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We’ve decided to rename Riot
- detaro 6y agoIt'd be funny if they went back to its original name, "vector", which IMHO wasn't too bad.
- throwaway1997 6y agoThat's actually a good name
- CodeGlitch 6y agoPlease no. It's not unique enough for a Google search. There's a reason all the major brands are unusual or made up names.
- kawfey 6y agoApple. Ring. Amazon. The irony is that a google search for Vector first comes up with Vector Marketing, which sells Cutco Knives.
- djsumdog 6y ago> Cutco Knives God I remember that shitty company. They recruit University students to sell their knives to their friends and family. They're not really good knives either, just slightly better than most store knives and sold at a markup near that of really high end commercial knives.
- Twisell 6y agoThat's an awfull name as it is used all over the place in technical documentation. As soon as you'll look for help in a search engine you'd get bazillion of unrelated results. If you founded you company in the 1980's for sure you can choose any good sounding name, even a very common fruit and it willl be alright. But in 2020 please don't hurt the community of devellopers that deal with graphical element by reverting to such a generic random name...
- kawfey 6y agoI mentioned in another comment, Vector Marketing firmly holds the top spot in a google search for "vector". Even if the Deciders called it Vector.im or Vector Messenger, and did some SEO, it wouldn't be that hard to find. In fact Riot.im shows up at #8 on DDG and #6 on Google (for me) when "riot" is searched, even when "riot" is a very hyped up search term. (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=riot https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=riot)
- Twisell 6y agoAnd that is still awful but for other people. Vector is a commonly used term in tech. If you lookup for help about using (mathematical) vector you'll now have to narrow the search using other tag otherwise you gonna get spammed with marketing crap about that technology.
- japaget 6y agoAnother definition for vector is "an organism that transmits a disease". Perhaps this is not the best choice of name during a worldwide pandemic.
- Arathorn 6y agoIronically that was the pun we were making back in 2015 when Riot used to be called Vector. Not only is a Matrix made up of Vectors, but also Vector would be the vehicle for virally spreading Matrix throughout the internet :D Agreed it's not the best parallel to draw these days, though...
- GekkePrutser 6y agoI still think Vector was a great name for a Matrix client. I don't think it would put off non-techies really, but I'm looking forward to seeing what you're coming up with!
- GekkePrutser 6y agoYeah it was an excellent name. Strong link with the "matrix" network and no weird associations with violence like Riot. I always assumed it was some trademark crap that made them drop the name Vector but I don't think they ever communicated the reason. It's very hard to find some name that's not trademarked by someone somewhere, or even a close resemblance to it. Consider the eelo Android distribution, they had to change because one tiny consulting company had a trademark for something resembling it (not even the same name, and not the same industry at all!)
- notthemessiah 6y agoNo, both Vector and Matrix are terms too widely used in computing to be considered good names, makes it harder to search for without getting results about linear algebra. A better name would be something unique (or at the very least orthogonal to anything directly computer-related) in some way.
- kawfey 6y agoITT: people who disagree because searches for "vector" and "matrix" is going to be overly encumbered with mathematical references because they don't understand how SEO works. Only a single search engine hit on the first page resolves in the mathematical definition of matrix. The others include the movie franchise, a hair products company, several dictionary pages, a computer warehouse, a vehicle tracking device, and several other non-math refrences to the word matrix. On google, riot.im shows up at #26 for me.
- Markoff 6y agothen just add messenger, same as Signal does it - Vector messenger or Neo messenger
- kawfey 6y agohttps://vector.im/ https://vector.im/ Vector.im already seems to be the parent organization of Riot.im, so it might be confusing.
- detaro 6y agoAh right, they took the "vector" brand for the company after they renamed the client, forgot about that.
