[Standards] Re: Proposed XMPP Extension: End-to-End Encrypted Contacts Metadata

Hi all, Chiming in to the "group vs. separate items" debate: my understanding of the intended setup is that contacts are largely handled on the client side, with the server being utilised only to synchronise the list between devices (so we don't fetch the entire roster every time we connect, but only listen for changes to the roster records). If this is the case, wouldn't a separate item for each contact makes more sense? When I add or update a record on one device, the other devices will need to download (or be sent) only the changed records rather than having to re-download the entire roster. Even in the case of a multi-thousand item roster, a new client has to fetch that enormous roster just once, and can subsequently fetch only the changed nodes. The "downside" if we can call it one is that the server will know the exact count of contacts each user has in their roster. But I'm not sure this is something to be concerned about. Best, Badri