element-hq / element-hq/element-meta

Wording of "Change recovery key" is ambiguous

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Description

Currently, under Settings -> Encryption -> Change recovery key, we have:

## Element Web

**Recovery**
Recover your cryptographic identity and message history with a recovery key if you’ve lost all your existing devices.
[ Change recovery key ]

## Element X

**Change recovery key**
Recover your cryptographic identity and message history with a recovery key if you’ve lost all your existing devices.

## The problem

This sounds like you should only do this if you have already lost all your existing devices, but in fact it is recommended to do it immediately, to protect against a future situation where you have lost all your devices

Also, it appears that we use the same message for changing recovery key as for creating one, even though they have different meanings.

## Proposed solution

### When recovery is already set up

I suggest changing the description to read:

**Change recovery key**
This is useful if you can't find your recovery key. Set up recovery with a new recovery key, so that if you lose all your existing devices you are able to recover your cryptographic identity and message history.

### When recovery is not set up

I suggest changing the description to read:

**Recovery**
Set up recovery, so that if you lose all your existing devices you are able to recover your cryptographic identity and message history.

Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Locate the recovery and change-recovery-key wording used under Settings → Encryption in Element Web and Element X. Compare the text shown when recovery is already set up with the text shown when it is not; done when each state explains its distinct purpose using the proposed wording.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
content
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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