- Arathorn 6y agoSo, we're not going to go back to Vector (although it has a very special place in our hearts :). It was a great name for a techie-focused comms client (and I'm not surprised HN likes the name :D), but feedback was pretty unanimous that it was too techie for a more general-purpose audience. Also, heads up that we consciously did not optimise for a made-up name like WhatsApp or similar. Just as Matrix (and Riot, for that matter) has ended up with high search engine scores, we believe the project is strong enough to support us borrowing an existing dictionary word. If nothing else, it'd be consistent with Matrix ;P So, apologies in advance to anyone who's hoping Riot will end up being called Sporkle or Vroomio or Flibblr... :)
- vorpalhex 6y agoSporkle 2.0: Glitter Edition
- mckirk 6y agoWhat about 'Eigen'? There only seems to be a C++ library of that name yet, so not too much overlap. And I like its nerdy implication of 'yes, we are only one Matrix client, but we strive to be an important one' ;)
- Arathorn 6y agoEigen is a cool name, but very geeky, and we actually know the folks at https://eigentech.com https://eigentech.com who might object a little if we borrowed the name ;)
- screenbeard 6y agoI for one will be immediately renaming my local nuRiot icon as Flibblr
- pferde 6y agoI for one don't think the name Vector is any more "techie" than Signal.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Normille 6y agoWhen I read the title I thought it was going to be yet another of the current wave of interminable virtue signalling corporate decisions. Something like "We decided the Riot name reinforced negative stereotypes of black people..." or somesuch. Thank god for good ol' fashioned corporate brand consolidation and trademark issues!
- zozbot234 6y agoGreat decision. Riot was clearly an insensitive name given the recent events, so this increases my confidence in the dev team.
- slap 6y agoThe change has nothing to do with BLM, or the US police.
- usui 6y agoThis is satire, by the way. Hopefully that part is clear to everyone..
- hombre_fatal 6y agoI don't think it was. Nor would it be clear or obvious. It's not any different in tone/believability than the claims about master-branch being insensitive.
- ekianjo 6y agoProbably a good move as the whole Matrix ecosystem has just too many names for its own good.
- jojobas 6y agoThink of email - there's Postfix, Sendmail, Exchange, Dovecot, Thunderbird, Mutt, Pine, Outlook, TheBat and many more, and nobody died over it. Matrix should aim at becoming the email of IM and video calls, by being somewhat less obscure than XMPP. Skype and Telegram should die like Microsoft Mail and Compuserve.
- edwinbalani 6y agoThat said, "email" — "electronic mail" — pretty clearly conveys in its name what it's about. If I hear the word "matrix" out of context I'm probably going to think of mathematics or material science or something else first. In other words, "matrix" is already an overloaded term, and its other meanings aren't going to go away any time soon.
- tracker1 6y agoNow "email" is synonymous with "Internet E-mail over SMTP" which was not always the case by any stretch of the imagination. It used to be there were many systems/protocols and even self-hosted in isolation email systems and bulletin boards. Some still operate to this day, though mostly delivered over the internet, but through different channels than general SMTP internet email. --- That said, email is a better term than matrix, but any other term still wouldn't be the same meaning... "matrix protocol" vs "smtp" might be more narrow/accurate.
- Markoff 6y agomost of the world not speaking English use loan word "email" despite having no clue it has something to do with electronic mail in English
- ekianjo 6y ago> Think of email - there's Postfix, Sendmail, Exchange, Dovecot, Thunderbird, Mutt, Pine, Outlook, TheBat and many more, and nobody died over it. for the end user it's just an "email client" - the problem with Matrix is that people referred to Riot as Riot being the network instead of Matrix, as Riot was the main client implementation (there are more, of course, but typically less mature). Even the Riot app page says "Decentralised, encrypted chat & collaboration powered by [matrix]" - it's not powered by Matrix, it connects to Matrix instances. The way it's described is confusing.
- clarry 6y agoSo it isn't even renamed yet. This is news about upcoming news...
- aloisdg 6y ago> The new name will be announced in a few weeks once we’re ready, but we wanted to give everyone a heads up so it doesn’t come as a shock. Feel transparent and understandable. I am fine with a teasing like this.
- CodeGlitch 6y agoDid you read the article? They state why they are announcing news about upcoming news.
- carapace 6y agoThis is a good way to do it, very upfront, no surprises.
