Modern XMPP project discussion - 2025-06-26

Am I misunderstanding something here (it is quite possible I am)? According to https://docs.modernxmpp.org/terminology/ we should use "Group chat" or "Channel" instead of "Chatroom", correct?

Masked Witch, that is the intent, yes

Ok, thank you for the clarification

Yes but in some part of the UI it can describe both

Like the merged list of Group chat and Channels should be called .... ?

Maybe add somewhere that channels are public group chats? 🤔

Or maybe call the merged list "Group chats & Channels", if there is enough room?

Maybe put (small, private) group chats among 1:1 chats.

Hmm, that might get a bit confusing, especially with whispers ending up there as well

Shouldn't it list another term for muted (non) "participants"?

The idea being that 1:1 chats have more in common with group chats, e.g. being a group of 2

Thinking more about it, that would help with some edge-cases like Matrix one-on-one chats over Slidge. Currently they show up under "Chatrooms", due to how Matrix is, and that would help reduce confusion with newcomers using Slidge

Why is "chatroom" considered a historic term we should not use anymore? I don't think it's a great term, but it makes as much sense to me as "channel"

maybe the word chatroom is too _suffocating,_ and introverts might react negatively to it

At one point you have to choose some name. If it's "as much" then there is the answer. One was choosen

My choice in Movim was Chatroom are GroupChat + Channels

on the other hand, i think that terminology should be a 4th or 5th order problem in the current reality

Why say "chat" when it's only "text"?

Because that's how language evolved.

English especially has multiple meanings for words, but calling online venues "rooms" just seems like incorrectly tying it to something physical.

> Why say "chat" when it's only "text"? Sound like this joke form like "Why is it called fast food and not "regret on a tray?" (etc) ↺

I've don't try to find formal logic meaning in language. Language is what happens in a society

I'm not quite as picky as some people, like RMS, but do think there's a time to push "better" usages. I think some people encouraged ties to physical things to push to "don't copy that book/music/video" mindset.

> Why is "chatroom" considered a historic term we should not use anymore? I don't think it's a great term, but it makes as much sense to me as "channel" I have a similar question for "Roster" vs "Contact list" and especially "Avatar" vs "Profile picture"

I'd even argue that "Avatar" is not a historic term and has never been so

Nobody knows what a Roster is, that's why

Isn't "roster" a sports term?

> Isn't "roster" a sports term? I believe it comes from sports but used outside of it, yeah

Any list of people enrolled for something can be called "roster"

"buddy list" is trademarked XD

tbh i think its approprite to call it a "contacts list" or "friends list"

English isn't my first language, and I've never heard anything similar beside Rooster. But I immediately understand "Contact list" I think that's the reasoning behind the terms...

> "buddy list" is trademarked XD Chumroll :)

tbh it works more like a "friends list" imo, but in some ways those terms are kinda interchangable

alexkurisu, "avatar" seems to have been written into the docs around this time: https://chat.modernxmpp.org/log/modernxmpp/2021-09-06 and https://chat.modernxmpp.org/log/modernxmpp/2021-09-07

> English isn't my first language, and I've never heard anything similar beside Rooster. > But I immediately understand "Contact list" > I think that's the reasoning behind the terms... But then you have chatrooms in your "Contact list"… ✏

Chatrooms are not people, so this looks weird

> > Isn't "roster" a sports term? > I believe it comes from sports but used outside of it, yeah It's actually a military term for a list of personel schedule for duty rotation (e.g. "duty roster"), but it apparently comes from the dutch "rooster" for table list. https://www.etymonline.com/word/roster ↺

It only has reasoning for chatrooms rename

https://docs.modernxmpp.org/rationale/ has a bunch of reasoning for some of the choices, linked in a footnote somewhere ✏

> It's actually a military term for a list of personel schedule for duty rotation (e.g. "duty roster"), but it apparently comes from the dutch "rooster" for table list. https://www.etymonline.com/word/roster And apparently it comes from an old word for gridiron (the rows of lines being analogous to a list of people). ↺

By the way, i was just re-reading the client UI guidelines and maybe it should recommend using an UUID as a resource, like current RFC does?

Isn't the *UI* recommendation: don't (show it)

alexkurisu, resources are already changing with Bind 2.0, which will very likely be rolled into the next XMPP RFC when that happens

But as Menel rightly says, the *UI* recommendation is simply not to show it, so the format technically doesn't matter at that level