Matrix-doc: A way to mark room as special custom-protocol rooms (SPEC-111)

[matrixbot]

Arisen a result of wanting to hide the SMS account room from the UI because there's no useful way for the user to interact with it. Rooms that only contain custom events and no messages should be hidden by regular messaging clients which don't understand the protocol being spoken on them.

(Imported from https://matrix.org/jira/browse/SPEC-111)

(Reported by @dbkr)

[matrixbot]

Jira watchers: @dbkr

[gergelypolonkai]

I'm not sure this really is needed. If you make such rooms non public (ie. with a m.room.join_rules event) clients, messaging or not, won't show them unless they explicitly join. If they are for a specialised software, you don't need to list them anyway. Unless there's a use case you didn't tell.

[turt2live]

The case would be a room dedicated to a service that also uses the user's matrix account. The original post is in relation to a very old SMS bridge, however the concept still applies today. An example use case would be a website which has a "log in with matrix" button on it, where you'd authorize the site to use your account. That site may then create or join a room on your behalf where it stores data or uses the room to communicate to the backend service (by sending events on your behalf). All of this communication would be behind some kind of UI. The idea behind flagging the room as "protocol only" would be so that clients like Riot don't see it, therefore not confusing the user with excess rooms.

[KitsuneRal]

Boils down to having one more room tag (m.noui or m.backbone)?

[kythyria]

Or room state, named perhaps m.protocols, that contains a list of what specific protocol is in use. A hypothetical etherpad clone that uses matrix for communication and reuses the IM module for the comment sidebar might set it to [ "net.berigora.ethermatrix", "org.matrix.im" ].

If not present, clients would presumably continue assuming IM-dominant, if it's present, hide it unless they recognise the protocols listed. Not sure what should happen if only _some_ of the protocols are recognised; in this hypothetical instance the room might not make terribly much sense viewed in Riot.

[KB1RD]

Maybe this could also help with content filtering. Ex, a special state event could be used to determine if a room is visible based on the user's content preferences. So there could be a ["m.im.nsfw"] content type that the user/HS chooses not to participate in. That way, the user would have to opt in to these chats and such chats wouldn't appear in the room directory unless the user wants them to.

... A hypothetical etherpad clone that uses matrix for communication and reuses the IM module for the comment sidebar might set it to [ "net.berigora.ethermatrix", "org.matrix.im" ]. ...

@kythyria https://github.com/KB1RD/matrix-notepad :)