Frequently asked questions

Your account

kink.town is invite only. Your group's leader sends you an invitation link. Open it, choose a username and password, and your account is created. No email address or phone number is asked for. Links normally work once and expire after a week.

Then sign in at chat.beta.kink.town with your username, not the full @name:beta.kink.town form.

Your group's Space

The invitation link belongs to a group, so your account is added to that group's Space automatically, along with the shared Town Hall Space for everyone on kink.town. Both appear in the left sidebar the first time you sign in. There is nothing to request or paste.

The first sign in asks you to set up Secure Backup. Do it, and save the recovery key. See your recovery key.

Your messages are encrypted with keys that live on your devices. The recovery key is a long code that unlocks an encrypted backup of those keys on the server. It is the only way to read your history on a new device, or after you lose a phone.

• Element asks you to set up Secure Backup on first sign in. If you skipped it, open Settings, Encryption and set it up there.
• Save the key in a password manager or write it down. The server cannot recover it for you, and nobody at kink.town can read it.
• When you sign in on another device, Element asks you to verify it. Confirm from a device you are already signed in on (the emoji comparison), or type the recovery key.

Without the recovery key, a lost device means lost message history. Your account and your groups survive, your old messages do not.

In a browser

chat.beta.kink.town is the full web app and works on computers, phones and tablets. In Chrome, Edge, Brave or Vivaldi you can also install it from the browser menu, which gives it its own window and icon.

On your phone

Install Element X from the App Store or Google Play. On the sign in screen choose Sign in with QR code, then in the web app open Settings, Sessions, Link new device and scan it. That signs the phone in and verifies it in one step. If you prefer, sign in by hand with beta.kink.town as the server and your username and password.

Each browser and app you sign in with is a separate device with its own keys, which is why Element asks you to verify new ones. See devices and keys.

Turning them on

• Element X asks for permission when you first sign in. Notifications arrive like any other app.
• Web app: open Settings, Notifications and enable notifications for this device, then allow them when the browser asks. Safari on iPhone only delivers notifications to installed web apps, so use Element X there.

Choosing what notifies you

• Direct messages notify by default.
• Rooms: open the room's menu and pick All messages, Mentions and keywords or Mute.
• Spaces: a Space has no setting of its own, but you can set every room inside it the same way in a minute.
• Keywords: Settings, Notifications lets you add words that always notify you, since Matrix has no role mentions.

Notifications about encrypted messages only say that a message arrived. The text is decrypted on your device when you open it, because the servers that deliver notifications cannot read it.

If you know Discord: a Space is a server, a room is a channel.

• Your group's Space holds its rooms: a general room, an events room, an announcements room where only moderators post, and often a voice lounge, a room that is always in a call so people can drop in.
• Some rooms live in a sub-space that only certain people are invited to, for example a moderators area. You can see that it exists but not what is inside.
• You can create your own rooms and direct messages at any time. They are encrypted like everything else.
• Town Hall is the shared Space for everyone on kink.town: questions, bug reports, and server news.

Switch between Spaces in the bar on the left. Each shows only its own rooms.

All groups share one kink.town server, so your group decides which Space you start in, not who you can talk to. For example, Alex in IPeX and Sam in IIK:

Keep in mind that everyone on kink.town can see the things everyone shares: Town Hall and its members, and your display name and picture.

• Direct message: open the chat and tap the phone or camera icon.
• In a room: tap the call icon in the room header. Everyone in the room is invited and can join.
• Voice lounges: some Spaces have rooms that are always a call. Open one and tap Join.
• Screen share: the screen icon inside the call.

All calls, including large group calls, are end-to-end encrypted. The call screen shows a shield when the connection is secure.

If nobody can see or hear you

Your browser, a VPN or your network is probably blocking the connection (WebRTC). It fails silently: you join, but nothing reaches anyone.

• Check the browser is allowed to use your camera and microphone.
• Brave and Vivaldi: in Privacy settings, allow WebRTC to use your real connection.
• VPN browser extensions: turn off "WebRTC leak protection", or allow kink.town.
• Try another network. Mobile data often works where office or hotel wifi blocks calls, because the server can relay the call for you.