- mikece 6y agoDo they have a new name or was the purpose of this announcement so The Deciders can review suggestions on Hacker News and decide which is the best name for the project going forward? :-) I think this is very good news: it strikes me that the platform is maturing to the point that it's going to be around for a very, very long time and having a "good name" is part of that. Along with OBS it seems that the app soon to be formerly known as Riot/Matrix became a critical tool during the quarantine and will be even more so if there's an encore quarantine this fall or winter.
- throwaway1997 6y agoThis is welcome news. Some groups in Hong Kong have been considering it as an alternative to Telegram but the name has been discouraging as in this climate it could be used as evidence against anyone involved in protesting activity. Hope the new name is either more abstract or closely aligned to what the software actually does.
- tweetle_beetle 6y agoThe name of the mobile app is Riot.im. If that in itself is enough to be used as evidence against an innocent person, then the party doing the accusing is clearly comfortable with much more underhand techniques and it hardly matters. Some lazily searched synonyms for groups of people which would fit the criteria of being more closely aligned include: pack, mob, crowd, crew, gathering, rabble, syndicate, family, gang Most of those have some negative connotations in the right (or should that be wrong) context. It's depressing to think about a chilling-esque effect on something as mundane as a chat app name.
- singhrac 6y agoIt's not about evidence, per se, but about normalization. People from all walks of life might find a need for it in HK, and it's easier to convince someone to download an app they haven't heard of if it's called "Messages" or something than "Riot". I mean, branding matters. Discord has one of the best voice chat implementations, but asking my coworkers to use it feels a bit iffy just because it has gaming-focused branding.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoThe word discord itself means: disagreement between people Even Facebook didn’t get their brand that wrong.
- tweetle_beetle 6y agoBranding does matter, but doesn't your example demonstrate the opposite point - overall brand experience is more important than a name? Riot.im's potential brand association with the act of rioting stops with the name. There is no other reference to riots, or rioting, and violence is not a core part of the brand identity. There is no rioting community that it is appealing to, or normalising. Discord actively affiliates itself with the gaming community in all aspects of its branding. The gaming community happily embraces it despite the (universally?) negative connotations of the name. You said that you would feel iffy about recommending the app because of the gaming-focused branding, rather than the name. I get that this is a bit pedantic, after all the decision has been made and Vector, Matrix, etc. are all fine by me anyway. I'm all for changing insensitive, inappropriate names where they refer to specific cultural/historical events/figures which society feels should no longer be celebrated. But in my opinion this is much more superficial.
- typingmonkey 6y agoYes this riot matrix naming was really confusing.
- m-p-3 6y agoIt took a bit of searching to figure out that the selfhosted version of Matrix is labeled Matrix Synapse but I guess the name kinda make sense when you look at the idea of a federated system.
- t3chguy 6y agoSynapse is just one Server capable of providing a self-hosted Matrix server. Just like for self-hosted Web servers you have options like Nginx and Apache and more.
- GekkePrutser 6y agoGood! I always thought it was a stupid name as it was associated with violence. I would mostly view the term in a negative light. Why use it for an app you're proud of? I would object to it being called Matrix though as it's only one of the many Matrix clients. It's already becoming too major IMO :) This is probably a result of most Matrix development being done by Modular, but it should remain a multi-client network as that's one of its strengths. They already called it Vector before, not sure what was wrong with that. Was a much better name IMO. Strong link with the name of the Matrix network. Anyway I wonder what the new name is.
- toyg 6y ago> I would object to it being called Matrix though Something like MatrixClient though...?
- babolivier 6y agohttps://twitter.com/RiotChat/status/1275364340573634560 https://twitter.com/RiotChat/status/1275364340573634560
- GekkePrutser 6y agoThanks, great to see they feel that way too!
- Jolter 6y agoToo far in the other direction -- too generic. Not catchy at all and could easily be confused with other Matrix clients.
- sildur 6y agoMatrix Messenger
- Markoff 6y agothere are many matrix messengers, that's like renaming Outlook to Email client
- birracerveza 6y agoMatrix Kerfuffle!
- bouncycastle 6y agoChatty McMatrixFace
- djsumdog 6y agoYES! Keep Boaty afloat!
