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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
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?
Another but similar suggestion: First message sent by stranger can only be text-based. Then if you choose to engage with them, i.e. reply, then the capability to send you pictures/videos is unlocked for them. That should screen off some people because it’s more work for them. And you never have to add anyone to your contacts.
Just throwing ideas out there…