#indieweb 2023-10-03

2023-10-03 UTC
gxt_, rrix, jeremycherfas, moodydot, monoob8, __earlps, mro_, geoffo, mro__, bloot, mro, gwg_, gerben, miyaduki, [aciccarello]1 and AramZS joined the channel
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[tantek] do folks consider the tiny red dots to be push notifications? I'm leaning that way because in whatever system you’re using, the red dot showing up on a favicon is "pushed" to you on a tab that you might have otherwise loaded to just be reading a post. And in OS app launcher docks or mobile OS homescreens they're also pushed to you, on those app icons
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aaronpk i think of a "push notification" specifically as the notification that appears on a lock screen on a phone
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aaronpk the red dots would be an indicator of an unread notification, which you might have received as a push notification
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[tantek] appearing on a lock screen is just one format. you could also get a vibration from your phone, or a sound, and those would also be push notifications
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[tantek] the red dot is like that vibration or alert sound
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aaronpk i don't think it is, because you only see the red dot after you unlock the phone
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[campegg] I would agree that the notification is made up of the message that appears, along with the sound and/or vibration, but I tend to think of the little red dots/badges as indicators, rather than as an integral part of the notification itself. It's a pretty fine semantic distinction, though.
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[tantek] I think that's a narrow device-centric perspective
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[campegg] Having said that, if you look at it through the lens of how iOS treats them, then I guess you could say that the badge is part of the notification. iOS settings allow you to toggle the banner, the sound (which I believe includes vibration), and the badge as part of managing notifications.
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[tantek] ^ that too
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[tantek] it's not about whether the device is/was unlocked or not
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[campegg] It is, but I think it works as a framework for thinking about the components of a notification, regardless of platform or device
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[tantek] you can get push notifications in various forms (top level banners appearing at the top or side of the screen, red dots showing up on your application dock at the bottom of the screen, sounds that have nothing to do with your frontmost task)
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[tantek] what these all have in common is that *something else* other than what you're working on is *pushing* something to a top or noisy part of the UI to get your attention
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[tantek] plain notifications I see as the the things that queue up in a notifications page that you may check occasionally
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[tantek] s/the the/the
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[campegg] Is it really a notification if it's waiting for you in the background rather than, you know, _notifying_ you that something has happened?
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[tantek] yes it is, because it is notifying you that something happened somewhere else that you might not reload to check, e.g. a collection of all responses to all your posts, so you don't have to reload each post to see if it has a new comment
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[campegg] My mental model is a little different, I guess.
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[tantek] [campegg] look at the illustrative examples here: https://indieweb.org/notification#IndieWeb_Examples
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[tantek] having a "notifications page" is an actual feature that people want and implement and use. that makes sense.
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[tantek] there's a big difference between a notifications page, and an alert (or red dot, or vibration) that pops-up on all your devices
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[campegg] I don't disagree, and those examples make sense. But personally, I see a "notification" as something that intrudes on an experience (with the implication that it needs immediate attention), while I'd classify the others as more passive updates.
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[tantek] identifying that difference and helping users distinguish it is key to mitigating the harms as well, thus that's a useful distinction between "push notification" and a "plain" notification
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[campegg] But again, it's a fine semantic distinction, and I think the way you've outlined it would probably make the most sense to the most people
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[tantek] I'd categorize something that "needs immediate attention" even more narrowly, as an alarm, a subset of notifications
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[campegg] Fair
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[tantek] people seem to have settled on calling those pages of "passive updates" a notifications page often served at /notifications or similar, e.g. even Wikipedia (if you're an editor) has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Notifications
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[tantek] interestingly, Wikipedia distinguishes between "alerts" and "notices" so I'll have to dig into that and find out why
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[tantek] (only shows up when you're logged in)
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[tantek] (only shows up when you're logged in)
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[KevinMarks] I used to have an app that turned tweets into notifications, so I could read them in the top scroll on android. I turned the sounds and dots off, but I could pull down from the top of my phone and catch up.
