Re: Removing members from text messaging group

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
 

VanguardLH wrote:
 

looks to be editing your "group" under Google Groups, not of editing a
"group" in the SMS app.  The term group gets way overused, so I got
misled to the wrong directions.

 
Conversation would indeed be a better term for it, still it lets you add
participants, I guess if you removed a participant, there's no guarantee
the remaining participants (from your perspective) would notice, so
they would likely continue to include the person you'd cut out ...

 
Would recipients of an SMS message to sent to multiple recipients even
see who were the other recipients of that message?  That would seem to
violate the privacy of recipients who probably never granted the sender
to include them in a conversation.  I would expect a group message to be
similar to using BCC in an outbound e-mail, but maybe the CC equivalent
gets used instead.

 
  Well, for example for a real IM (Instant Messaging) platform like
WhatsApp the members of a group can see the number of members and who
they are. The creator/admin of the group can add and delete members and
members can choose to exit the group. So at any time, a member can see
the current number of members and who they are. I do not know if members
get notified if a member is deleted or exits or a member is added. I
assume they get notified, but I don't know.
 
  Bottom line: For real IM platforms, the OP's (Tim Slattery) problem
(of not being able to delete a member) does not exist.

Looks like WhatsApp does text (SMS), chats, and VOIP calls.  Maybe
WhatsApp could replace the OP's SMS app, and have even more
functionality.

Does WhatsApp do RCS?  Even if it does, the other half of that equation
requires a cellular carrier to also support RCS.  While the Google
Messages app on my phone supports RCS, my provider (an MVNO) does not.
I thought RCS was supposed to supercede SMS, and an alternative to
WhatsApp, but that doesn't preclude clients from having different
feature sets.

How about XMPP, so WhatsApp users aren't locked into just chatting with
other WhatsApp users?  I never got into chatting (P2P), because the chat
clients only connect with with other users of the same chat app, and
using XMPP seemed like the Rain Man of chat protocols.  Plus, like my
true e-mail address that I protect using reply-able aliases (replies to
aliases don't expose the real e-mail address), I don't like publishing
my phone number which then makes it a target for spammers and
malcontents.

This looks interesting for WhatsApp:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2024/08/20/forget-iphone-16-and-ios-18-whatsapp-update-should-stop-you-using-rcs/

But I wonder if a username for yourself in WhatsApp is only accessible
to other WhatsApp users.  Other users won't know by your WhatsApp
username what is your phone number to contact you via SMS or RCS.