[Standards-JIG] JEP-0085: suggested triggers

[Peter Saint-Andre]

In this morning's meeting of the Jabber Council, we discussed some 
proposed changes to the suggested triggers for chat state notifications:

http://www.jabberstudio.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/cvs/jeps/0085/jep-0085.xml?r1=1.24&r2=1.25

http://www.jabber.org/muc-logs/council@conference.jabber.org/2005-09-08.html

The changes were "triggered" by a thread on the JDEV list:

http://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/jdev/2005-September/021872.html

The main idea is to discourage what I call "prospective notifications" 
-- i.e., assuming that the chat participant is (for example) inactive 
just because he has switched focus to another interface (chat window or 
application).

We seem to have agreement on:

1. <inactive/> (remove prospective phrasing)

Changing the text from:

User does not interact with the chat interface for an intermediate 
period of time (e.g., 30 seconds), minimizes the chat interface, or 
starts interacting with another chat interface or application.

To:

User has not interacted with the chat interface for an intermediate 
period of time (e.g., 30 seconds).

2. <gone/> (minor text change to past tense)

Changing the text from:

User terminates the chat interface (e.g., closes a chat window) or does 
not interact with the chat interface, system, or device for a long 
period of time (e.g., 2 minutes).

To:

User has not interacted with the chat interface, system, or device for a 
relatively long period of time (e.g., 2 minutes), or has terminated the 
chat interface (e.g., by closing the chat window).

However, we did not have unanimity on my proposed change to <paused/>...

From:

User was composing but stops interacting with the input interface for a 
short period of time (e.g., 5 seconds) or starts interacting with 
another chat interface or application.

To:

User was composing but has not interacted with the message input 
interface for a short period of time (e.g., 5 seconds).

In particular, Ian Paterson maintains that it is important for the user 
to know if another chat participant has switched focus, even for less 
than the suggested paused timeout. This does not seem all that useful to 
me (again, it's prospective notification), but I promised I would raise 
the issue on this list before the Council decides one way or another.

Thoughts?

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
Jabber Software Foundation
http://www.jabber.org/people/stpeter.shtml
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