these issues solved, but without our support that won't happen;
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Especially when the attitude is always just “Matrix Sucks”, “just use XMPP” or “I'd like a
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working protocol!”. It is <em>entirely counterproductive</em> to improving matrix to have such
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an attitude. The same goes for proposing that the entire design of Matrix, where the DAG is
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replicated across servers as part of decentralization, should be scrapped. That just does not
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make sense as a point to <em>improving</em> Matrix that is <em>replacing</em> Matrix. Make your
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own protocol at that point.</p>
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<hr />
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<h1 id="matrixs-place-in-the-modern-im-landscape">Matrix's place in the modern IM landscape</h1>
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<p>Of course, there's some more reasons that I am writing this than just my love for Matrix; I am
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writing this because the Instant-Messaging landscape right now looks <em>scary</em> to say the
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least.</p>
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<p>Left and right we have influential figures (ab)using their influence over their audience to push
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things like Telegram, or try and discredit Signal's security using baseless claims, Network
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effect keeps people locked in to insecure solutions, and governments around the world are trying
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to undermine security and privacy for all. In a time like this, where influential figures are
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abusing their power in this way, we need something <strong>open</strong>. We need something
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where we do not need to worry that someone comes into the scene and starts to confuse everyone
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by spreading targeted Disinformation campaigns with unknown motives, where one with power may
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push forward dangerous clientside-scanning proposals that undermine encryption, and something
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where we can be free in owning our identity.</p>
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<p>In a way, it should be like E-Mail. Anyone can host a mailserver, anyone can provide one, anyone
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can talk to anyone, and unless you're funneled into one specific server, you do not have to
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worry that someone has been backdooring your communication this entire time.</p>
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<p>I believe that Matrix is the best shot we have at this. It <strong>has</strong> growing pains, it
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<strong>has</strong> issues, and the ecosystem has been struggling for a while, but without
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support we aren't getting anywhere. We need something like Matrix.
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</p>
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<aside id="footnotes" class="footnotes footnotes-end-of-document" role="doc-endnotes">
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<hr />
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<ol>
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<li id="fn1">
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<p>Although, in Discord the badges are mostly for Discord Developers, or verified bot
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developers or whatever.<a href="#fnref1" class="footnote-back" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
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</li>
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<li id="fn2">
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<p>There are indeed spoilers <em>for text</em> in Matrix, however there is no way - not
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even a hacky workaround - to get media spoilers, letalone content warnings.<a href="#fnref2"
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class="footnote-back" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
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</li>
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<li id="fn3">
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<p>Before anyone says it, <strong>no</strong>, this isn't a violation of some license,
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most contributions came from Element or Element Employees anyway and I'm pretty sure
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there is/was a CLA.<a href="#fnref3" class="footnote-back" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
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</li>
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</ol>
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</aside>
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2024-06-24 13:57:30 +02:00
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2024-06-25 21:47:39 +00:00
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<hr>
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<p>If you liked what you read, please consider donating: <a class="donate"
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href="https://ko-fi.com/cyrus42">Donate
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on
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Ko-Fi</a></p>
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2024-06-24 13:57:30 +02:00
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</div>
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2024-06-25 21:47:39 +00:00
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</div>
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2024-06-24 13:57:30 +02:00
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</div>
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2024-06-25 21:47:39 +00:00
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</div>
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2024-06-24 13:57:30 +02:00
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</html>
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