Track mentions

[desh]

Title:
Track mentions

Area:
notifications

Summary:
Enable users to track when they're mentioned elsewhere on DW.

Description:
Any time someone writes an entry with <user name="desh"> (desh) in it, that should fire off an event that I can subscribe to and be notified for.

Ideally, this would fire every time an entry is posted that I have access to and that mentions my name, every time an entry that I have access to is edited and mentions my name but didn't mention it pre-editing, and every time the access rules for an entry are edited such that I now have access to it and my name's in it. (It's probably a bad idea to also notify for all old entries any time someone adds me to their access list, though.)

The same would happen for new/edited comments (either as a separate "when I'm mentioned in a comment" event, or as part of the same "when I'm mentioned anywhere" event).

EDIT: There are a lot of variations and pros and cons discussed in the comments below. For those who are not interested in reading all of it, I'd like to direct you to this thread, in which a so-far-noncontroversial modification is discussed.

Poll #2387 Track mentions

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 51

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
11 (21.6%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
17 (33.3%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
19 (37.3%)

(I have no opinion)
4 (7.8%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[mskala]

Which distinction won't users make? Between the system sending an email and the poster sending an email? Or between "notify me of new search results" in a search engine like Google, and "notify me of new search results" in the context of Dreamwidth? Either way I think it comes down to how it's presented; but I'm not sure there's much point going further with that, because it certainly won't work if there isn't the will to make it work, and I think it's clear that will isn't here.

[nacbrie]

Oh, I think there is a will. The (loose) consensus seems to be that notifications would be a good thing, but that they'd be opt-out or (more likely) an altered version of the name tag such as <user name="nacbrie" notify=yes> (possibly opt-out as well), or if usernames are shortened then something like @nacbrie vs. @nacbrie*.

RE the 'silly' comment: well, to elaborate further, Dreamwidth operates according to its own protocols and terms of service, based upon what denise and mark think serve the site, its users, and their wishes best. And those terms of service and protocols, and indeed the culture of Dreamwidth, place an emphasis on users being able to control their levels of privacy which includes the visibility of 'public' content. The logic that "I can do this via an external site, so there is no problem being able to do it via Dreamwidth" ignores that fact. And, indeed, the point that "well, external search engines can ignore robots.txt files, so an equivalent behaviour by Dreamwidth is no different" is ludicrous, given that Dreamwidth explicitly provide ways for users put in robots.txt files in the first place.

Your point that "I can already do this with an external search engine, so it won't be much of a shock if Dreamwidth does it" fails to stand. As explained above, the notifications feature is a very different beast to searching for one's name on the site. The former is a passive method of receiving notification, whereas at the moment one has to go actively looking for instances of one's name. The burden is shifted from the user who is mentioned to the poster. Only a very small number of users actually go looking for their names.

[mskala]

I think that if posters can opt out of it, then there's not much point having it. But since it's clear I'm not going to convince you of that, and you've now called my point of view both "silly" and "ludicrous" as well as ignoring important things I've said while accusing me of doing the same to you, I don't think there's much point our continuing to discuss it.

[nacbrie]

If that's how you choose to view it, then fine.