Improve entry subscription notification - include title, introduce delay

[azurelunatic]

Title:
Improve entry subscription notification - include title, introduce delay

Area:
notifications, entries

Summary:
When sending notifications of new entries, set a delay for most cases, and include the entry's title.

Description:
Currently, subscribing to be notified of new entries in a given community or journal results in a notification that there is a new entry, and a link.

It would be useful to the person getting the notification to include more information about that entry. However, the current lack of information is probably deliberate, because no matter how many things are done to make sure nothing is posted with the wrong security or -- well, any of the other possible scenarios where something that wasn't meant to be shared is shared -- no matter how careful Dreamwidth is to make such situations unlikely, they will still occasionally happen.

To further decrease the chances that someone who's not meant to see the entry will be notified that it exists, I propose to delay the sending of most new-entry notifications for about 5 minutes (the same delay before new entries appear on the Latest Things page), which gives time for someone posting an entry to notice and edit before a notification is sent. (People with very slow internet connections or who have been pulled away from the internet would still have a higher chance of something slipping through.)

In exchange for the delay, send the title of the entry along with the emailed notification, and perhaps the tags.

For community administrators with subscriptions to new entries in their own communities, would it be acceptable to send a notification immediately, and with title and tags?


(This suggestion brought to you by Azz's automatic paranoia that something horrible is happening when there is a new entry in dw_antispam while out-and-about with mobile email but crappy internet from the smartphone.)

Poll #9972 Improve entry subscription notification - include title, introduce delay

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 47

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
18 (38.3%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
6 (12.8%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
4 (8.5%)

(I have no opinion)
17 (36.2%)

(Other: please comment)
2 (4.3%)

Comments

[azurelunatic]

... apparently some of them do come through with title. I suspect the ones that don't come through with a title may not have a title. *facepalm*

[opusculus]

The thing that bothers me about this is that (at least in my experience) people subscribe to communities rather than check them on their flist because they want to be notified as close to instantly as possible. I realize adding in a small time-delay isn't that big a deal to most posts, and if the time sensitivity actually is a big deal they're probably refreshing as much as they are relying on email, but it still bothers me.

[paian]

Say your MO is to post an entry and then do the tagging using the Edit Tags menu.

As I think things work now, someone tracking one of those tags wouldn't get a notification, because the tag didn't post with the entry.

With an n-minute delay, would the notifications system pick up any tags added within those n minutes? If so, I would find it very helpful.

For me this will be less important when the new Create Entries page rolls out, because it's easier for me to tag using that interface. But there'll still be times when I forget a tag or two. I'd love a small window, for my own tagging and so that I'd get more of the notifications I might be missing out on as other people tag after posting.

[solitarywalker]

Having a delay makes sense, just as you said to allow for the possibility of changing permissions etc. But then by the same reasoning, it doesn't make sense to include things like subject or tags in the notification, since as you point out the delay might not be long enough for e.g. people with slow connections to have the benefit of the delay.

So i'd vote yes to a 5 minute delay, but no to including more information in the notification.