[danellis]

> As many know, over the years we've experimented with how to let users locate and curate sets of users and rooms in Matrix. Back in Nov 2017 we added 'groups' (aka 'communities') as a custom mechanism for this - introducing identifiers beginning with a + symbol to represent sets of rooms and users, like +matrix:matrix.org.

We already have a universal notation for identifying resources on the Web. Why not use that?

[Arathorn]

That would be https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2312, which is merged and registered with IANA and coming to a web browser near you real soon now.

[derin]

...because it's a different protocol with different needs that are satisfied by its own notation?

Edit: Just read Arathorn's comment above, very cool - I hadn't seen that one before.