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MSC3958: Suppress notifications from message edits (#3958)
* Suppress message edits. * Fix typo. Co-authored-by: Sumner Evans <me@sumnerevans.com> * Add @room. * Match MSC title to PR. * Add a potential issue. * Clarify rule placement. * Change link text. Co-authored-by: Richard van der Hoff <1389908+richvdh@users.noreply.github.com> * Fix typo. Co-authored-by: Richard van der Hoff <1389908+richvdh@users.noreply.github.com> * Add a note about mobile clients. * Update from anoa's feedback. * Updates for Matrix 1.7 * Update more spec links. * Minor clarifications. Co-authored-by: Andrew Morgan <1342360+anoadragon453@users.noreply.github.com> * Add downside about "all messages" * Clarify again that this *does* work with all messages. --------- Co-authored-by: Sumner Evans <me@sumnerevans.com> Co-authored-by: Richard van der Hoff <1389908+richvdh@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Andrew Morgan <1342360+anoadragon453@users.noreply.github.com>
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‎proposals/3958-suppress-notifications-of-message-edits.md‎

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# MSC3958: Suppress notifications from message edits
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[Event replacement](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.7/client-server-api/#event-replacements)
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(more commonly known as message edits) signals that a message is intended to
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be replaced with new content.
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This works well for fixing typos or other minor correction, but can cause
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spurious notifications if the event mentions a user's display name / localpart or
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if it includes `@room` (which is particularly bad in large rooms as every user
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is re-notified). This contributes to notification fatigue as the additional
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notifications contain no new information.
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Additionally for users which have a room set to "all messages" then every event
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edit results in an additional notification.[^1]
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## Proposal
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A new default push rule is added to suppress notifications due to [edits](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.7/client-server-api/#event-replacements).
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```json
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{
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"rule_id": ".m.rule.suppress_edits",
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"default": true,
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"enabled": true,
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"conditions": [
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{
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"kind": "event_property_is",
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"key": "content.m\\.relates_to.rel_type",
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"value": "m.replace"
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}
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],
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"actions": []
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}
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```
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This rule should be placed after the [`.m.rule.room.server_acl` rule](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.7/client-server-api/#default-override-rules)
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as the last override rule.
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It would match events such as those given in [event replacements](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.7/client-server-api/#event-replacements)
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portion of the spec:
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```json5
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{
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"type": "m.room.message",
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"content": {
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"body": "* Hello! My name is bar",
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"msgtype": "m.text",
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"m.new_content": {
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"body": "Hello! My name is bar",
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"msgtype": "m.text"
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},
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"m.relates_to": {
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"rel_type": "m.replace",
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"event_id": "$some_event_id"
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}
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},
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// ... other fields required by events
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}
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```
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With the [updated mentions behavior in Matrix 1.7](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.7/client-server-api/#user-and-room-mentions),
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this would allow the [`.m.rule.is_user_mention`](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.7/client-server-api/#_m_rule_is_user_mention)
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and the [`.m.rule.is_room_mention`](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.7/client-server-api/#_m_rule_is_room_mention)
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rules to continue matching, even for edited events, while suppressing notifications
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from other edits.
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Some users may be depending on notifications of edits. If a user would like to
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revert to the old behavior they can disable the `.m.rule.suppress_edits` push rule.
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## Potential issues
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### Edits of invites and tombstones
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The [`.m.rule.invite_for_me` and `.m.rule.tombstone`](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.7/client-server-api/#default-override-rules)
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rules may still cause spurious notifications if events which match those rules
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are edited. Both of those are state events and
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[not subject to valid edits](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.7/client-server-api/#validity-of-replacement-events).
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### Keeping notifications up-to-date
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Mobile clients currently depend on the push notifications of edited events to update the
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text of on-screen notifications. The proposed push rule would result in mobile clients no
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longer receiving these edits; but showing slightly outdated text on a notification screen. That
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is only a minor impact and it would be better to separate when (& why) we send pushes vs.
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when we generate notifications.
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### Suppression of notifications to a new keyword
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If an event is edited and the new event (but not the original event) matches a keyword
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then the notification would erroneously be suppressed.
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## Alternatives
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An alternative solution would be to add a push rule with no actions and a condition to
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check whether a notification was generated for the original message.
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This would be placed as an override rule before the `.m.rule.contains_display_name`
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and the `.m.rule.roomnotif` [push rules](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.7/client-server-api/#push-rules).
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This would suppress duplicate notifications, while still allow for new notifications due
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to new mentions or keywords changing.
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## Security considerations
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None forseen.
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## Future extensions
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If message edits by other senders were allowed than it would be useful to
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know when your own message was edited, but this
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[is not currently allowed](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.7/client-server-api/#validity-of-replacement-events).
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A future MSC to define this behavior should take into account notifying
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users in this situation.
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## Unstable prefix
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The unstable prefix of `.org.matrix.msc3958.suppress_edits` should be used in place of
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`.m.rule.suppress_edits`.
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A previous version of this MSC used `.com.beeper.suppress_edits` with a different condition
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(which should match the same events), but different rule placement.
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## Dependencies
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N/A
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<!-- Footnotes below -->
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[^1]: A room can be configured to be notify for "all messages" by creating a [room-specific push rule](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.7/client-server-api/#push-rules)
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with an `rule_id` of the room ID & has `actions` set to "notify" , e.g.:
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```json
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{
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"rule_id" : "!abcdef:example.com",
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"default" : false,
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"enabled" : true,
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"actions" : ["notify"]
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}
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```
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See the [Element Web](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/blob/da7aa4055e04f291be9b5141b704bd12aec03d0c/src/RoomNotifs.ts#L162-L170)
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implementation.

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