Add a parameter to force new account creation

Please add a new parameter to the “Create Account” link that forces the app to create a new account rather than add the new relay to an existing profile.

During the recent internet blackout in Iran, most Iranian relays began blocking the use of multiple relays with a single account. This restriction was likely introduced to minimize inter-server communication and reduce server load.

I had previously mentioned this at this link:
github[.]com/chatmail/core/issues/8223#issuecomment-4413600872
But since I couldn’t find any related suggestions or updates, I’m reposting it here.

I agree that the problem is a problem, but I would say that adding this parameter to a link is not the right solution. I’d prefer adding a dialog on the client, with buttons “Add Relay”, ~“Create a New Profile on this relay”.

I talked about it on the mentioned Github link, quote from @r10s :

i see that relays are used different, however, having an upfront question about whether to add a profile or a relay will be at least same confusing for many, many user. in general, we avoid such upfront questions and decisions, and i am sceptical here as well. most user will not have a concept about relay/profile in mind, and cannot do a informed decision.

The real problem is relays deciding not to federate because of performance problems.

It is a common problem that messages queue up if relays are not available, e.g. because the relay went down or is not maintained or because of the routing problems There was a change in feat(transport): Destination worker pool by j-g00da · Pull Request #151 · chatmail/filtermail · GitHub to address this problem for GitHub - chatmail/relay: chatmail service deployment scripts and docs · GitHub setups to some extent, now no more than 30 messages to the same destination can queue up in memory and users get “transport busy” error immediately.

Delta Chat is federated by design, so if federation breaks, the right solution is to figure out how to restore it instead of changing the UI to match the reality of non-federating email servers.

Solving problems is better than hiding them, but there’s an even better approach: we should try to fix the issue while also having a way to ignore it until it’s resolved (or in cases where a similar problem arises later due to other reasons or future updates).

Technically, supporting a parameter to force the creation of a new profile isn’t difficult, and from a user experience perspective, it won’t change anything for current users. I think it’s worth adding.