D-ITET Chat server best practice

The following is a list of recommendations on how to use this service. It is growing as we collect more experience.

Further information

• Read the official documentation of ETH ID's Matrix service

• Read the official documentation on how to set up your new account on ETH ID's Matrix service

• Check the official help page of element.im for answers to any questions you might have.

General advice

• Make sure you set up a recovery key and stored it safely.
• Regularly check if the session you're using is able to backup your encryption keys.
• Always check your sessions: Verify them before you type in any chat and delete unused sessions. Otherwise you might end up with encrypted messages you can't decrypt yourself anymore.

• To make your text more legible, CommonMark can be used .

• Similar to irc, some commands are built into the client. Type a message beginning with "/" in a chat to see available commands.
• If you see status of someone posting as "offline", check if you verified all their devices.
• Be aware personal information like email addresses or phone numbers you store in your matrix account will be synchronized outside of ETH, to the central identity server connecting all instances of matrix chat services world-wide.
• Don't bookmark the login page. Every time you visit it, you'll be asked to login and create a new session.

Chats

• If you want a private channel to interact with one other person, create a chat.

• A chat's advantage is every message is treated as if it contained a so-called mention of the other chat participant, who will then receive a notification of the message.

• Although it is possible to invite more people to a chat that would defeat its purpose.

Rooms

• Make sure you know who is in a room before you post sensitive or confidential information.
• Be aware that existing message history might become available to all new members joining a room depending on the rooms' settings.
• If you want to talk about a topic with several people, create a room and invite participants.
• If you want to create a room of general interest for your institute or group, please ask your technical contact to do this for you using the insitute's/group's chat administrator account.
• If it turns out a room you created will be used after you leave ETH, ask your technical contact to join the room with the institute's/group's chat administrator account and promote this account to admin.

Sharing a room

Per default URLs of a shared room are generated with the redirecting service matrix.to prepended:
https://matrix.to/#/<Internal room ID>:matrix.ee.ethz.ch?via=matrix.ee.ethz.ch

In order to keep the link of a shared room private, set "Room Settings" → "Security & Privacy" → "Who can access this room?" to "Anyone who knows the room's link, apart from guests". This allows to share the room with the URL:
https://element.ee.ethz.ch/_matrix/client/#/room/<Internal room ID>

The <Internal room ID> can be found in "Room Settings" → "Advanced".
To invite people to a personal room of you in the Matrix-GUI use the following user specification:
@<ETH acccount>:matrix.ee.ethz.ch

Communities

• The purpose of a community is to group rooms and users together

• To create a community, use the plus symbol on the left column when logged into the matrix chat by browser

• Rooms may be added and users invited to multiple communities

• As with rooms, ask your technical contact to create communities of general interest with the dedicated institute account

• Community URLs are identified by their community ID prefixed with a plus symbol:

  https://element.ee.ethz.ch/_matrix/client/#/group/+<Community ID>:matrix.ee.ethz.ch