- anotherevan 6y agoThat's my favourite suggestion, but I suspect trying to type "kerfuffle" too often will make your hands seize up.
- gorgoiler 6y agoThis is welcomed. Matrix is very cool. However, the lack of Matrix branding in clients always felt like unnecessary self hobbling. I get that the environment is heterogeneous. It just felt a bit too lacking in clear branding compared to something like Signal. “Is that Matrix?” “Yes! Although technically matrix is the protocol. This is FluffyChat connected to my local HackerSpace’s Matrix instance.”
- notthemessiah 6y agoTo be fair, unlike Signal, Matrix forces users to manage their own encryption keys across devices (or at the very least, be aware of them), so a client-protocol confusion is relatively a lesser concern. It hasn't proven too confusing for many people to form a distinction between "the web" and their choice of browser.
- roganartu 6y ago> It hasn't proven too confusing for many people to form a distinction between "the web" and their choice of browser. That’s because swathes of people simply conflate the two. To a lot of people the icon for their web browser may as well just be called “The Internet”. I’ve heard that some single digit percentage of Google searches are people searching for Facebook. I think you give too much credit to the level of technical knowledge of the average person.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoThere’s a good reason to search your preferred search service for ‘Facebook.com’ or your internet banking website: You’re a lot less likely to try to browse to an incorrect spelling of the domain name.
- tehbeard 6y agoBecause Google search results are the absolute truth and can in no way be gamed by nefarious third parties, right? Bookmarks, the solution you are looking for is bookmarks.
- fortran77 6y agoMatrix Matrix Revolution!
- LibertyBeta 6y agoI can only see this as good. MATRIX is awesome, but people don't get the connection between riot and matrix. I think of it a bit like IRC and mIRC. It lowers the bar of entry(a 9 year old could have setup mIRC when it was commonly popular) and lowers the bar of protocol discovery.
- fmajid 6y agoI hope the name they pick is distinctive enough to create confusion when googled.
- vladikoff 6y agoThis is indeed good news! I am excited for a new name and hopefully more resources put into making the client better and on par or even better than Slack
- rglullis 6y agoI know nobody asked, I will suggest it anyway: Factor
- mtgx 6y agoSounds pretty good to me. Easy to say and write in many languages, too.
- Arathorn 6y agowe considered it, but got dismissed as a bit too techie - similar to Vector.
- tejtm 6y agovector is perfect. "too techie" is only too techie if you are too techie otherwise it is just an appropriate name I am very glad you are moving away from riot. makes it easier to talk about.
- proactivesvcs 6y agoA subtle nod to cryptography, I love it. If not Factor, Prime? Oh, perhaps not :-)
- ta17711771 6y agoComma.ai is commandeering "prime", why not Matrix clients?!
- eyerony 6y agoFactoring is the point at which a lot of people start truly hating math. As in going from having a weakly negative or even somewhat positive opinion of the field to hating it. I'd avoid the name.
- akerro 6y agoWhat was the name of the other P2P IM client/net that was renamed every year?
- charliebrownau 6y agoOnce you bend the knee to offended and the Global LEFT it will never fucking end
- haolez 6y agoThey could simply call it "Matrix", and leave the ambiguity resolution for those who care.
- ta17711771 6y agoMatrix-app-%platform% and Matrix-server doesn't seem unreasonable....but yet...
- t3chguy 6y agoThere are multiple Matrix server implementations, just like there is Apache, Nginx and more for Web server implementations.
- thereyougo 6y agoWithout a strong and supportive community, renaming a company is hard. Riot is in a place when they can afford doing it (not money wise... community wise) Good project, I'm curious to know what the new name will be
- pizzazzaro 6y agoThe dentralized, interoperable, E2EE nature of their Open-Source technology lends itself to a certain comparisons to biology or bottom-up political theory. I'd suggest "Praxis", but thats taken (both understood and occupied) a few different ways. Perhaps "Praxis Factor Communications"? Nah, that sounds absolutely like an over-sterile dogwhistle. Perhaps "bloom" helps to evoke the right idea, or "rhyzome". "Rhyzome Factor". Eh, spelling that gets hard, may as well embrace the misspelling, but keep the pronunciation and imagery. Where there is an opportunity in the dirt, a rhyzomatic plant will be the FIRST thing to fill it. R.(A).I.S.O.M.(E.) Factor. Redundant (Advanced?) ( Interoperable Secure Online Messaging (Encryption?) (RISOM RISOME RAISOM) Factor. Any of these sound better to you?
