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

[denise]

Mark and I have actually talked about this before! He was All For; I was tentatively for, but only if it were either opt-in or there were a way to make an individual mention not trigger a notification, for privacy reasons.

I would be All For if it were a new way of forming a tag that would notify, and the existing <user name> didn't notify, too. Basically, I just don't like changing a behavior that people have been relying on for ten years to do something so radically different, and notifying people that they're being talked about is radically different.

[cesy]

I don't think this does anything that can't be done by repeatedly using the search-the-site tool on your name, so I'd be happy with it, privacy-wise.

[zvi]

I like the idea, but only if there are GIGANTUOUS WARNINGS before you start tracking that way, to warn you that you are going to turn into a hugely paranoid freak who finds confirmation that either (a) many people secretly hate you or (b) no one is talking about you, like, ever.

I also think that the entry notification should only fire off on journals which permit either site search or latest entry inclusion. If someone has opted out of both of those things (and put in a robots.txt file) then I think the service should respect their attempt at security through obscurity, in this one specific instance where we're changing behavior they have come to rely on.

And I think when I'm mentioned in a comment definitely needs to be a separate event.

[cesy]

Good point, this should respect existing site search settings.

[coraa]

but only if it were either opt-in or there were a way to make an individual mention not trigger a notification, for privacy reasons.

I agree with this. Technically, any mention in a public post is, well, public. But I think that making it opt-out in some fashion would greatly reduce the massive potential for drama, wanksplosions, and other social nightmares. Security is one concern, but drama is definitely another, and I'd prefer to massage features so that the drama potential is rather less. :)

[zvi]

Hmm, I'm not sure a specific opt out is necessary. I mean, wouldn't not doing it in username format suffice? (Or even doing it <user name=exampleusername site=dreamwidth.org>?

[feathertail]

I agree that there are definitely concerns here. Trackback is something other blogging systems rely on already though, and I think it'd be great to have it here.

Now if only we could have it work cross-site too. Maybe if it were a literal trackback, and it triggered when somebody clicked on it ...

[cheyinka]

I would be for it if it were something like <user name="cheyinka" notify="yes"> or something, and if I could turn off seeing those notifications and someone could make eir journal a notify-free zone, whether with a new option or by opting out of both site search and the latest-entries feed.

[denise]

We do have plans to add actual pingbacks, yeah.

[zvi]

See, I think if it were a literal new tag attribute, then it would get almost no use, because people wouldn't remember to use it. It's much harder to learn a new behavior that mostly benefits someone who isn't you than to change two settings and opt out forever.

[desh]

I can see making it opt-out, but I don't think notify="yes", an opt-in, would actually get used much.

When you say "a notify-free zone", do you mean a shortcut so that the journal owner never actually triggers notifications when writing stuff, or do you mean something that would affect other writers too? The former is fine with me. But I'd be against a global setting in a journal that affects other writers (comments and posts by community members), because notifications can still be done manually. It's just that if someone mentions me in a comment in your (for example) journal and they want me to see it, they currently have to email me so I don't miss it. This suggestion is a shortcut for that commenter, and I don't think you (for example) should be able to control their use of the feature.

[desh]

I agree with your point about security through obscurity when it comes to someone's own posts and settings in their personal journal, but not when it comes to comments in that journal, or to other posters in a community. See my explanation to cheyinka above.

[desh]

In other words, I think that if there's a global opt-in/out setting that controls whether these events fire, I think the setting should be per poster, not per journal in which the posts happen.

[rydra_wong]

Seconding (or thirding, or fourthing, or whatever it is by this point).

IMHO, it would really need to be an opt-in (and probably an opt-in on both ends -- "yes I want to notify people that they've been mentioned" and "yes I want to receive notifications").

There have been umpteen times (notably during RaceFail) when I've mentioned someone publicly, and been prepared to have them find out about it, but would really not have wanted them to get an instant e-mail saying OH HAI YOU'VE JUST BEEN MENTIONED.

To sum up: W*ll Sh*tt*rl*y. L** G*ldb*rg.

[zvi]

I disagree with you that it should be per poster rather than per journal/community. Indexing/searching controls are almost always handled on a per journal/community basis (the only time I can think of that's different is for following specific comment threads), and I don't see a great justification for changing that in this specific instance. If drama breaks out in the comments, the journal owner/community mod is the person who will have the tools/authority to deal with it, so I think they should be given control over possibly drama causing settings.

[ratcreature]

Yes this. I made my journal fully searchable internal and external, so obviously ayone could just search for their name in my public entries, but I couldn't do that in some other people's journals because they disabled search. So I agree that this should not be a workaround to circumvent intentional obscurity.

[cheyinka]

By "notify-free zone" I meant the kind of thing that zvi said downthread, "I think the service should respect their attempt at security through obscurity, in this one specific instance where we're changing behavior they have come to rely on." I said it as "zone" rather than journal, because I think if somebody doesn't want to post everything locked (for whatever reason) but also doesn't want to show up in the latest things feed, that person also probably doesn't want any commenters able to readily draw people to eir posts. (Especially since this is entirely new behavior - nobody from another site would expect using desh to notify you, and I would rather somebody have to take the extra step to notify you than notify you when e's not expecting it.)

