UI terminology: “history” may not be right word for the past messages in e2e rooms

[farialima]

The UX design document - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TIZarCxP0UHcn52o3YdKrFs_ESB3YvDxvCY_SoY-FUk/edit#heading=h.tk0jiei07sxy - and the current implementation, use the word “message history” to describe the past messages in a room.

The expression makes sense internally; but I’m not sure it makes sense from the point of view of a user.

As a user, it’s simply about accessing the room messages again; it may be about “recover the past messages”, or the “old messages” even a simpler, clearer, “access the room again” (The later expression is not technically correct, I agree, but, to me as a user, that’s what it is). Also, if we were to keep the “history” word, it should be “room history” not “message history”, since it’s not the history of the messages, it’s the message themselves, that it’s about)

History is usually a log of actions, not if messages (that would be called ‘literature’ ;) ).

AFAIK other chat platform (whatapp, slack...) don’t the word “history” for past messages. In Slack it’s only used from the point of view of the admin - not for the enduser ( https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=message+history&commit=Search )

Very cosmetic issue but I hope that there’s no too small issue to report :)

[lampholder]

This wording is definitely worth looking at.

fwiw, WhatsApp does call it 'Chat history' in places - there's a Chat history section in settings (where you can export a single chatroom history or archive/clear/delete your chats en mass).

The WhatsApp Chat backup section reads:

Back up your messages and media to Google Drive. You can restore them when you reinstall WhatsApp. Your messages and media will also back up to your phone's internal storage. Media and messages you back up are not protected by WhatsApp end-to-end encryption while in Google Drive.

[robintown]

This is potentially something for E2EE Human Edition to address.