- itronitron 6y agoNever heard of riot.im before. And after reading this I still don't know what it is.
- thatcat 6y agoMatrix chat client
- prezjordan 6y agoI mean you could literally go to riot.im and see what it is
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Markoff 6y agoAgreed, Riot is very discouraging name for any adult especially now in this climate in US, HK and other places. Considering Telegram and Signal are taken, protocol is Matrix, Neo would sound quite modern. Neo is using Matrix protocol is quite logical conclusion.
- computerfriend 6y agoWhy specifically adults?
- Markoff 6y agobecause teenagers and people in early 20s are in general more impulsive, less responsible and more prone to solve things by violence than older adults?
- japaget 6y agoSuggested new name: Loud. With respect to colors "loud" has the same positive connotation as "riot" ("loud colors" are rich and vibrant), and it also has the connotation of making one's voice heard.
- fourseventy 6y agoThere is a company called Riot that doesnt make League of Legends?
- ta17711771 6y agoNo. Also, that company is owned by China, so...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sandGorgon 6y agoThank you ! This is exactly what I wrote about a year back https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18760179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18760179 Matrix/riot/modular has the potential to be hugely disruptive. This was much needed.
- programmarchy 6y agoGood move. The name has actually discouraged me from recommending the software to friends and family. People who want privacy shouldn't have to frame themselves as dissidents.
- ponsin 6y ago> Firstly, the biggest by far has been from a certain large games company that has consistently blocked us from being able to trademark Riot or even Riot.im Using that logic would leave us to believe that they are changing the name "matrix" as well. After all, more than just "a big game company" will try to block you from trademarking it
- Arathorn 6y agoif there was a big litigious tech company called Matrix threatening everyone who tried to use the word Matrix in their name, then yes - it might be a similar situation. luckily there doesn't seem to be one.
- chungy 6y agoI didn't know what "certain large games company" prevented a trademark on Riot. A Wikipedia search seems to suggest this company is large (I haven't heard of them, tbh): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Games I'm curious what name they have or will pick. I've been using Riot for around a year now, it's great!
- thatguy0900 6y agoRiot makes league of legends, the biggest esport game in the world for quite a while now. They're a giant company, getting into a legal battle with them would not be fun
- sudosysgen 6y agoRiot is absolutely huge. It's estimated to be worth around 20 billion dollars.
- notatoad 6y agoriot is huge and video games is a huge market for instant messengers - there's a lot of overlap there. i'm honestly surprised that it hasn't gone beyond riot games blocking riot.im's trademark applications and progressed to riot games suing for trademark violation.
- masterfooo 6y agoWill this change affect the apps on mobile as in a if we have to install new apps and start all over with key verifications?
- latrot 6y agoglhf refactoring and changing repo name..
- krick 6y ago> The new name will be announced in a few weeks once we’re ready, but we wanted to give everyone a heads up so it doesn’t come as a shock. Uh, thanks for caring so much, but you could've just announced that when you are ready. "We are going to do something in a couple of weeks, we won't tell you what now, but we wanted to give everyone a heads up so it doesn’t come as a shock." is not very informative and sounds more like mockery.
- SaltySolomon 6y agoAnnouncing Annoucements is all the rage right now...
- gdm85 6y ago> Secondly, we picked the name “Riot” to evoke something disruptive and vibrant - like a “riot of colour.” Really? This reminds me of "newspeak".
- korethr 6y agoIt is a real usage recognized by various dictionaries (Merriam-Webster, Oxford, et. al). Doing a search will find said usage in the definition listings, and "a riot of color" seems to the typical example given by such. If I had a copy of the Shorter Oxford to hand, I'd be able to say which usage came first, and if one derived from a figurative use of the other, or if they both evolved from a common, now obsolete definition. But I don't have a copy of the Shorter Oxford to hand, so we'll just have to be happy that the definition itself is attested by various dictionaries.
