Matrix allows editing messages well in the past

[jeffpaul]

Expected Behavior

Slack, at least the WP community instance, has a limit of time for when someone can go back and edit their message. That seems to be on the order of "a couple minutes" as I'm not certain what its really set to. Matrix should support a similar limit of time for how long a message can be edited.

Actual Behavior

I was able to edit this message almost 24 hours after making it which seems like well above the limit of what should be allowed.

Steps to Reproduce

No response

Environment

No response

Screenshots

No response

Additional Context

No response

[akirk]

According to matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals#1071, it is possible to completely disable redactions (edits) in a room, but not to limit to a certain time threshold.

[jeffpaul]

In that case, we should probably disable redactions until there's an option to limit that to a specifc time threshold.

[akirk]

Do you know if there had been a wide consensus on limiting the editing threshold in Slack at the time when this was introduced?

[jeffpaul]

@akirk no, but that seems like the better default than letting some (possibly for nefarious reasons) edit a message significantly in the past.

[akirk]

Actually you can see the edit history when you click the "(edited)" text:

[jeffpaul]

Seeing the edit history as great and all, but the fact that someone could change historical records after a VERY short timeframe is extremely sub-optimal.

[psrpinto]

@jeffpaul Could you give an example of a situation where someone editing a message poses a problem?

I'm asking because I'm struggling to understand why the fact that users can edit their own messages poses a problem. I could understand that being an issue if the edit history was not available, but that is not the case, as mentioned above.

[jeffpaul]

Let's say I state an opinion on one side of a large discussion / decision to be made (e.g. "Should we migrate from Slack to Matrix?") and then later go back and change that opinion, it would make the history look like I said something wildly different than what I really did. That's not even really a nefarios one. You could also see examples where someone harasses some one else and then later goes back to edit/delete those messages so there's no history of that happening; possibly even worse examples of that which would otherwise before being edited/deleted be actual Code of Conduct violations that we'd want to be able to have evidence of.