Your device does not have the key for that message. Usually it is a new device that has not been verified yet, or your key backup is not connected.

1. Open Settings, Encryption and check that Secure Backup is set up and connected. Enter your recovery key if it asks.
2. Verify this device from another device you are signed in on, or with the recovery key.
3. Wait a minute. Keys arrive in the background once the device is trusted.

Nothing on the server can fix this. The server never has your keys, which is the point. If the device that held the keys is gone and you have no recovery key, those messages stay unreadable.

1. In the Spaces bar on the left, tap +, then Create a space, then Private and Me and my teammates. You become its Admin.
2. Give it a name, a description and a picture.
3. From the Space home, use Add to create rooms: for example general, events, and an announcements room. Leave the default Visible to space members, so every member of the Space can enter them.
4. For the announcements room: Settings, Roles and Permissions, set Send messages to Moderator.
5. For a voice lounge: Add, New video room. It is always in a call, and members see who is there before joining.
6. For a private area, such as a moderators room: Add, Add space, New space, invite only. Rooms inside it are hidden from everyone else.
7. Mark your main rooms as Suggested in the Space home. New members are put into those rooms automatically.
8. Make at least one other trusted person an Admin. See roles.

Every room you create is encrypted from the start, and encryption cannot be removed later. You never have to think about it.

New people need an invitation link. Leaders create these themselves, for their own group:

1. Open your group's invitation page, for example https://ipex.beta.kink.town/invite/ for IPeX, or https://beta.kink.town/invite/ and pick your group.
2. Sign in with your kink.town username and password. The page checks that you are a leader of the group and does not keep your password.
3. Choose how many accounts the link may create and how many days it lasts. One account, one week, is the default for a named person. A multi-use link suits a batch of vetted applicants.
4. Tap Create link. You get the link and a ready-made message to send.

Send it privately. When the person opens it they choose a username and password, and they are added to your Space automatically, plus Town Hall. You do not need to invite them again. The page lists your links, how many times each was used, and lets you revoke one.

Each group's links only add people to that group's Space. To bring someone into another group, ask that group's leader.

People who joined kink.town through another group's link are not in your Space yet. To add one:

1. Open the Space home and choose Invite.
2. Type their username, for example @sam:beta.kink.town, and send.
3. They accept the invitation, and Element offers to join all the Space's rooms at once.

Rooms inside a private sub-space need their own invitation, since that is what keeps them private.

Matrix uses power levels. Element shows them as three roles:

• Admin (100): everything, including changing settings and promoting others. Give every Space at least two Admins. If the only Admin disappears, nobody can manage it.
• Moderator (50): remove messages, kick and ban, invite people, change room settings. Moderators can create invitation links for the group.
• Default (0): post, react, start calls.

To change someone's role: open the Space or room, Settings, Roles and Permissions, or open their profile from the member list and set Power level.

Roles are per room. Promoting someone in the Space does not promote them in its rooms. Element offers to apply the Space's roles when you create a room, but existing rooms must be changed one by one. Do it when you add a moderator.

1. Open the Space home, Members, and open the person.
2. Choose Remove from space. Element asks whether to remove them from the rooms too. Say yes.
3. To keep them out, choose Ban instead. A banned person cannot be invited back until unbanned.

Check private sub-spaces separately, since they have their own member lists. A moderation bot can do all of this across every room in one command.

They keep the messages already on their devices. Removing someone stops new access, not past access.

Only the people running kink.town can deactivate accounts. Message @mayor:beta.kink.town with the username and the reason. Deactivating removes the account from every room and erases its profile.

Meanwhile, ban them from your Space and rooms yourself (see above). Any member can also ignore a user from their profile, which hides everything they send.

