Review comments

specification/modules/history_visibility.rst

@@ -6,13 +6,27 @@ Room History Visibility
 This module adds support for controlling the visibility of previous events in a
 room. Whether a member of a room can see the events that happened in a room from
 before they joined the room is controlled by the ``m.room.history_visibility``
-event outlined below. Visibility can take the form of one of three options:
-
-- ``shared`` - Previous events are always shown to newly joined members.
+event outlined below. In all cases, the member still needs to be joined to the
+room to receive events for that room. The visibility option simply determines
+which subset of events in the room are presented to the client. Visibility can
+take the form of one of three options:
+
+- ``shared`` - Previous events are always shown to newly joined members. All
+  events in the room are shown, even those sent when the member was not a part
+  of the room.
 - ``invited`` - Previous events are shown to newly joined members from the point
-  they were invited onwards.
+  they were invited onwards. Events stop being shown when the member's state
+  changes to something other than ``invite`` or ``join``.
 - ``joined`` - Previous events are shown to newly joined members from the point
-  they joined the room onwards.
+  they joined the room onwards. Events stop being shown when the members state
+  changes to something other than ``join``.
+
+.. WARNING::
+  These options are applied at the point an event is *sent*. Checks are
+  performed with the state of the ``m.room.history_visibility`` event when the
+  event in question is added to the DAG. This means clients cannot
+  retrospectively choose to show or hide history to new users if the setting at
+  that time was more restrictive.
 
 Events
 ------