When using a dedicated messenger, it would usually make sense to use your real name and profile picture so that others can identify you (if the intention is not to stay anonymous).
But is it practical with Delta Chat, since you start a chat with anyone who has an email address?
I mean, I don’t really want everyone who I contact to receive my real profile picture, because it may be someone who doesn’t know me, or knows me, but doesn’t know how I look like (and I don’t want that person to know how I look like).
Shouldn’t the submission of the real name (if not already revealed by the used email address) and profile picture be a per-chat option?
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Other messengers typically have “friends” or some sort of trusted contacts which can see more info. Because Delta Chat does not have “presence” information shared independently of messages, but embeds names and avatars into messages, it can only share this info to the whole chat or to nobody in the chat. So your solution of making a per-chat option makes sense, but I’m afraid having to switch this option for each chat would become annoying soon.
It’s also not clear what would be displayed if the name is not shared. Just the email address? Is it that much more anonymous?
For public groups, another solution is to run anonymizing mailing list which does not reveal real addresses. Next version of Delta Chat will have read-only support for mailing lists, and it has support for bots and mailing list servers which hide the original address of the sender. Maybe adding write support for mailing lists or developing a bot for anonymous public groups is a solution.
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It depends if the email address is revealing or not. Does Delta Chat use the name and profile picture from the phone’s address book if it finds the used email address in contacts?
As mentioned in another thread, I ended up creating a new email account for use with Delta Chat. That email address is revealing, so I am using my real name, but not my real profile picture, which is an acceptable solution for me.