From the Space home, Settings (Admins only):

• General: name, description, picture.
• Visibility: keep it Private. A public Space would let anyone on kink.town join and see who is in it.
• Roles and Permissions: who can invite, create rooms, and change things.
• Rooms: add, reorder and mark as suggested from the Space home.
• Leave: at the bottom. There is no delete. A Space with no members simply disappears from everyone's view.

A Space's name, description, picture and member list are not end-to-end encrypted, and the people running the server can see them. Members of your Space can see the name of any sub-space, even ones they cannot enter. Pick neutral names if the existence of a group is itself sensitive. The messages in its rooms are encrypted.

Each group can have a home page at its address, such as ipex.beta.kink.town: a description, rules, how to ask for an invitation, and a sign in button. The invitation page for leaders lives under it at /invite/.

The people running kink.town publish these. Send @mayor:beta.kink.town:

• your group's name and a short description
• your rules
• how people should ask for an invitation (an email address, for example)
• optionally, a logo (square image) and a wide header photo

Anyone in a room can start a call from the room header, and anyone in the room can join it. There is one call system for everything, from a two person chat to a large meeting, and all of it is end-to-end encrypted, including screen sharing. Nothing passes through the server in a form it can decode.

• Scheduled meetings: start a call in the relevant room at the time. Members get a ring or a join prompt.
• Drop in: create a video room in your Space. It is permanently in a call, and members see who is inside before joining.
• Large calls: the server has been sized for a few hundred people in voice, with a dozen or so cameras on. Ask people to keep cameras off in big meetings. The limit is their phones and connections more than the server.

Calls are new in the beta. If you plan a large one, tell @mayor:beta.kink.town so we can watch the server, and run a short test call first.

Everything in roles and removing people is built into Element: remove messages, kick, ban, mute by lowering power level, and ignore. For larger groups there is a moderation bot.

The moderation bot

The server runs Draupnir, a moderation bot used by many Matrix communities. One bot serves the whole server. It is driven from a private room called mod_team, and everyone in that room is a moderator for every room the bot protects. If you lead a group and want it, ask @mayor:beta.kink.town to add you to mod_team.

Reports

When a member uses the Report button on a message, in any room on the server, the report lands in mod_team with a link to the message. Nothing needs setting up for that.

Protecting your rooms

Every room inside a group Space, and inside Town Hall, is protected automatically. The bot @draupnir:beta.kink.town joins new rooms within about ten minutes of their creation, so you will see it in the member list. Bans on the shared list apply there, and the automatic protections run. Direct messages are never touched. For a room outside any Space, invite the bot yourself and make it a Moderator. It only accepts invitations from people in mod_team.

Day to day

Commands are messages in mod_team that start with !draupnir. Type !draupnir help for the full list. The ones that matter:

• !draupnir status shows what the bot protects and watches.
• !draupnir ban @person:beta.kink.town kt reason bans someone from every protected room at once. kt is the name of the shared ban list. !draupnir unban reverses it.
• !draupnir kick @person:beta.kink.town #room reason removes someone from one room without banning.
• !draupnir redact @person:beta.kink.town #room removes their recent messages in a room.
• !draupnir protections lists the automatic protections, such as limiting join floods or removing messages from banned accounts.

The moderator guide covers everything else, including how ban lists and protections work.

Draupnir can see messages in rooms it protects, the same as any member. It is run by the server admins and is not used for anything but moderation.

• Usernames: everyone is @name:beta.kink.town. People sign in with the name part only.
• Rooms vs Spaces: a room is a single chat. A Space is a container of rooms with its own member list. A room can be in several Spaces, or none.
• Join rules: rooms in your Space should stay Visible to space members, which is what the Space's membership protects. Public rooms let anyone on kink.town join and make their members findable by everyone. Keep group rooms off that setting.
• History: rooms keep their history on the server, encrypted. New members can only read messages from after they joined, unless a room's settings say otherwise.
• Devices: each member can verify the others' devices. Encourage people to verify each other in person or over a call, especially moderators.
• Everything stays on kink.town. There is no connection to other servers, so nobody outside can join, and members cannot invite outside accounts.
• Getting help: the Town Hall Space, or @mayor:beta.kink.town for accounts, roles and home pages.

