Periodic reminder that the Mastodon "Private Mention" mechanism is a dumpster fire of dangerously insecure and counterintuitive design. Among other things, it copies your message to anyone *mentioned in the body*, not merely listed at the start, as you might expect.
You also can't fully turn it off (there's just a setting that merely silently ignores all incoming messages, with no failure indication to the sender).
Basically, the PM/DM mechanism is a "missing stair" of usability design. It's possible for experts - experienced users - to avoid being tripped up by it, because they've already made their mistakes or have been warned. But that doesn't help newer, less sophisticated, or less experienced users.
It's almost like hazing.
Just make it work the way people expect, please.
@mattblaze
While I agree that "Private Mention" is an awful term to use for the reasons you describe, would you forgive me if I opined that privacy and security and safety have very poorly-agreed-upon definitions (indeed I might go as far as to say that they aren't real at all, in the sense that no organism can exist in a state of complete safety, or complete security, or complete privacy)?
My impression was always that the fediverse architects acknowledged this and made no attempt at all to obtain those unreachable objectives.
I write as an ignoramus though; I could well be wrong. I'd welcome a steer from anyone at all.
#fediverse #mastodon #kbin #lemmy #activitypub #DM #messaging #infosec #security #safety #privacy
I beg your pardon; I chose a dreadful way to convey my thinking. I merely meant to differentiate between things that can be demonstrated to exist or be objective laws, and things that are human constructs.
Many of the basic concepts in #maths and #physics can be agreed to exist (for a given actuarial definition of existing) or be true. Many things like money and churches and nation-states are constructs of the mind; usually shared constructs, and often well-defined legal fictions.
I meant only to suggest that without a clear, universally agreed definition of 'health' or 'security' or some other such human construct, I feel unable to agree that such a thing exists or could be said to be true.
Again I ought to reiterate that when I say exists I mean exists like a prototype of a kilo of metal exists, or could be said to be true like addition or multiplication or perhaps thermodynamics could be said to be true.
My gut feeling is that we want to use the same words in different ways, rather than that we disagree upon the fabric of reality.
I of course welcome readjustment if I am clearly mistaken.
I regret again my limited lexicon; that I suspect I do not have the wit to adequately articulate or present my beliefs for wider consideration. I also accept that finer discussion might be out of scope, although I do think it might still bear some relevance if anyone can frame it with greater clarity than my feeble attempt.
#thermodynamics #physics #engineering #science #reality #platosCave #philosophy #maths #math #law #religion #health #security #money #safety #economics
Matt Blaze
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