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Like many have asked before (for different reasons) for years (even before we had this suggestions platform) and as you can see with other suggestions in this platform too:
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/1748
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/3417
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/10535
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/10533
There is a need by some people to be able to avoid private messages for non-contacts.
Why?: There are many reasons on why to add this feature.
As a social person i enjoy being inside Public Groups. It's amazing to be able to talk to other people from all around the world.
But it comes with a cost:
Users/Scammers/Spammers and Autommated Accouns that are (or not) inside public groups can annoy you in private.
For some unclear reason Telegram decided to just ignore the issue. They added a bunch of options that are not enough.
For example there is a hidden privacy option to Archive and Silence new Private Messages from non-contact users.
It's a step forward but this option only appears if you litterally get bombarded with hundreds of unknown users...
Most of the people that ask for a way to disable Private Messages from non-contacts are females.
Making that option hidden until some unknown conditional is reached feels like Telegram is embracing all those Creeps to allow them to annoy those females in private.
Not letting anyone decide if they want to (or not) receive private messages just kills the spirit of Public Groups for some minorities.
To be fair: We already asked and made noise with this topic back in 2016 or 2017... Probably no one will give a f*** about this.
Telegram Team lives in a bubble for years, they see things from another prespective as a New User that starts with Telegram, enters it's first masive Public Group and then it gets countless messages from bad people.
And don't take me wrong... More than 80% of people are really nice human beings... But in a group of 10K users even if just the 10% are the worst it's enough to drive you crazy with private messages from strangers.
Other suggestions:
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/3417
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/10548/15
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/10548/20
you can't message people? That's one of the arguments that are difficult
to swallow, because by design, the core of Telegram is ability to
contact people from all over the world.[...]
Yes, you are right, Telegram is way more than a messenger to talk with friends and familly but the main reason people install Telegram is for precisely talk to Friends and Familly. They will not have any issue if this option would be enabled by default, they will be able to talk to you, add you to groups and when you feel ready to jump to Public Groups, Channels and explore the TRUE potential of Telegram then you'll see that you can enable or disable that random users contact you for no reason at all.
-- Here's one scenario that wouldn't work out if people by default blocked non-contacts: [...]
Telegram is free to add this feature with many perks as they want. They can allow you to contact users if YOU have them as contacts with the Phone, not only if THEY have you as contact. Also the main issue is still not contacts (mutual or not) the issue are random users that neither have your phone number and either you have theirs.
Just as solution to your case.
I personally don't like being ask for permission to allow others to contact me.
To be honest? I would give users the choice to decide what the hell they want from Telegram instead...
I know i know: more options = dead kittens.. Still i don't like that thinking: It's like saying the user is not capable of think by himself that others have to do the choices for them. They are dumb and not capable of thinking so someone else (Telegram in this case) has to throw them everything in their mouth and make them swallow it they like it or not.
I love options and that's because i am here on Telegram because i can compile my own client and fucking do whatever i please even if Telegram forces me to do things as they think is right with their official clients. The point here is that even if Telegram doesn't like choices if you have the right skills you can add those choices by yourself.
But on Server Core features ( like the suggested in this card ) there is nothing an user can do even if they have the thechnical skills to do them.
What I don’t quite agree on is “turning messages from strangers into requests for communication”. If you’re getting a lot of messages and are fed up with the scams/gross pictures, how likely is it you would accept requests? Not very likely right? So we’re back to the same box. And requests for communication sound a lot like Facebook friend requests… :/
My suggestion: Keep everything as it is but block strangers from sending picture/video files. In other words, strangers can still contact you but can only send text based messages. After you’ve added them to your contact list, then they can send you pictures and videos.
This solves nothing I'm afraid and causes more issues than not. Most of cryptoscammers never sent me any image at all. Also all the people that contacted me just to send me insults. What about the links? And why would you force me to add them as contacts? What if I want only my family as contacts so they see my profile picture and/or phone number? I use contacts very carefully, I don't add people who aren't very close to me and now I would have to so they can send me even a dumb meme? Too much.
"If you’re getting a lot of messages and are fed up with the scams/gross pictures, how likely is it you would accept requests? Not very likely right?"
Yes, not very likely, but you could just easily sieve through them, reject fast the obvious ones etc.
"And requests for communication sound a lot like Facebook friend requests… :/"
And what's wrong about it? We can do it better, I don't want notification center, I want to put in place that already exists, just is useless for the 99% of the time.
I don't mean you have to add them as contacts. And there's no notification center. I was more thinking of, after you've chatted with them for a while and you think this person is ok, then you may want to add them to your contacts. It's only if and after you've added them as a contact that they can send you pictures/videos. You're still free to ignore them if you choose.
I reiterate that my goal is to raise attention to this topic. It's a mess since long.
Other suggestions are also valid!.
Again, I don't think your proposed solution solves anything in this topic :(
Also i agree with you that a popup or a place where a notification raises up to letting other start a conversation with you will have the same issue as the block and report big button we have now.
If you are one of those unfortunate users that receive a lot of private messages from strangers you'll end up with many confirmation messages too. And most of the time you don't know what they want until you talk a few phrases with them. So it's completely useless.
(it's just my opinion)
I would love to be able to allow or not that strangers would contact me without having to press things and do stuff.
That's exactly why I'm having doubts about the "requests to communicate" suggestion. It's a lot like "asking to ask". (Just ask!) You don't know what they want from you so how are you supposed to vet them?