Matrix uses the Olm and Megolm protocols, built on the same Double Ratchet idea as Signal. Each device holds its own keys, every room has a rotating session key, and the server only ever stores and forwards scrambled data.

On kink.town, encryption is on for every room and every direct message from the moment it is created, and it cannot be turned off. Calls are encrypted the same way, with keys exchanged between participants over the encrypted chat.

Differences from Signal

• Who runs the server: Signal is one central service. kink.town is our own server, run for this community. No phone numbers are involved.
• Metadata: Signal goes to great lengths to hide who talks to whom. A Matrix server, including ours, does know which rooms you are in, and when messages are sent and between whom, even though it cannot read them. See what the server knows.
• Devices: each browser and app you sign in with is a separate device with its own keys. Messages are encrypted to each device in the room, and you verify your own devices with the recovery key.
• Key backup: Signal keeps keys only on your phone. Here an encrypted backup of your keys lives on the server, locked with your recovery key, so a new device can read old messages.

End-to-end means only the devices in the conversation can read it. The server only ever stores and passes on scrambled data.

• Direct messages.
• Room messages, in every room including Town Hall.
• Pictures, files, voice messages and stickers sent in chats: encrypted on your device before upload.
• Reactions, edits and replies.
• Voice and video calls and screen sharing, in direct messages, rooms and video rooms, at any size. The relay server passes on encrypted media it cannot decode.
• Message history: the archive the server keeps for syncing holds the encrypted versions only.
• Your key backup, locked with your recovery key.

Some things have to be readable by the server to work at all. They are protected from other members by room settings, but the people running the server could technically see them.

Rule of thumb: what you say is encrypted. Who you are, where you are, and when, is not.

Even when it cannot read messages, a chat server has to know who to deliver them to. On kink.town, the server stores:

• Your account: username and password. Passwords are stored hashed, not readable. No email or phone number is collected.
• Memberships: which Spaces and rooms you are in, your role there, and who invited you.
• Message metadata: for every message, who sent it, to which room, and when, alongside the encrypted content.
• Your devices: a list of the browsers and apps you are signed in on, and their public keys, so other members can encrypt to them.
• Everything listed under not encrypted, in readable form.
• Uploaded files: only the encrypted data plus size, time and uploader. Profile pictures and room pictures are readable.
• Network details: the address you connect from, kept for 7 days. Access logs on the web server are turned off.
• Notification devices: which phones get push notifications. Notifications travel through Apple's or Google's push services, which see that you received one and when, not what it says.

What the server deliberately does not do: show whether you are online, fetch previews of links you paste, let anyone search for users they do not share a room with, or talk to other servers. Message history and files are deleted from the server after one year.

• Every browser and app you sign in with is a separate device with its own encryption keys.
• A new device starts with no keys. Verifying it, with the recovery key or from another device, tells your other devices and your key backup to trust it and hand over the keys. Until then it shows messages as unable to decrypt.
• Clearing your browser's data for chat.beta.kink.town signs that device out and deletes its keys. Sign in again and verify with the recovery key. Private browsing windows lose everything when closed, so avoid them for daily use.
• Other members' devices show up in their profile. A green shield means verified. If someone's device appears that they do not recognise, their account may be compromised: they should sign it out from Settings, Sessions, and change their password.
• Verify people you moderate with in person or over a call. It is the one protection against someone with access to the server quietly adding a device to an account.

• Save your recovery key somewhere safe. It is the only way back into your history.
• Use a strong, unique password. There is no password reset by email here. If you forget it, an admin has to set a new one after confirming who you are.
• Check your sessions now and then in Settings, Sessions, and sign out any you do not recognise.
• Sign out on shared computers.
• Lost a device? Sign it out from Settings, Sessions on another device, then change your password.
• Pick neutral names for Spaces and rooms if their existence is sensitive. Names are not encrypted.
• Remember screenshots exist. Encryption protects messages on the way and on the server, not from the people you send them to.