Add new blog post "more than 50 perc providers support APIv2"

content/blog/2024-08-01_67_percent_providers_support_APIv2.md

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+---
+title: Currently more than 50% of the listed XMPP providers support API version 2
+date: 2024-09-01
+---
+
+Six months after we have offered the hosting a [generic JSON files](https://providers.xmpp.net/provider-file-generator/) which are based on our API version 2, more than [50% of the currently listed XMPP service providers](https://providers.xmpp.net/statistics/#provider-file) host it on their XMPP instance.
+This is a great success for decentralization in XMPP onboarding. However, our efforts go beyond the project goals and chart a path to better transparency, quality and understanding of the entire XMPP network.
+
+At the moment we have 72 XMPP providers listed in our setup.
+By end of 2024 we want to exceed the 100.
+Our main [statics](https://providers.xmpp.net/statistics/) shows that about 50% of the listed servers are categorized in D.
+The main reasons are either closed registrations, missing information or both.
+We recommend to also support the automated way we have established to not just support better onboarding, but also transparency of the network and general quality measures.
+
+## Perspective &  Criticism
+
+First of all, big thanks to all the supporters and applies of our projects and the helpful and constructive and last but not least welcome feedback.
+Since we started about four years ago there have always been confronting criticism:
+- Strong criticism on the rating
+- Boycott of the service
+- Abusive behavior
+We do understand the main complains.
+In this article I would like to invite you to take a very certain perspective: The users and newcomers to XMPP.
+
+What do we know what they know?
+What do we know what they understand?
+The distances, between our highly tech-savvy knowledge and this of the majority of the users we often build our services and software for is huge.
+And on the opposite, the tolerance of these people is often very thin.
+Therefore, we should ensure a good experience right after registering to an XMPP server.
+
+We have repeatedly discussed the minimum values of the rating parameters, the limits and the defined thresholds.
+One example would be the effect of HTTP file upload parameters that are too low on the user experience.
+Is 5 MB enough? Commonly sent videos can reach ten times that size, if not compressed.
+Is this good? Is this something you as operator should care about?
+
+Usually, to our understanding, most providers are also interested to have more users.
+This is why we argued to have a minimum of 20 MB for example.
+It is certainly not sufficient in all cases, but it will cover the commonly transferred sizes and ensures a better experience.
+If you cannot or does not want to implement this, we recommend to not register newcomers with mainstream expectations on your server.
+The users don't care about your properties, until they realize this video cannot be sent.
+Then the chat client (!) and maybe even XMPP is blamed and they leave it.
+The bitter truth is that public server maintainers have the potential to ruin the user experience and reputation of the network and also your XMPP applications.
+Note to client developers: Users will regardless of the origin of the issue blame your chat app.
+
+Due to the reality of the decentralized nature of the network, the discussions and the learnings required us to create more distinct and refined parameters.
+The rating's main purpose is the recommendation for registration of especially non-tech-savvy newcomers to an XMPP server.
+
+Ratings are sensitive and they obviously lead to conflict, no doubts.
+Still, we took strong actions to keep it to deescalate and show good intentions.
+- Keep the requirements for A as low as possible. We believe that even hobby-operators can easily meet these requirements if they want to.
+- Actively reach out and help providers on their setup. And this lead to significant quality improvements in many setups, besides increasing their service rating.
+- Host our support chat where we help operators even beyond the project with technical support with honorable improvements of their services.
+- Offer a user-friendly, clearly documented and also semi-automated [XMPP Providers Server](https://invent.kde.org/melvo/xmpp-providers-server) with a good configured setup, written by Melvin.
+
+## Vision
+
+There are many XMPP chat client that help users to register a new account to a (pre-)existing list of XMPP server providers.
+This is great and this is what the network nature should be.
+
+However, there are two identified two issues, which lead to bad experiences:
+- Varritation in quality of listed XMPP servers, due to often a manual maintained, outdated and uninformed nature
+- Too restircitive behavior or no recommendation at all, that does not support the federated idea and leads to oligopoly-like distribution of users
+
+We intend to address the problematic onboarding and user experience as well as promote user decentralization in XMPP through transparency, accessibility, quality and completeness of information.
+
+As a control and evaluation service XMPP providers needs your trust. This is ensured by the following core characteristics:
+- a service that keeps and supports a federated and decentralized interface
+- a service that provides a transparent high level of even semi-automated and up-to-date information of listed servers with soft and hard quality measures
+- a service tracks and enable quality checks overtime and even help operators with feedback to their service
+- a service provides an API to automatically register a new account for a user
+- a service that helps you as developer as well the user to retrieve service information and support contacts beyond the registration process
+
+This is surely not a perfect solution to issues with registration and usability.
+But it represents our strong efforts to improve the general unpopular situation around onboarding.
+The priority is to prevent the two extremes:
+- Unmaintained lists containing any server you can find and expose themselves in a lottery-manner to uninformed users to pick from.
+- Purely limited selection of servers in your client that for sure may work, but unfortunately jeopardizes the idea of federation.
+
+XMPP Providers with all the great achievements we have made so far is not the end of the road.
+From a simple list for automatic registration we have evolved to build an API and a website with interesting statistics on the network.
+We think that keeping up with good documentation and transparency is another great achievement.
+We also wrote our own [automated setup](https://invent.kde.org/melvo/xmpp-providers-server) for everyone to have a good start.
+We encourage you to use XMPP and run your own server instance, maybe even by becoming a public provider.
+But keep in mind that providing a public service comes with great responsibility you should be aware of!
+
+From this point we also believe that the project evolved to a multi-purpose project.
+Thus, we propagate a prerequisite for smooth and sustainable registration process based on up-to-date information and the XMPP users in mind at your service.
+
+That is not the one thing to solve and to improve.
+Let’s make the best out of this project, regardless of how you apply to it.
+We believe it is a great chance.
+Remember, a rising tide lifts all boats.
+
+## Outlook
+
+We plan to expand our API with more measure and more way that you actually can expose the quality of your service, such as up-time and automated ways of confirming existing support.
+But the project is nothing without usage. Gajim will soon publish their implementation of a new registration and on-boarding experience. Stay tuned!
+
+If you got interested to list your service you can start with hosting a [generic JSON file](https://providers.xmpp.net/provider-file-generator/) and then create an issue, see section below.
+
+Thank you for reading. We ask you to join this endeavor. Reach us in our support chat below.
+
+— The XMPP Providers Team
+
+## Help Us
+
+For a good user experience, [apps integrating XMPP Providers](https://providers.xmpp.net/apps/) are as important as the providers themselves.
+If you are an XMPP developer, please consider [adding XMPP Provider support](https://invent.kde.org/melvo/xmpp-providers#usage) to your app.
+If you are an operator of a public XMPP service, provide the [information we need](/faq/#where-do-we-have-the-providers-properties-from) and [add it to our list](https://invent.kde.org/melvo/xmpp-providers/-/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#providers).
+
+Feel free to [reach out to us](/contact/) if you have any questions!
+
+## Spread the Word
+
+The XMPP Providers project lives from the community.
+We are happy to hear your feedback!
+[Follow us and spread the word](https://fosstodon.org/@xmpp_providers)!
+
+{{< figure src="/images/xmpp-providers-adaptive.svg" caption="XMPP Providers Logo" class="text-center w-100 pt-5" height="300" link="/" >}}
+