Notifications

Notifications only name their kind, one per conversation, with no message content. There are no numbers, in notifications or on the app icon. Message content can only be read in Patepang. For example:

• “New message”
• “Someone mentioned you”, when someone mentions you in a group
• “An account recovery is waiting”
• “A guardian request”
• “A moderation decision for your account”
• “Your account’s media space is almost full”
• “Your account has not been opened for almost a year”

If your phone cannot tell the kind, the notification says “Notice from Patepang.” Updates do not become notifications on the phone. Opening Patepang withdraws all its notifications from the screen.

Until you choose, notifications carry no name. In Notifications, under Notice content, you can choose Show name or No name; after that the choice becomes the Sender name switch. With names, the name of the person or group that sent something appears on the lock screen, without the message content. Locked chats and travel mode stay without names.

• Patepang does not ask for notification permission when you create your account. To allow it, open Settings, then Notifications, and press Allow notifications; your phone shows its own permission question. Patepang also asks when you choose a reminder for a plan.
• If permission was already refused on the phone, Open phone settings takes you to those settings.
• Without permission, your phone receives no notices from Patepang; their content waits until you open the app. You are also not told on the lock screen if your account is being recovered on another phone; you see it when you open Patepang.
• If you revoke the permission in your phone’s settings, Patepang asks the server to forget your phone’s notification address the next time the app is opened. Until then, the server still keeps it.

• Mute all: notices arrive without sound. Their content waits in the app.
• Quiet hours: during the hours you choose, notices arrive without sound; one sounds when quiet hours end if you have not opened it yet.
• Conversations you mute neither sound nor are named. In the info of a muted group, you can turn on Still notify me when my name is mentioned; until it is on, mentions in that group do not notify you either.

Notices made silent still go into the phone’s notification list; they are not hidden.

Reminders about other people, such as Meeting reminders, Fading connections, and Connections’ birthdays, are off until you choose them in Notifications, under Reminders. Reminders show no name or title on the lock screen: who and what they are about can be read after you open Patepang.

• Meeting reminders are sent by the server on the anniversary of a tempel and after 8 months without meeting, as a neutral notice with no name. The server knows whether these reminders are on.
• Reminders of a moment a year ago, of fading connections, and of plans are scheduled on your phone itself, with no name.

• If you allow notifications, the server stores your phone’s notification token from Apple or Google. That token is stored encrypted, but the server decrypts it to send notifications.
• Every notification is the same size, 176 bytes, sealed for your phone: only its kind and time, with no sender and no content. Your phone itself opens it and writes its words.
• Apple and Google only know that there is a notification to that phone at a certain time. On Android, notifications are received through Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging SDK inside the app. [Whether that SDK sends notification delivery data to Google: not yet confirmed]
• After a message notification arrives, your phone fetches the waiting messages from the server, so the server sees when your phone is active.

The details are in the Privacy policy.