On Fri, 13 Nov 2026 at 07:35, JC Brand via Standards <standards@xmpp.org> wrote:
As an author of the XEP, I'm strongly against this, because it privileges the recipient over the sender.
Imagine sending a nude photograph of yourself by mistake and then having it kept on record after you've removed it. I understand that client and server incompatibility means that deletions aren't guaranteed, but to me that's quite different from the XEP mandating that records of retracted messages be kept.
Imagine being sent a nude photograph quite deliberately and then having it retracted so thoroughly that you have no record. I think it's easy to make cases for either, and the XEP is not in a position to mandate either, erm, either. That is, I think the XEP can - and should - point out that the choice of whether to retain retracted messages is a trade-off between the privacy of the sender and the safety of the recipient, and therefore implementors need to make a choice between retaining and retracting on that basis. Dave.