4 ms·

For what it’s worth, the thing I find really exciting about Spaces is that they provide a way to create a decentralised global hierarchical directory structure

For what it’s worth, the thing I find really exciting about Spaces is that they provide a way to create a decentralised global hierarchical directory structure for realtime data. It’s like a free-for-all global USENET hierarchy that anyone can curate or contribute to, complete with decentralised ACLs. Or like DMOZ but for chatrooms. We haven’t published a “root” space as Matrix.org yet (as the “subspace” hierarchy feature is still in beta), but I cannot wait to kill off the public room directory for Matrix.org (which is a total tirefire atm) and replace it with decentralised hierarchies of rooms that the community can moderate and curate like any other content. Add in voice/video rooms, async comms (messageboards, forums, mailing lists, newsgroups), decentralised metaverse worlds like thirdroom (https://youtu.be/e26UJRCGfGk?t=2263 https://youtu.be/e26UJRCGfGk?t=2263) and then you end up with a skeleton for a whole open universe of interoperable communication. Next up: decentralised search for discovery as well as decentralised hierarchies…

pixxel 5y ago
Exciting for sure!
nynx 5y ago
That sounds amazing. Something I’ve been wondering is if matrix supports specifying custom UIs for rooms somehow. For example, could a room have the ui of an issue tracker without it being through an additional program or website?
- Arathorn 5y ago
  Yup. We call this "widgets", and it lets you embed arbitrary web UI into a Matrix client. MSC1236 is the base proposal (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/1236 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/1236) which Element implements, and there are a stack of other proposals on top of it which need to be merged into the main spec. This is how Element embeds Jitsi today, and was extensively used for FOSDEM 2021 (https://matrix.org/blog/2021/02/15/how-we-hosted-fosdem-2021-on-matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2021/02/15/how-we-hosted-fosdem-2021...). We're currently adding "full-screen" widgets too, though, as well as "inline widgets" (for polls etc).
MayeulC 5y ago
That's quite interesting, thanks for the insight! I hadn't thought about the possibility for spaces to replace the room directory, although it will always be needed to some extent. Spaces could also be useful for moderation/reputation, child rooms (and users) could inherit some score from a space. It should be possible to compute the shortest distance between two spaces from a user's perspective. Even stuff like ignored users could be part of a per-user space used for computing "reputation" points. Kind of a space-based social graph.
- Arathorn 5y ago
  Space hierarchies already have a binary social graph effectively in the form of their decentralised ACLs (i.e. PLs etc). You could group MSC2313 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2313 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2313) reputation lists into a space hierarchy though to curate them though... and assign reputation to spaces similarly to rooms via MSC2313 too.
kovek 5y ago
Wow! I always think these can be somehow generalized: Uber, Craigslist, Facebook Market, ebay. Connecting buyer/seller. Maybe it will be possible to index/search through Matrix and connect people together better?
olah_1 5y ago
> I cannot wait to kill off the public room directory for Matrix.org I didn't realize that Spaces would finally allow for this! The public room directory is a horrible user experience today and really turns people off. I'm so glad that your team recognizes that too! So is the idea that each Matrix server can have their own root Space that they direct people to? Kinda like an "instance timeline" in Mastodon?
- Akronymus 5y ago
  Spaces also allow for pretty nice access controls. So that you can prevent most cases of bots just collecting all history. And because you can nest spaces, it also allows basically ad hoc organizing. For example, on a open source project you could have a top space for it itself, then subspaces for contributors, users, code reviewers and such. In the code reviewers space you could then have one where confidental issues can be discussed.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Arathron and team are UX gods — just give them time.
southerntofu 5y ago
Congratulations on going out of beta! Spaces have many interesting properties indeed. I read that there was some interop between Spaces and Microsoft Teams, but i couldn't find the source code. Could you point me to it? Related: i've read most of the specs API but like all specs in decentralized RFC ecosystems (W3C, XSF, MSC) but i find it hard to understand what version of what document is currently implemented. Is there a document summarizing all APIs/concerns for this feature, and/or a document specifically intended for interoperability with other networks/protocols?

pixxel 5y ago

Exciting for sure!

nynx 5y ago

That sounds amazing. Something I’ve been wondering is if matrix supports specifying custom UIs for rooms somehow. For example, could a room have the ui of an issue tracker without it being through an additional program or website?

Arathorn 5y ago
Yup. We call this "widgets", and it lets you embed arbitrary web UI into a Matrix client. MSC1236 is the base proposal (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/1236 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/1236) which Element implements, and there are a stack of other proposals on top of it which need to be merged into the main spec. This is how Element embeds Jitsi today, and was extensively used for FOSDEM 2021 (https://matrix.org/blog/2021/02/15/how-we-hosted-fosdem-2021-on-matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2021/02/15/how-we-hosted-fosdem-2021...). We're currently adding "full-screen" widgets too, though, as well as "inline widgets" (for polls etc).

MayeulC 5y ago

That's quite interesting, thanks for the insight! I hadn't thought about the possibility for spaces to replace the room directory, although it will always be needed to some extent. Spaces could also be useful for moderation/reputation, child rooms (and users) could inherit some score from a space. It should be possible to compute the shortest distance between two spaces from a user's perspective. Even stuff like ignored users could be part of a per-user space used for computing "reputation" points. Kind of a space-based social graph.

Arathorn 5y ago
Space hierarchies already have a binary social graph effectively in the form of their decentralised ACLs (i.e. PLs etc). You could group MSC2313 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2313 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2313) reputation lists into a space hierarchy though to curate them though... and assign reputation to spaces similarly to rooms via MSC2313 too.

kovek 5y ago

Wow! I always think these can be somehow generalized: Uber, Craigslist, Facebook Market, ebay. Connecting buyer/seller. Maybe it will be possible to index/search through Matrix and connect people together better?

olah_1 5y ago

> I cannot wait to kill off the public room directory for Matrix.org I didn't realize that Spaces would finally allow for this! The public room directory is a horrible user experience today and really turns people off. I'm so glad that your team recognizes that too! So is the idea that each Matrix server can have their own root Space that they direct people to? Kinda like an "instance timeline" in Mastodon?

Akronymus 5y ago
Spaces also allow for pretty nice access controls. So that you can prevent most cases of bots just collecting all history. And because you can nest spaces, it also allows basically ad hoc organizing. For example, on a open source project you could have a top space for it itself, then subspaces for contributors, users, code reviewers and such. In the code reviewers space you could then have one where confidental issues can be discussed.
atatatat 5y ago
Arathron and team are UX gods — just give them time.

southerntofu 5y ago

Congratulations on going out of beta! Spaces have many interesting properties indeed. I read that there was some interop between Spaces and Microsoft Teams, but i couldn't find the source code. Could you point me to it? Related: i've read most of the specs API but like all specs in decentralized RFC ecosystems (W3C, XSF, MSC) but i find it hard to understand what version of what document is currently implemented. Is there a document summarizing all APIs/concerns for this feature, and/or a document specifically intended for interoperability with other networks/protocols?