Suppress content in inbox notification

[technoshaman]

Title:
Suppress content in inbox notification

Area:
Inbox

Summary:
Make it toggleable as to whether the *content* of a private inbox message is sent in email. Currently the whole message comes with the notification, instead of just saying "you have a message".

Description:
DW is known for its superior privacy features. One thing it *doesn't* have - yet - is truly secure messaging, i.e. the only thing that goes outside DW is "you have a message". However, some people like using email as a vehicle for interacting with their social media. So I think in our privacy settings we should have a radio button: "Send content of messages with notification: yes/no" We could do this for comments, too, as a 2.0 thing. You could go one step further and make the "from whom" part togggleable too. Some messages are more sensitive than others... f'rex, the fact that I got a message from, oh, say, Bernie Sanders or Coretta Scott King or Dan Rather would be far more sensitive than getting a message from Joe Random I went to school with who didn't amount to much. I don't think we should go down as far as per-user.... that's a little much, and if you're that level of paranoid you should probably just turn off the "who" altogether.... but still. Having "you've got mail" land in your Gmail or Yahoo inbox where g-ds know who can see it is a lot safer than "meet me outside the palace at 2am with the gunpowder! Cheers, Guy"...

Poll #18046 Suppress content in inbox notification

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
15 (42.9%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
4 (11.4%)

(I have no opinion)
15 (42.9%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (2.9%)

Comments

[brainwane]

I agree with the goal of this but I'm not sure about the approach technoshaman suggests. I absolutely want to be able to reduce how frequently I get automated unencrypted email that includes the full text of access-locked journal entries, while still getting notified, via a medium I check, when I have new comments. So, some variations:

Maybe we should say, no, this is the way things are and if you want more privacy you should turn off some email notifications. In which case I should simply stop some of my email notifications and set myself a reminder to check my DW inbox more often.

Maybe we should make it possible, in the notifications options, to differentiate between getting emailed when people comment on access-locked entries and getting emailed when people comment on public entries -- or, in Notifications or Privacy, add the option technoshaman suggests, to just say "you have a new comment" but omit/suppress message content (and perhaps even omit the name of the commenter).

Maybe we should add email encryption; I could give Dreamwidth my public PGP key and it could encrypt the automated emails it sends me.

[technoshaman]

*nods* That was my idea for a Rev 2.0, was add the option to comment notifications as well... opt-in (for new users) to full-text delivery for both inbox messages and comments.... should be a fairly similar UI and implementation.

PGP-encrypt outgoing emails... that's not a bad idea either, but it's out of scope here.... also the option of having one's PGP key be downloadable from profile in case someone wants to go *really* out of band... but, yeah, scope creep. When I get a bit I'll make a new suggestion with this one in it.