&xep0045; defines a protocol for groupchat over XMPP. That specification includes a method for inviting a contact to a room, where the invitation is mediated by the room itself: the user sends the invitation to the room, which in turn sends it to the contact. Unfortunately, a mediated invitation might not be delivered to the contact, for example if the contact blocks communication with entities not in its roster as specified in &xep0016;. As privacy lists have become more common, MUC invitations have been increasingly blocked at the server side, resulting in an undesirable user experience. Therefore, this specification defines a method for sending an invitation directly from the user to the contact, which re-uses the original 'jabber:x:conference' namespace in use before XEP-0045 was written.

A user invites a contact to a room by sending a &MESSAGE; stanza containing only an <invitation/> element qualified by the 'jabber:x:conference' namespace &NSNOTE;.

The 'jid' attribute is REQUIRED.

Upon receiving a direct invitation, the contact's client SHOULD present the invitation to the contact so that the contact can accept it or decline it. If the contact accepts the invitation, the contact's client shall join the room as described in XEP-0045. If the contact declines the invitation, it shall silently discard the invitation.

If an entity supports the protocol specified herein, it MUST advertise that fact by returning a feature of "jabber:x:conference" in response to &xep0030; information requests &NSNOTE;.

In order for an application to determine whether an entity supports this protocol, where possible it SHOULD via the dynamic, presence-based profile of service discovery defined in &xep0115;. However, if an application has not received entity capabilities information from an entity, it SHOULD use explicit service discovery instead.

Before inviting a contact to a members-only room, a user SHOULD check to see if the contact is already a member and, if not, add the contact to the member list (or ask a room administrator to do so).

If a client receives multiple invitations to the same room (e.g., a mediated invitation as defined in XEP-0045 and a direct invitation as defined here), the client SHOULD present only one of the invitations to a human user. If a client receives an invitation to a room in which the user is already an occupant, the client SHOULD silently discard the invitation.

To follow.

This document requires no interaction with &IANA;.