[Arathorn]

> Please correct me if the above is wrong.

Yup, this is still wrong, sorry.

> My understanding is that you cannot join another Matrix homeserver server with an identity established on a homeserver disconnected from the vector.im identity server

This is not true. The identity server is an optional feature, which users can use if they want to try to discover a user's matrix ID based on their email address. Matrix itself operates using matrix IDs to federate and establish conversations.

A good analogy is using LDAP as an address book in an email client. LDAP addressbook lookups are very clearly optional, not relevant to all people, and don't stop email itself working.

> Additionally, when I set up Synapse I was not presented with any kind of GDPR info, and it wouldn't make sense that I would be, because the GPDR is for end users, not site operators.

Because the identity server is an optional feature for users (just like a user, not a sysadmin, would configure LDAP lookups in Thunderbird), the GDPR terms of use are shown to users if they try to use an identity server to make sure they understand what they're doing.

[giggles_giggles]

Well then I'm glad that the blog post linked above was written, because obviously this situation was confusing when I set up Synapse a couple years back. I might not be a genius but I'm not stupid, either, and I'm obsessed with chat systems (I trialed every available self-hostable chat server at the time), so I guarantee if this confused me, it confused plenty of perfectly intelligent individuals.

I hope the team has clarified this in the documentation.