Nectarine

Hi, a few more users have been joining us on Matrix lately, and it has been suggested that the space be publicised a bit more. The Matrix (and Discord) links are now in the sidebar.

Matrix is a decentralised messaging system with easy end-to-end encryption, which is much more similar to IRC than Discord. Anyone can run a Matrix server, and Matrix servers can be federated with other servers in a manner similar to IRC. A "canonical" server exists at matrix.org, and this is where the Necta channel is currently hosted.

As with IRC, client software is required. There are numerous desktop and mobile clients, as well as a canonical web client, which is called "Element". The overall user experience is similar to Discord, though there are fewer features (for example, you cannot buy a "Nitro" pack for extra emojis).

For more information about Matrix, see https://matrix.org, which is the main Matrix site, and to get started quickly, see https://matrix.org/try-matrix/.

EDIT: Per franz's comment, I should clarify that crypto is currently not enabled on the Necta channel. However, crypto can be trivially enabled for DMs, which is, to me, extremely important.

I'm not sure what do you exactly mean by "fully encrypted" but public Matrix channels are not encrypted by default (and there's no need to if the discussion is public anyway). It seems Nectarine channel also isn't encrypted.

Yes, I was more talking about DMs, and the fact that proper crypto is easily available in Matrix. I did not enable it on the necta channel due to possible user complaints, but it could certainly be enabled if you think that's not going to be an issue. I've edited my earlier post to clarify this and avoid false advertising.