mikaela.github.io/_posts/2016-11-26-telegram-second-chance.md

---
layout: post
comments: true
title: "Telegrams second chance"
category: [english]
tags: [telegram, english, esperanto]
redirect_from: /telegram.html
published: false
---

*I have blogged about Telegram a lot and I thought I would end it to
 leaving it, but that didn't happen. However I MUST type about the
 current situation I have with it.*

**TL;DR I don't recommend Telegram for anyone if you aren't forced to use
it and to protect myself I am not setting username. As I don't recommend
it, I am there only with my primary phone number (DO NOT SHARE IT), if
someone needs to contact me, use Matrix @Ciblia:matrix.org or Wire
(myname at myname dot info).**

* * * * *

If you haven't read my blog previously, you might want to read the aspects
of Telegram I have written about earlier:

* [How to private message people on Telegram without getting reported for spam]({% post_url 2016-04-26-telegram-privatemessaging-people %})
    * Where I have Telegrams spam issue my issue and try to make it clear
      to its users that they are not behaving properly.
* [Why I use Telegram?]({% post_url 2016-05-21-why-telegram %})
    * Where I talk about the positive aspects.
* [Telegram tweets where I refer often]({% post_url 2016-06-01-telegram-tweets %})
    * The beginning (and end) with communication with Telegram developers.
        * I have also tweeted to [Wire] multiple times and I cannot
          remember any tweet that they haven't replied just as a
          side-note...
* [Why to not use Telegram?]({% post_url 2016-09-29-why-not-telegram %})
    * Where I finally leave Telegram and talk about the negative aspects.

*I also think I am not going to edit all of those posts and if you have a
problem, feel free to send Pull Requests.*

* * * * *

So in the previous episode I left Telegram (and after a long time briefly
visited it again as there were problems with relaybot (which simply
moved to another persons API key) but it was too stressful so I left
almost immediately) and now after a long time I have returned there.

I would have preferred avoiding it, but I started learning Esperanto on
Sunday (20th) in the freenode channel (use ALIS) I was overspoken to
returning there as
[Telegram is very popular with Esperantists (link in Esperanto)](http://telegramo.org/).

This brings me back Telegram issues where the only ones that I can affect
are:

* *Twisted version of FOSS*
    * As the app is open source even if the source is released long time
      after releases, it's in [F-Droid](https://f-droid.org/) which is
      Android app store for FOSS apps, which has compiled it (removing
      GCM support and possibly other propietary parts) I installed Telegram
      from there and I know the app which I am using is open source even
      if it lags long behind the Play Store version.
* *Spam*
    * I don't set username (killing one of the only good things in
        Telegram) as that would allow anyone to contact me instead of only
        the people who have my number or are in common group with me.
    * I only join groups that I actually need to join avoiding bigger
      groups that might potentially be nice, but which would surely lure
      spammers. This is another good feature of Telegram killed.
        * This way to contact me you must have my number or be in common
          group and I might know which group the spammer is part of and
          in addition to reporting them for spam I can also report them
          to the group admin possibly getting them removed. I don't think
          Esperantists, SailfishOS fans or autists tolerate spamming.

* * * * *

Originally I was trying to be at Telegram using both phones (OnePlus3 &
Jolla1), but people found it too confusing so I decided to kill the less
private account to avoid confusion. It also makes the message that I
don't support Telegram more clear, but makes contacting me more
difficult for Telegram users who actually have something to say to me,
but that is their problem. **Do NOT give my phone number to these
people.**

I think my primary communication protocol is currently
[Matrix](https://matrix.org/) where I am
[@Ciblia:matrix.org](https://matrix.to/#/@Ciblia:matrix.org), but
[IRC](/irc) isn't going anywhere either (especially thanks to 
[Matrixs IRC bridge](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc/issues/208)).
I have also started warming to [Wire] which doesn't require phone number
(when registering using the [web or desktop apps](https://app.wire.com/)),
seems to have better encryption than Telegram (which is not surprising)
which is based on Signal and works on multiple devices without having to
keep one connected all the time.

[Wire]:https://wire.com/
[WhatsApp]:https://whatsapp.com/
[Signal]:https://whispersystems.org/