clearer design around when messages trigger notifications #22

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opened 2023-08-03 20:56:33 +02:00 by iliana · 2 comments

iliana commented

2023-08-03 20:56:33 +02:00

(Standard disclaimer I'll put on all my issues: I have hardly ever looked at the Matrix spec, and all my understanding of it is from observing its implementations.)

I use Matrix at work, and a recent problem with how Matrix handles notifications has come up: we have a coworker who has a common first name, and there is a worker at an external company with the same first name who we need to refer to often. Typing that external worker's name pings our coworker. This is an undesirable interrupt, so much so that people have started referring to the external worker with an unrelated symbol in the middle of their name to avoid pinging our coworker.

For those used to Slack or Discord, where message pings are explicitly opt-in by the sender, this is a confusing new experience -- especially since there are ways to tab-complete and explicitly mention a username. (Why should the alternative trigger a ping! Well, history of IRC, yada yada.)

I don't know at what layer of the stack (element vs synapse vs the spec itself) this sort of emulation of IRC beep-on-mention takes place, but I think that a new specification should explicitly design these concerns into the spec instead of leaving it up to homeserver/client implementation choices.

(Standard disclaimer I'll put on all my issues: I have hardly ever looked at the Matrix spec, and all my understanding of it is from observing its implementations.) I use Matrix at work, and a recent problem with how Matrix handles notifications has come up: we have a coworker who has a common first name, and there is a worker at an external company with the same first name who we need to refer to often. Typing that external worker's name pings our coworker. This is an undesirable interrupt, so much so that people have started referring to the external worker with an unrelated symbol in the middle of their name to avoid pinging our coworker. For those used to Slack or Discord, where message pings are explicitly opt-in by the sender, this is a confusing new experience -- especially since there are ways to tab-complete and explicitly mention a username. (Why should the alternative trigger a ping! Well, history of IRC, yada yada.) I don't know at what layer of the stack (element vs synapse vs the spec itself) this sort of emulation of IRC beep-on-mention takes place, but I think that a new specification should explicitly design these concerns into the spec instead of leaving it up to homeserver/client implementation choices.

iliana commented

2023-08-03 21:34:35 +02:00

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(a related pet peeve of mine: edits in DMs / containing my name re-trigger push notifications)