Mastodawn

Today I was reminded that old online chats offered context awareness for the people online: you knew you won't be a bother to a friend who has a smiley flower as a status; and you knew you might not be getting a quick reply from someone who's Away.

Today I don't even know if my friends are online or not. The messenger apps make the assumption that everyone is online, and if not, they will receive a push notification, and will reply to you as soon as possible. But this assumption is barely true. I bet it makes lives harder, especially for ND people

(Edited for a pixel-perfect screenshot)

@nina_kali_nina you have that in XMPP

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@reidrac I wonder if the decision to implement it in XMPP was conscious, or it was just a copy of what everyone else was doing at the time. XMPP just survived since the times

@nina_kali_nina it is "presence subscription" or something like that, and you're right: it is a standard that started back then. It was "instant messaging"

Andrés (personal views)2d ago

@reidrac @nina_kali_nina Teams has something similar but I have been using it for two months and not sure what the Icons mean.

Find it interesting that Signal.org that AFAIK uses the same protocol as WhatsApp allows to schedule messages. Telegram could schedule as well. Outlook emails also offer you to delay post if person is away.

But WhatsApp does not have the delay feature. Maybe because it's business model is Mata data and this removes purity from the data?

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@amunizp @reidrac I wonder how Signal and Outlook implement the feature; could it be that they simply don't send a push?

Kiran Castellino

@nina_kali_nina @amunizp @reidrac I don't know about Signal, but Outlook on the Web will delay delivering a message until the set time is reached (the email will hang out in your drafts folder until then). If the recipient is on a different mail server, the message will not be forwarded by your mail server until the set time. Outlook for Windows will keep the message in your outbox until the set time if you use the built-in scheduled send function, but it also supports the Exchange Server scheduled send mentioned above.

@reidrac
It was there from the beginning in 1999, so I guess it was largely a copy of what was there in other systems.

Ironically, I'm on DND 95% of the time because I'm putting the phone into silent mode. Implementing that sync seemed like a big thing to me back then... a decade ago.
@nina_kali_nina

crazyeddie 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina @reidrac Being able to set your status was very common when xmpp first came out. It's also still pretty common in pbx systems.

@crazyeddie @nina_kali_nina @reidrac You can set your status in WhatsApp, but I've never really seen people use the feature.

I think mobile-first messaging was what killed off the idea of user status. With a desktop system it's possible to do an OK job of automatically setting away based on recent activity, but there's no way for an app on my phone to know whether I'm there or not.

Instead, we get read receipts, and if you don't see the read receipt, the person's probably "away" in some sense. Unfortunately you don't find out until after you send them the message.

crazyeddie 2d ago

@mathew @nina_kali_nina @reidrac I think Jami shows the difference between me being away vs. disconnected. Not sure though. I only know one other person uses it.

PulkoMandy 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina @reidrac xmpp has specifications for pretty much every feature found somewhere else (useful or not). But presence was so important that it is part of the protocol core, and even of its name! Whereas concehts like "group chats" are later extenions.

Some "modern" clie/ts don't really make the presence visible, however, or let you control it.

sb arms & legs 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina @reidrac
Thanks to this thread I've spent all afternoon setting up and playing with the #xmpp server, #prosody.

I got to set my status as AFK for the first time in 20+ years!

Thank you.

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)2d ago

@nina_kali_nina @reidrac

I was involved with Jabber (before it was called XMPP) shortly after that decision was made, so when people still remembered why.

A big part of it was that Jabber wanted to support lossless bridging between different IM systems. Being able to run an ICQ, MSNM, AIM, and so on bridge on your Jabber server meant users could switch immediately and retain their existing contacts. If only a subset of Jabber features worked with those contacts, that gave them an incentive to switch (and a good migration path). If only a subset of other-system features worked, that made it much harder.

The ICQ protocol had this fixed set of states. One of the other messengers had status messages as free-form text. As a result, XMPP built in both. And, because it was XML, you could also put a load of other things in (e.g. the music that you’re listening to).

I wrote a little daemon (20ish years ago) that would record status messages and push them to a microblogging platform (back when Twitter was one among many and not a clear winner), so you could use a Jabber client to publish microblogging things in realtime to your contacts and more slowly to other people.

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@david_chisnall @reidrac thanks for sharing!

JM Horner 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina Does having ICQ #3030280 get me any street cred? :-)

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@jmhorner it does, especially because it doesn't look like a stolen ID ("hey I'm such a h4x0r I got my pretty ID from someone who didn't need it")

JM Horner 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina I haven't logged in to it in a long time... but I am pretty sure mail.ru is still running it these days.

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@jmhorner I don't think so! But there's Nina Chat and Escargot - https://nina.chat and https://escargot.chat

NINA

@jmhorner @nina_kali_nina haha, I remember the 9 vs 10 digit street cred. Mine started with 139... ;)

Greg Pfeil 2d ago

@jmhorner @nina_kali_nina @cyclops_ I was logged into ICQ from when I joined (235067 – in 1996?) until they shut it down (within the last year?). That was a sad day, even though I don’t think I’d chatted with anyone in years.

Strfnurfn 1d ago

@sellout Wow, I had no idea it still existed! I probably joined in 97.

Ulrik Nyman ⬡2d ago

@jmhorner @nina_kali_nina I tried to see if I could find my old ICQ number, but it is probably gone forever

Bert Koorengevel 2d ago

@UlrikNyman @jmhorner @nina_kali_nina
My ICQ number is on a scsi drive mounted in a desktop pc which hasn't booted in at least a decade. To let it pass POST you needed to plug in a keyboard via the ps2 port (since all usb ports are broken) within 200ms before the first beep.
Ca 1996, started with 27 or 29....

