Server based messaging

[Armored-Dragon]

It would be terrific if users could message other users directly without having to be in the same domain.

As an example, Resonite offers the ability to message "contacts" which you can do from their profile page.

I think Overte should also have a similar system where users can send messages to another user directly when ever it becomes necessary.
This would be beneficial from a usability standpoint, as direct messaging (DM-ing) offerings are expected from social platforms like Overte.
It would also be beneficial from a privacy standpoint so that messages that are supposed to be private do not have to touch the network of any user messages were not sent for. See Armored Chat to see how chat messages are handled currently.

This topic has been occasionally discussed, here are a few ideas some have suggested:

Matrix

This was suggested a while ago as a nice integration for Overte as it is decentralized, open source, and has good federation capabilities.
Matrix also has support for voice calls, video calls, media sharing. These features would help Overte stand out for collaboration.

Originally when this topic came up, I was for the Matrix integration. However after doing some research into this use case I found that Matrix is almost certainly not suitable for Overte.
If these performance reports are anything to go by, Matrix is horrifically inefficient to host compared to some other options.
I can anecdotally find other online forms which do reflect the sediment of Matrix being a massive burden to host as well. What I can not find is anyone saying Matrix is convenient to host.

I would absolutely not suggest we jump to Matrix as a first choice.

XMPP

Out of the gate I will admit I am not super familiar with XMPP, and I still have some research to do about it.
What I do know is that XMPP is super popular by large players in the communications game.
WhatsApp uses a modified version of XMPP as an example.

A big part of XMPP that I think Overte will benefit from is it seems to host very well and not use a ton of resources to do so.
If the same reference is correct, I would imagine the performance would be very acceptable to run on lower end hardware.

XMPP can be extended to include VOIP, file sharing, encrypted messaging, and potentially video calls.

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If my obvious bias wasn't clear, I am leaning towards XMPP being the path forward.

There also comes the question on federation; what we should allow to communicate with Overte messaging chat.
From my standpoint I don't think it will be a good idea to allow outside networks to directly communicate with the Overte messaging system.
My reasoning is that it would put unnecessary strain on account systems hosted by users. Someone hosting an account service shouldn't be expected to host all of the communications any given user has with anybody so long as their Overte account exists.
As a compromise, which I would support, would be to link an existing account XMPP/Matrix/whatever to an Overte account so that the linked account is the account doing the messaging instead of an existing account made for a user. This puts the burden on a dedicated server host for dedicated users of the protocol instead of Overte account hosters.
This would largely alleviate a lot of the problems Matrix has as an option, but that assumes no one uses the Overte Matrix server.