Icon keyword in plain text (email) comment notification

[azurelunatic]

Title:
Icon keyword in plain text (email) comment notification

Area:
notifications (email), accessibility, convenience, not lying to the chair leg of truth

Summary:
Include the keyword used to select the icon in the plain text comment notification.

Description:
It's been established that the icon is part of the conversation in comments; sometimes, with null text inserted into the comment body, the icon *is* the conversation.

HTML comment notifications include the icon. Plain text ones do not. Instead, plain text ones should include the keyword used to select the icon (rather than the icon's comment, description, or all keywords).

Why the keyword and not the others?

The keyword is short.

The specific keyword used to select the picture can give some insight into the workings of the brain of the person selecting it, if there are multiple keywords. (I have an icon of a computer with a windup key, displayed on this entry, which can be selected with "tech support" or "stupid"; I use the keywords to indicate which I mean in case I ever replace that icon. This time it is "tech support".)

One can learn which icon goes with which keyword, if one's interacting with a friend; one has but to go to the comment or the person's icons page and see (or read the description) to discover what the icon is, if one does not already know what icon the keyword goes with.

Poll #2364 Icon keyword in plain text (email) comment notification

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 36

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
0 (0.0%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
28 (77.8%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
3 (8.3%)

(I have no opinion)
5 (13.9%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[denise]

My "with changes": I would actually like to see this implemented as keyword + description, not just keyword, because a) it improves accessibility and b) it makes the description more prominent, and thus encourages others to fill it out.

[azurelunatic]

oho!

Pondering it for more than 30 seconds, I'm with you.

[denise]

Yeah, I see your reasoning for the keyword-only, and it's good reasoning, but I think the keyword + description will work better: instead of "Icon: tech support", it'd be "Icon: tech support (Description: a key winding a computer monitor)" or whatever.

[zvi]

+1

[eruthros]

+1

[saekhwa]

+1

[thedivinegoat]

+1

[cesy]

+1

[kyrielle]

+1

[cheyinka]

Yes, this. My keywords aren't often useful (since I don't have icons for purposes, really) but the description would give "this is what you're not seeing because you're reading this e-mail instead of obsessively refreshing the page".

[instantramen]

+1

[turlough]

+1

[susanreads]

Me too

[feathertail]

+1!

[sofiaviolet]

\o/

[mllesays]

+1

[kerravonsen]

+1

[musyc]

+1

[syderia]

This.

[coraa]

+1

[blnchflr]

+1

[fleeting]

+1

[noxie]

Hm. I'm not sure about this. I doubt that my keywords make sense to anyone but me. They might actually confuse other people at times?

I'd like it better if not the keyword, but the description was added. If this were implemented, I'd make sure to add icon descriptions in the future.

[noracharles]

+1

[pale_moonlite]

+1

[azurelunatic]

Your particular keywords look much more organized than mine; I see you've got general emotional ones that start with !, then the others you have started with an abbreviation for the fandom and a very short description of their content. If I interacted with you a lot, I'd probably come to get a mental picture of each icon associated with its keyword pretty quickly.

[stasha2g]

+1

[rho]

It's been established that the icon is part of the conversation in comments

It has? When did that happen?

[azurelunatic]

For me, it happened when I had to take moderator action in a community with rules about civility when someone's non-default userpic was actively insulting although the text of the comment was not exceptional without the context of the userpic.

[cesy]

There was another conversation in this comm where several people pointed out that this is true in some cases, though the phrasing isn't ideal - it's not true in all cases or for all people.

[pseudomonas]

I don't think this should be put in when the icon has been left as default.

[azurelunatic]

I think that "Icon: Default" would work, so it's explicitly stated that it's the default icon and its absence isn't thought to be a bug.

There would also be the cases of someone with no icons, or no default icon.

[pseudomonas]

Yes, that'd be unobjectionable, especially at the bottom of the message rather than the top.