first draft of NIP-78 Nostr Relay Chat

79.md

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+NIP-76
+======
+
+Nostr Relay Chat
+----------------
+
+`draft` `optional`
+
+IRC is a very old style of instant messaging that has been used on the internet since 1988 when the first form was
+written and deployed at University of Oulu in Finland by Jarkko Oikarinen.
+
+There has been numerous additions to the protocol and the latest version is 3. This NIP is for something that is a
+lot more like the original, and will be primarily for a purely synchronous, and asynchronous messaging will be possible
+only via clients implementing a message cache and uploading them to their follows when they connect, so the relay is by
+default never retaining the message stream (saving data storage and query processing).
+
+If users want asynchronous message delivery, there is existing kinds for this purpose, this NIP only concerns itself
+with synchronous messaging, and only defines ephemeral message kinds.
+
+## Message Kinds
+
+There are two new message kinds defined for this protocol:
+
+- NRCMessage - a message posted by the user to be broadcast to active subscribers.
+- NRCConnect - a message indicating that a specific user has connected or is about to disconnect.
+
+### NRCMessage 23514
+
+This message type simply contains a text message in an optionally minimalistic Markdown format, suggested to implement
+the following basic markdown features:
+
+- Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough, Monospace `backticks`
+- Hyperlinks (though http/s prefixes SHOULD also cause the client to render a hyperlink)
+- Headers 1 to 6
+- Double linefeed paragraph separation
+- Images/embeds - but also optionally render them if the file extension is recognised
+- Preformatted monospaced via either indentation or optionally syntax labeled backtick fences
+
+The reason for supporting these features is to facilitate use of the chat for technical discussions. It is OPTIONAL to
+actually implement (since for a TTY or speech based client this may not be practical to render) 
+
+### NRCConnect 23515
+
+This message type is simply an "online/offline" text in the "content" field, and is used to facilitate "join/part"
+messages to be rendered. This also facilitates the ability for direct messages to be resent if the receiver was offline.
+
+## Chatrooms via Hashtags
+
+The simple use of `t` tags and a hashtag MUST be recognised as meaning a message is sent to subscribers interested in
+this specific chatroom. `#general` will be a default in clients for the initial room that is rendered in an not yet
+configured client, clients should receive all events in the background and populate a hashtag list to enable favourites.
+
+## Automatic Subscription
+
+Follow lists include hashtags, and relays should only send messages that are on the user's follow list OR are tagged
+with a hashtag they follow AND NOT users or hashtags on their mute list. This is additionally facilitated by Directory
+Spidering to gather the available user information required.
+
+## Directory Spidering
+
+Relays supporting this NIP should include a "directory spider" feature that periodically polls all the relays that it
+can find from user's relay lists [NIP-65](65.md) and [NIP-17](17.md) Direct Messaging relays all following event kinds:
+
+- 10002 Relay List Metadata
+- 10050 Direct Message Relay Lists
+
+in order to gather all relevant relays to the users who are permitted to use the relay (this is most easily implemented
+by designated relay "owners" whose follow lists designate first level allowed users and the lists of these follows are
+additionally permitted in order to facilitate easy access, this can be informal, or on a paid subscription basis).
+
+Further, to facilitate necessary user interface features, all following kinds of users permitted to use the relay should
+be sought and cached:
+
+- ProfileMetadata 0
+- FollowList 3
+- MuteList 10000
+
+The relay lists can be used to acquire a set of sources to interrogate, and from there these event kinds are needed in
+order to implement the features of this NIP.
+
+## Direct Messages
+
+Contain `P` (private) tags and are only sent to the users authed with the designated public key, and are additionally
+encrypted using [NIP-44](44.md).
+
+Optionally clients can implement the ability to resend direct messages that the recipient may not have seen due to the
+client having seen a NRCConnect offline message signalling the user is not receiving messages thereafter.