- WorldMaker 6y agoIt's not quite the Old Oxford, but Merriam-Webster is easier to search online and seems to appear that it's a confusing mix of both. "Riot" is a Middle English borrowing from French, where it meant "public debauchery" (now considered an obsolete meaning), but even in French at the time had associations with violent debauchery. The first uses of the word in English were as a noun and for "debauchery". The first uses of riot as a verb were figuratively in the "riot of color" sense, but even then implied violence may have been part of the figurative imagery? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/riot https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/riot
- gdm85 6y agoI know it is a possible real usage, but it is not the most common. You cannot ignore that when branding a project/product.
- AnonC 6y ago> However, we are extremely confident that now is the right time to fix the name. We’re in the process of landing gigantic improvements to Riot’s user experience and usability which will unrecognisably improve the app. So unrecognisably, in fact, that we can shed our skin and celebrate our long-awaited transition into being a truly mainstream-usable app. I can’t wait to see what they come up with on the name and the improvements in the user experience. I don’t know anyone in my circles using Riot/Matrix, and I’ve been hesitant to push it aggressively because the UI on mobile isn’t that great compared to the more popular apps. In some ways, this will be good riddance to the phone number based centralized platforms.
- fhars 6y agoThe announcement misses the best reason to change the name: squatting the namespace of an existing open source project: http://www.riot-os.org/ http://www.riot-os.org/
- ZoomZoomZoom 6y agoOh, boy... I understand their reasons, but my relatives already annoyed by me for asking them to install Riot and then RiotX on their devices. Now I'll need to explain (which will fail and I'll end up saying "trust me") why they need to switch again!
- geoah 6y agoI would assume renaming the app will be transparent to the user that already has it install. Is that not the case?
- Arathorn 6y agoThe plan is... Riot iOS will be transparently renamed. Riot Android will be transparently renamed and upgraded to be the app currently called RiotX. RiotX will nag users to switch to using the new app (sorry :/) Riot Desktop will be transparently renamed Riot Web will continue to work on the existing URLs, but also exist on the new canonical URLs.
- COGlory 6y agoI literally just got everyone switched to RiotX.....
- t3chguy 6y agoIt is quite clearly marked as Beta. Betas don't last forever :((
- pwr22 6y agoWill RiotX be at feature parity by that point? I think calling is getting closer to landing these days?
- Arathorn 6y agothat's the plan. calling landed yesterday.
- rixtox 6y agoHow about Matriot?
- huguesdk 6y agowill the name be in english, or are you considering something more international-sounding, like an esperanto word?
- thearchitect1 6y agoWhat kind of question is that? English is the world language why the hell would they use Esperanto?
- huguesdk 6y agoenglish is probably seen as the world language by the english-speaking world, but the actual reality is very different. do you know what is the real percentage of people in the world who can understand english, let alone speak it? it is less than 20%. most people in the world speak only one language, and it is not english. in parts of the world where the language diversity is more present, some people prefer choosing a more neutral name. esperanto is sometimes used for this, especially in the free software world. example of projects you may have heard of that use an esperanto name: [krita](https://krita.org/ https://krita.org/) (means “chalk”), [monero](https://www.getmonero.org/ https://www.getmonero.org/) (means “coin”), [klavaro](https://klavaro.sourceforge.io/ https://klavaro.sourceforge.io/) (means “keyboard”). it also increases the chance to find a more unique name. english pronunciation is a mess, and if you would hear how non-english people pronounce “riot”, you would think twice before going for an english name.
- Arathorn 6y agoironically the name is a dictionary word in many different languages... including both english and esperanto :D
- huguesdk 6y agonice, well done!
- GregoryVPerry 6y agoBuncha pussies. Bet you have man buns on your dev team.
- mesozoic 6y agoOh yeah good idea. I thought this was the game company for half the time i was reading.
- Biep 6y agoI hope the rename will be considered a change of identity, which will allow the new client to be offered in the Chinese app store again. Please think of the ocean of actual and potential users there.