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[KevinMarks] https://github.com/kevinmarks/nanotweeter
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Loqi [preview] [kevinmarks] nanotweeter: clone of http://code.google.com/p/nanotweeter
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[tantek] [KevinMarks] curious why you needed that because you can literally turn on "notify me about each tweet" per person you follow and the effect is presumably the same
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[tantek] (while subsetting exactly who you want to show up as a notification)
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[KevinMarks] This was when that only worked via sms.
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[tantek] I still do this for a very small number of folks I know who very rarely tweet so to me it's almost like they are sending a txt message
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[tantek] there's also the related but different and yet somewhat broader notion of "unread indicators", e.g. the subtle bolding of folder/labels in email programs when there is something unread in that folder (sometimes followed by a count of unread items)
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[tantek] there's some crossover between the red dots and unread indicators that deserves to be explored
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[KevinMarks] Also this app did a better job of dismissing read ones than the original twitter app
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[tantek] crossover/overlap
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s​isoma Possibly relevant to the discussion of push notifications on iOS.
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s​isoma When sending a web push notification, Apple requires that you also make it visible. And I don't believe showing a badge qualifies as making the notification visible.
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IWDiscord <s​isoma#0>
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[tantek] Slack tabs put a red dot in the top right of their favicon and a green dot just below their favicon
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[tantek] citation?
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[campegg] I think one of the things that is tripping me up is differentiating between a "notification" (which you can generally, but not always) dismiss, and an "unread indicator" that is persistent until you've taken an action
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[tantek] there's definitely some overlap there [campegg]
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[tantek] push notifications you can dismiss, however a notifications page may show an unread indicator as well
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[campegg] As I think more about it, I do kind of like the "alert" vs "notice" thing that Wikipedia does
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[tantek] Slack seems to distinguish @-mentions/dms (red dot) and new messages in a channel you are in (green dot)
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s​isoma https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/sending_web_push_notifications_in_web_apps_and_browsers
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IWDiscord <s​isoma#0>
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s​isoma "Safari doesn’t support invisible push notifications. Present push notifications to the user immediately after your service worker receives them. If you don’t, Safari revokes the push notification permission for your site."
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IWDiscord <s​isoma#0>
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[tantek] unread indicators can be tiresome too. I remember long ago (before push notifications were a thing) discussing being stuck in "unbolding loops"
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s​isoma I haven't been able to find exactly what constitues an invisible push notification
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s​isoma The web also has two different APIs, one for notifications and another for badges.
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[tantek] we've gone from "unbolding loops" to playing "whack a dot"
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sknebel Apple also only talks about "notifications send through the Web Push API" here. which are one way of implementing notifications. but e.g. the dot in a icon on a tab etc doesnt need to use that, since apps with open tabs have their own connections to the server
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[snarfed] terminology wise, I think I've heard these called unread badges?
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[snarfed] badges/indicators
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[tantek] will take the API talk to -> #indieweb-dev
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[tantek] what is a badge
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Loqi 🛡 A badge (AKA achievement) is a visual indicator, with a post containing relevant metadata, of completing some sort of accomplishment, usually associated with completing specific tasks within a system that is frequently recognized as "achievement unlocked", or "you unlocked the xyz badge!" https://indieweb.org/badge
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[tantek] [snarfed] I wonder if that use of "badge" as terminology is dev-specific
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[tantek] will take it to #indieweb-dev
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[snarfed] not dev specific, I've seen it often in app settings and UI
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[snarfed] notably in macOS itself
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[snarfed] (see System Settings => Notifications)
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[tantek] Interesting. So users are ok with that overloading then presumably?
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[tantek] Probably should add that as a disambiguation to the /badge page then
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[snarfed] arguably less confusing than overloading "notification," since the two meanings of "badge" are much further apar
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[snarfed] t
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[tantek] Are there different phrases for each of those two meaning of badge?
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[tantek] Like achievement badge vs unread badge?
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[tantek] Or are unread badges used for things other than something being unread?