Ulrik Nyman ⬡2d ago

@bertkoor @jmhorner @nina_kali_nina I have a laptop lying on a shelf, that I think can still boot and that might have the number in it. But I have not gotten around to booting that machine because the USB drivers on it did not work so I would probably have to do a lot of things before getting the data or take the harddisk out and mount it in something else.

🇨🇦 CowMan 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 🇲🇽2d ago

@jmhorner @nina_kali_nina 348067.

Using sequential numbers was maybe not a great idea, a give-away to the spammers, and as low numbers became 'valuable', they also became targets.

distinctivestatic 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina See, I used to turn this off. I hate people knowing when I'm online. I always assumed the default is "not available".
I think it says a lot that at some point in the mobile phone era, the default became "available."

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@distinctivestatic I think setting it to "invisible" should be the default. Perhaps, G+ style, you'd want to expose your presence to one group of people but not the other. But on a sad rainy day when you really want to talk to someone, you'd set the status to "free to talk" and will enjoy a sudden reach out by an old friend, maybe. Plus, you won't need to assume things about your friends, you'd know if it's okay to message them if you feel like doing it

distinctivestatic 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina Invisible still assumes someone is there, though. Invisibly haunting like a ghost.
I do like the idea of having different "levels" of access, though.

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@distinctivestatic yeah, Google Plus circles were created exactly for this purpose, if I'm not misremembering. But Google being Google, and Facebook being Facebook, we ended up with what we have now.

Jasmine running 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina i'm a somewhat dedicated invisible mode user since the last millennia 🫥

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@jasmine except that one day in March?

Jasmine running 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina yes in 2022, and every day since then 🥰

Kat the Leopardess 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina Kat stared at this toot and suddenly, from the deep dark depths a tight "uh-oh!" echoed up to the surface....

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@Catwoman69y2k I can hear it, too

@nina_kali_nina i miss away messages

@nina_kali_nina i also miss asynchronous communication being normative

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@aeva 💔 it always is with me!

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@aeva you could even see the drama unfolding in those sometimes!

woollypigs 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina ah good old ICQ :)

@woollypigs @nina_kali_nina The weird thing for me is it’s been decades since I used it. I’ve had old mobile numbers since then. I’ve had neurosurgery that has effect on my memory. I still remember my ICQ number with no hesitation.

Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina This happens less because of privacy issues. Often you have to turn it on, if that option even exists.

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@alan which is understandable but also very stupid; most chat apps out there are phone number based, that's a far worse privacy violation

Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina It's complicated. I clearly don't mind a customer having my phone number, but I might not want to let them know I'm online at 10:30pm, thus giving them permission to ping me with something that belongs in work hours. Same with bosses, etc. Ideally you want to be able to turn that on or off for each one of your contacts, but OMG that would make the user interface too haaaaaaard! Can't have that. simple simple, just one button max. sigh.

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@alan fair enough. But imagine having personal and work accounts separated! What a bliss it could be.

Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina Personal, work, family, people who want you to fix their computer problems, and on...

Vincent Sparks 2h ago

@alan @nina_kali_nina I think this idea has potential. Consider an interface where the user can put contacts in groups and set a different status to be shown to each group. With one click, the user could appear as "ready to chat" to their close friends, while still remaining "away" to people they didn't want to chat with at that moment and who often waited for them to go online.

It would be a nice feature to implement per-contact statuses in addition to this, however, if the UX challenge of how to do so readably and obviously could be solved.

It could be argued that there are ethical issues with implementing such a feature at all, although I personally think any such argument is bunk.

@nina_kali_nina when I flashed LineageOS, all push notifications that relied on google's proprietary code broke.

It was awesome.

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@aceryz not having push notifications is pretty great, yeah

[BUG] Lunya :3 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina I mostly consider status indicators to be useless. I message people whenever and if I'm lucky they can respond when I message them, otherwise the conversation is asynchronous

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@lunacb and this is fine, too! Perhaps even a special status to indicate this mode could be useful: "I'll read your message when I can, I'll reply when I feel like it, kthx".

Charles Fulton 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina It used to be so much fun to set custom away messages

@nina_kali_nina @ifixcoinops I always set my status as ”away” where possible, I don’t want to give the impression that I’ll reply right away so that I can check notifications when it suits me

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@mikaeleiman @ifixcoinops Which is fair game!

@nina_kali_nina bring back Free For Chat

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@JennyFluff this!

Anton Klinger 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina yes! I absolutely hate the naming for "do not disturb". Makes it seem like I do not want to be bothered, when it couldn't be further from the truth. I specifically use it so people can still message me without my focus breaking from every notification sound. If I wanted to be left alone I would just go offline.

Anton Klinger 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina
And don't even get me started on every app conflating important and urgent messages.
They are not the same! A message can be one or the other, or both or neither.
In discord "@silent" is my friend, I use it all the time but it feels like an afterthought.

Nina Kalinina 2d ago

@accidentlyAnton being able to send silent messages in Slack would be nice too...

Wait, it also supposedly works with this @silent prefix?!

Mx Verda 2d ago

@nina_kali_nina now make it work in iMessages (look, I can't get them to understand scheduling DND mode) and we're really cooking with induction! @accidentlyAnton

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@nina_kali_nina

Hi n% !