MSC4277: Harmonizing the reporting endpoints

[Johennes]

Rendered

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In line with matrix-org/matrix-spec#1700, the following disclosure applies:

I am a Systems Architect at gematik, Software Engineer at Filament and Unomed, Matrix community member and former Element employee. This proposal was written and published with my gematik hat on.

[turt2live]

Implementation requirements:

• Server

[Johennes]

200 regardless of event / room existence: element-hq/synapse#18263

I'm unsure if the random delay / constant time part requires an implementation. The spec already mentions this for the event reporting endpoint but Synapse doesn't appear to implement it and it's not part of element-hq/synapse#18120 either.

[Johennes]

I've added the removal of score into element-hq/synapse#18263. Synapse didn't do anything else than assert the type anyway.

[Half-Shot]

Honestly, I find it bizarre that reason is required but may be empty string. I suppose this might not be the MSC to change it, but I'd rather we just made it optional.

[Johennes]

I think I understand the value of requiring it to be filled for spam protection. The combination of required but allowed to be empty strikes me as slightly odd, too, but it's hard to judge without knowing T&S's future plans for the field.

Generally though, I suppose if we later go from required but possibly empty to required and not empty, it'll be just as much a breaking change for clients as if we went from optional to required and not empty.

[Half-Shot]

It's hard to say. Even if the field was required people could just keyboard smash the field. I'm not really going to die on this hill though, I just think we should unify it in one direction.

My feeling for T&S that any report is a useful report, and that tooling is smart enough these days that we can make use of the room_id / event_id to do preliminary investigations even if the reason context isn't useful.