In order to have rooms where you can control/limit who has a...

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Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-02-21T02:00:29Z

↳ Reply to Event not found

c869dd8db3eb7d5eebc98b733e154920d0eb65fe0165d7a137521e18344403c7...

In order to have rooms where you can control/limit who has access, you would need some form of privacy functionality. Privacy isn't an inherent part of the Nostr protocol.

The closest we have to that are Nostr DMs, which don't work. I had someone reply to one of mine today, which he discovered through a different client than what we both mainly use, and our chat history was gone. All the clients in this scenario use the whiz-bang NIP-17.

Even if DM's were implemented in a functional way, having a room with multiple people, (where you want the ability to kick someone out and not be able to read the messages afterward), is problematic.

Let's say you, The Beve, and I are in a chat room together. You're the admin, and you've issued keys to The Beve and I, so we can join. Later, you regret giving me access. Now you have to "change the locks", and issue a new key to The Beve, without issuing it to me as well. If the chat room has 100 people, you would need to issue 98 new keys somehow. It could be done through DM's I guess. But then, if you're a member of 50 rooms, each one kicking out 3 people per day, you'll have 150 new keys daily to manage. This can be automated, but as you can tell, it's not trivial.

Another solution is to have user access limited by relays. This means each room would also be a relay. You'd not only be the admin of a room, but you'd be responsible for the relay. This also means users would have to add a relay for each room they want to join. Some devs say you should only have three relays, so choose your rooms wisely.

I hope that clarifies why Nostr doesn't have groups/rooms, and probably won't (in a practical sense) for a long time. There are other solutions out there if you want something sooner.

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  "content": "In order to have rooms where you can control/limit who has access, you would need some form of privacy functionality. Privacy isn't an inherent part of the Nostr protocol.\n\nThe closest we have to that are Nostr DMs, which don't work. I had someone reply to one of mine today, which he discovered through a different client than what we both mainly use, and our chat history was gone. All the clients in this scenario use the whiz-bang NIP-17.\n\nEven if DM's were implemented in a functional way, having a room with multiple people, (where you want the ability to kick someone out and not be able to read the messages afterward), is problematic.\n\nLet's say you, The Beve, and I are in a chat room together. You're the admin, and you've issued keys to The Beve and I, so we can join. Later, you regret giving me access. Now you have to \"change the locks\", and issue a new key to The Beve, without issuing it to me as well. If the chat room has 100 people, you would need to issue 98 new keys somehow. It could be done through DM's I guess. But then, if you're a member of 50 rooms, each one kicking out 3 people per day, you'll have 150 new keys daily to manage. This can be automated, but as you can tell, it's not trivial.\n\nAnother solution is to have user access limited by relays. This means each room would also be a relay. You'd not only be the admin of a room, but you'd be responsible for the relay. This also means users would have to add a relay for each room they want to join. Some devs say you should only have three relays, so choose your rooms wisely.\n\nI hope that clarifies why Nostr doesn't have groups/rooms, and probably won't (in a practical sense) for a long time. There are other solutions out there if you want something sooner.",
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