Matt BlazeNov 25, 2023

Periodic reminder that the "Direct Message" / "Private Mention" function here is dangerously broken with confusing semantics.

- Anyone mentioned *anywhere* in the body of a PM gets a copy.

- "Disabling" PMs in your profile merely means YOU never see messages sent to you; senders can still send them, with no error indication.

- Nothing is encrypted, which means administrators on any instance that processes a message can see them.

I strongly recommend using something else for private messages.

Show threadSuzanne Aldrich (she/her)Nov 25, 2023
@mattblaze It's so crazy to me how badly this was designed. It pretty much fits nobody's conception of what a "direct message" or "private mention" could possibly mean. How is this feature supposed to be useful? Did nobody attempt to plot out how it might get used or thought about by users? #UXFail #DesignFailures
Show threadMatt BlazeNov 25, 2023
@suzannealdrich It violates well understood usability and safety design principles (e.g., least surprise). Just a trash fire.
Show threadsleepysaf
@mattblaze @suzannealdrich And yet i still somehow meet people who think it makes perfect sense and is intuitive.
idgi
Nov 25, 2023 at 7:14amWeb
Show threadcraftycatNov 25, 2023
@sleepysaf @mattblaze @suzannealdrich I got a private mention on my first day here, meaning I very quickly understood how it operates. I think maybe people in servers that welcome the rookies have a better understanding of it because we were exposed to the function immediately.
Show threadjwzNov 25, 2023
@sleepysaf @mattblaze @suzannealdrich There is never any shortage of people who will look at a usability disaster and, because they can kinda-sorta work out what asinine technical decisions or limitations led to the disaster being the easiest thing to build, will lecture you on how it is right and proper and the only way it can be. Linux manufactures these people in bulk.
Show threadMatt BlazeNov 25, 2023
@jwz @sleepysaf @suzannealdrich I believe you mean GNU/Linux.
Show threadGlyphNov 25, 2023
@mattblaze @jwz @sleepysaf @suzannealdrich FWIW, I’m in both camps. I like the way private mentions work, and they more closely mirror what I want than DMs on twitter did. But I agree with you; if you expect DMs, the semantics are subtle and thereby dangerous. I chafe a *little* at putting “least surprise” in absolute terms (different people find different things surprising) but the idea that Mastodon’s designers could ignore Twitter’s precedent with hundreds of millions of people is ridiculous
Show threadDoctor MemoryNov 25, 2023

@jwz @sleepysaf @mattblaze @suzannealdrich the only person on mastodon to not only block me but haughtily inform me that he was blocking my server with iptables (*infinite jack-off motions*) did so because I would not concede that the mastodon “Private Message” implementation was anything less than perfectly simple, completely understandable and in no need of any improvement. 🙄

A harsh lesson in the dangers of mistaking which C compiler you use for having a personality.

Show threadSuzanne Aldrich (she/her)Nov 25, 2023
@memory @jwz @sleepysaf @mattblaze People complain about the lack of foresight or empathy exhibited by technologists in bigtech, and the resultant user-hostile technology, yet when we have a chance to create exactly what we want with open source decentralized systems, we follow the same misguided route. The problem isn't the bigness of tech - it's the lack of human-centeredness.