Aggregations are confusing

[turt2live]

An m.replace event is aggregated by a server to (sometimes) create a bundle: none of these words are intuitive.

See https://spec.matrix.org/v1.4/client-server-api/#server-side-aggregation-of-mreplace-relationships and related sections.

[richvdh]

IMHO the main problem here is the term "bundle", which I have long hated. (I think we iterated quite a lot on this on #1062).

We should refer to either "an aggregation" if we are talking about the aggregation in general, or "bundled aggregation" if we specifically want to refer to the automatic inclusion in unsigned).

An m.replace event is aggregated by a server to (sometimes) create a bundle: none of these words are intuitive.

No, all of the events which relate to a given event (m.replace included) are aggregated by a server to create an aggregation. Sometimes we include that aggregation along with the original event; that is called a bundled aggregation. m.replace isn't particularly special here.

[clokep]

As a bit of an contrary view -- what's the point of separating the "bundling" of it into a different term? Since the /aggregations endpoint was dropped from MSC2675 I don't think there's any other way of viewing an aggregation besides it being in unsigned?

[richvdh]

what's the point of separating the "bundling" of it into a different term?

only that it gives us a useful term to describe when the aggregation is included and when it is not. But I don't disagree, we could probably live without mentioning bundles or bundling at all and our lives would be better for it.

[turt2live]

fwiw, I find I keep swapping "bundle" and "aggregation" because "bundle" is more intuitive for what's happening (not everything feels aggregated, but everything feels bundled).