There could be an additional notice at the bottom of the comments box, so it'd say
"Notice: This account is set to log the IP addresses of everyone who comments.
This account does not send notifications when <user> tags are used in comments." or something.

The whole reason I want it to be an opt-in at time of use is because this isn't expected behavior. Yes, I could use the "use this code to link to this user from a non-Dreamwidth site" code from the profile, if I want to link without notifying, but it doesn't seem fair that someone who just wants the standard behavior should have to do more than someone who wants additional actions taken.

[zvi]

Well, since it's going through the notification system, receiving notifications should probably actually not be opt-in. I think it's a reasonable assumption that users know how to control their notifications, and once they get the first notification (or first wave of notifications), they can decide if it's useful to them and change it as they like. If it's opt-in, then nobody discovers it unless they read the entire news post where it's announced (or, subsequently, are cruising through the FAQs looking for cool stuff we can do), which is a smaller subset than active users, I'm pretty sure.

Re the aforementioned haters; munging their names is established behavior. To foil this notification system, all one would have to do is not user-fy the person being discussed, and they wouldn't be notified even if they were tracking.

Can you specifically talk about why opting out of site search/latest feed doesn't give enough control for opting out?

[cheyinka]

Yes, this. I am envisioning someone writing an entry and purposefully not linking to someone else, and then a commenter coming in and going, "By ch*y*nk* do you mean cheyinka?" and accidentally notifying me. Even if the comment gets deleted or screened, or the link edited out, the notification's still sent. (Using myself as an example so nobody feels singled out or anything.)

[ratcreature]

I disagree with this. The search inclusion is per journal too, i.e. I can't even find my own old comments again in other people's journals if someone disabled search (except that I get copies mailed so I can search through my mail, but not on the site).

I think it wouldn't be fair to someone that my settings which are aimed to get as much exposure as possible for my content would carry over in other people's journals just because I comment there with "I agree that user X is an idiot" with the username coded, and would trigger an alert and bring unwanted drama, when originally the post where someone said "X is an idiot" did not trigger an alert because they have their settings to "obscure", and the poster maybe knew that their circles didn't overlap, so normally X, if I hadn't commented, would have had almost no chance to come across that post, and no way to search for it.

[rydra_wong]

Can you specifically talk about why opting out of site search/latest feed doesn't give enough control for opting out?

Well, because it's not the same thing. It seems fairly probable that someone who's opted out of search/latest also won't want people to be notified, but there may well be people who are fine with having their journal searchable but don't want notifications sent to everyone they mention.

It's the difference between, say, criticizing someone's fic in a public post and criticizing their fic and sending them a PM saying "hey, I'm talking about your fic here."

One of the things about Sh*tt*rl*y is that searching one's one name that relentlessly and frequently actually takes a lot of energy and obsessiveness. Automatic notifications make that infinitely easier and more convenient.

I think it does change people's behaviour in a quite radical way, so I'd feel strongly that it should be an opt-in.

[desh]

If this is something that a comment poster somehow chooses or opts into (rather than the original suggestion of it happening all the time), then they'd be notifying you deliberately by doing that. If they don't want to, then they don't have to use the <user> tag (and under some versions of the suggestion being discussed here, they can do some variant of the tag that doesn't notify). And if they want to notify you, they can always email or DM you anyway without this feature; this just makes it easier.

[desh]

Especially since this is entirely new behavior - nobody from another site would expect using [personal profile] desh to notify you

Entirely new to the LJ/DW codebase, yeah. Not at all new in the Twitter/Facebook world. I think mention-notification over there is a fantastic thing, and it's why I suggested it. LJ/DW have a much more complicated universe of privacy controls (for better or for worse, including security-through-obscurity controls), and that means that the feature would have to be implemented much more carefully, as I'm learning from the comments here. (I'm not even voting for my own suggestion to be implemented unaltered anymore.) But that complication shouldn't, in my opinion, prevent the feature from happening at all.

[cheyinka]

Yes, exactly. If it's not something that can be chosen (or if it has to be deliberately un-chosen), it can happen accidentally. If it has to be chosen, then someone who would otherwise already be e-mailing ("hey, I mentioned you in a comment on so-and-so's journal") is saved that step, so that's good.

e.g. someone comments, "By c*e*i*k* do you mean <user name="cheyinka">?", that comment is screened (or deleted or edited), and I never know.
someone comments, "By *h*y*n*a, do you mean <user name="cheyinka" notify>?" - I get notified, whether or not the journal owner deletes or screens that comment, but the person who deliberately added the notification would have e-mailed me anyway, so it's not like I learned anything new.

[cheyinka]

Hmm. Maybe instead of straight mention-notification, or the addition of a flag to the end, one could do something like <user name="@cheyinka">? (an @ will never show up in a username, after all...)