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[tantek] maybe "application badge" rather than "unread badge"? or how about "notification badge"? do folks have a preference or does one "sound" better than another?
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[tantek] lol here's a use of "badge", by Apple, *not* meaning "notification badge": https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213044
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[KevinMarks] They used to be notification counts in the circles, then they removed the counts and left the circles
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[KevinMarks] Don't know if this is already in the notifications pages https://www.kevinmarks.com/twitterhatespeech.html
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Loqi [preview] [Kevin Marks] How did Twitter become the hate speech wing of the free speech party?
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[tantek] I don't think it is — how would you characterize that post as actionable or useful to users or developers? (helps to figure out where to put it)
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[tantek] [snarfed] per your point about the "Badges" term being used in macOS (and iOS) Settings => Notifications, that too me is evidence that we should call those badges, "notification badges". Also this headline: https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/hide-app-notification-badges-home-screen-ios/
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[tantek] that to* me
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[KevinMarks] The point is to think about the non-linear aspect of notifications in social media, and treat the different domains based on that, rather than bad proxies like "is this a famous person / paying user"
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[tantek] That would make a good summary point at the top of the post
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[tantek] Here's a related section if you want to update your / link to it as a specific example of why clustering is needed in such UIs: https://indieweb.org/notification#Clustering
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[tantek] I've done enough wikifying in the past few days that I'm ok delegating that task back to your for your own post 🙂
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[tantek] back to you* for your own post
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[tantek] welp, fell into a badges & badging rabbithole (thanks Wikipedia) and I believe I summarized enough in some personal notes for a summary note, eventually to publish, to capture what to explore before documenting further
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capjamesg jeremy++ for running the IndieWeb Carnival last month.
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Loqi jeremy has 1 karma over the last year
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capjamesg jeremycherfas++
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Loqi jeremycherfas has 2 karma in this channel over the last year (7 in all channels)
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[nsmsn] Anyone else getting a 502 Bad Gateway with logging in to indieweb.org?
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capjamesg Yeah. aaronpk ^
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[bneil] can confirm
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[tantek] [jeremycherfas]++ also for running the IndieWeb Carnival last month
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Loqi [jeremycherfas] has 3 karma in this channel over the last year (8 in all channels)
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aaronpk oops let me check what's up
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[tantek] nsmsn, capjamesg, benil, also problems with http://indieweb.org are on topic for #indieweb-meta (about the community & its infra, rather than about our personal sites & features & UIs)
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aaronpk indeed
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[tantek] to change the subject back to ontopic, has anyone done a lunchtime blogging hour? e.g. gather (even virtually) to have lunch together, and work on writing blog posts together, with the aim of publishing one or more posts by the end of lunh
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capjamesg That sounds delicious.
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capjamesg I mean delightful.
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capjamesg I mean both!
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capjamesg I do struggle to write when others are around though.
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capjamesg (it is okay if there are people in the background)
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[tantek] hence IRC / chat for as perhaps a good way to organize this
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capjamesg I would like a format that is an hour to write then some time on a call to optionally chat about what we wrote.
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[tantek] we used to do a quiet writing hour for the hour before HWC SF
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[tantek] https://indieweb.org/Homebrew_Website_Club#Quiet_Writing_Hour
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[tantek] it was very productive. people would write blog posts, wiki pages, etc.
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capjamesg That was on the calendar for HWC London / Europe online but I'm not sure how many people participated.
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capjamesg I find it hard to do anything before HWC because I'm often eating or working before.
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[tantek] usually these things need a facilitator to announce it when it is starting and invite people to participate. sometimes prompting people present or who have RSVPd to state what they'd like to write about helps get things started
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[tantek] "on the calendar" doesn't mean it spontaneously happens. people's default event mode is to expect a leader, facilitator, or host to start the event etc.
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[tantek] though now we're getting into #indieweb-meta community stuff again :)
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capjamesg https://twelve.barcamplondon.org/
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[tantek] events -> #indieweb-meta
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