Gregory's ServerOne thing that many people have requested is notification icon badges for Toot!. The main reason they have not been implemented is that I've always found the use of notification badges a very toxic pattern to drive addictive behaviour on social media apps, always trying to nudge you back to opening the app.
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@socialuser Well, that is the point: It can be addictive, and you don't really break that by giving people options. We are so used to this being the norm that we would probably just turn them all on since that is what we are used to, and I want to take a stand against that. @tootapp Boo but sure, you like what you like and I like what I like. It’s just when we get into that area of “my idea is best and you will do that” is the boo part for me. @tootapp yup, I dislike badges too! Maybe they could be turned off by default and then have some text saying they are destructive, but if you really need them, here you go. @tootapp @socialuser this is a bit one sided frankly. For example users that seldom are on the app may use (the rare) notifications they get to decide when they’d like to check in on what’s happening. Not all social media users are online all the time. I appreciate making a stand for what you think is right but what you think may not necessarily cover the use cases of all. @tootapp @socialuser I would also add that the options in the poll are unnecessarily manipulative, essentially leaving the choice you propose in your toot the only “not extreme” choice to make. @securescientist @socialuser I am not sure I want to take that option, personally. I will not be adding badges for everything, that is not really a real option so it is a bit silly. It's really only between the first two, with an extra extreme option if you want to make it known you think those are not good enough. @tootapp @securescientist It is your prerogative to add or not add whichever feature you want. To me it is sad, again someone else making choices for me because it seems I cannot make them for myself. There are other Mastodon / Fediverse apps and the good thing is the Supreme Court isn’t telling me this is my only choice. Please note that this is not an attack on you rather an open discourse. @socialuser @securescientist When you are designing a specifically social app, you have to take into account more than just the wishes of individual users. Sometimes because of situations where users would make choices that are good for them personally but bad for the entire community, and sometimes to avoid addictive traps. Just because you personally can use something responsibly does not mean everyone else can. @tootapp @securescientist Maybe Steve Jobs was right that people don’t know what they want and that focus groups are a waste of time. I suggest you consider a public poll about things of your app if you don’t want to actually hear feedback from them about it. It seems you already had your mind made up and just wanted to get the social karma. @socialuser @securescientist There is no such thing as "karma" on the Fediverse, so no, that was not it. Please try to assume people are discussing in good faith and don't make accusations like that. The poll is to see how people feel about the idea of limited badges for mentions vs no badges at all. I am not considering adding badges for everything, that is a hard design choice. The option is just there to let people voice their disagreement with that if they like. @tootapp There definitely is “social karma” in the fediverse. It may not be Reddit karma per as but it’s still a nice ego stroke. Have a good day. I really enjoyed your App and have been using it for a very long time. I believe my first Mastodon account was in 2016 so this isn’t my first time around this rodeo. It actually pains me to stop using your app but with your attitude I think I must. Possibly back to Metatext again. Sigh @socialuser This isn't exactly a new stance, though? Since day one I've made it clear that this is something that is not and will not be supported? The new question here is whether to soften that stance a little bit? @tootapp That is the first I have heard that you are anti-badges. You made a public poll that in my case missed the option of user selectable badges for a litany of things so I commented. @tootapp @socialuser I love your app and I think you’re awesome but IMO what this really does is to tell some of your customers “I am not going to hear you”. Which in general isn’t great. And ofc this is a bit of a silly issue, but still customer relations it is 🙂 That said if you choose to target a specific set of customers, features wise, that’s obviously ok, but I wonder to what extent these are personal beliefs rather than reflection of the real preferences of users. @securescientist @socialuser "No badges" has always been a firm design choice of the app that I have not been shy of explaining to people. This poll is about how people would feel about slightly softening that stance. @tootapp @socialuser I hear you 100%. I am just suggesting to consider that not all users may feel represented by that stance, and having their preferred option “ridiculed” as an obviously silly one in the poll is alienating. But hey I also feel this is blowing up a bit out of proportion. It’s just a poll, I wanted to make my point, and I am sure you’ll keep up the great work anyhow.  @tootapp but can the badges be customizable to some level and could we get more reliable notifications I dont think ive seen a TOOT notification in a good long while. @kusuriya You may need to log out and in again if your server has lost your notification registration somehow? @tootapp Ive tried that but its been a bit since ive troubleshot it so Ill give that a try right now @kusuriya You didn't just accidentally turn off notifications in the iOS settings for Toot! or something? I'm not aware of any problems with notifications at the moment, so it's quite mysterious if they're not coming through!  @tootapp Enabling them for a few, curated options is a good idea for the people who want it (like mentions and admin reports). Make them opt-in for sure, don't enable any by default. A useful tool and people can choose to use it.  @tootapp I tried in preferences, but it didn’t seem to work? I want to silo away the addictive follows and likes I certainly don’t want notifications for them all @tootapp I’ve come to appreciate your firm stance on this topic. Since primarily using toot, I’ve found that using other apps which have a notification badge with a number actually gives me anxiety! But I think that a plain notification dot does serve a useful purpose. I’m pretty sure that I check my notification tab more often than I otherwise would, just to check for mentions. If I could tell at a glance that I had mentions waiting, I *think* I wouldn’t check the notifications tab as often. @tootapp I just realized I thought you were talking about badges on the Home Screen, but I thought you meant *in* the app. I really don’t like Home Screen badges for my social media apps and am 100% with you on this. In-app though, I’d really appreciate being able to see that I have mentions to read. Please no red, anxiety inducing numbers though 😊 @Timdmackey There is one badge in the app so far, on the ... icon if you have a follow request, and that one is the same colour as the rest of the icon. And yeah, this is mostly about the app icon but it does also apply in part to the tab icon in the app. @edinel There would be an option to turn it off, definitely, and it would be off by default. @tootapp I mean, give me options to turn on for mentions, or posts, or things that match some arbitrary regular expression (OK maybe not that) @ehler To make an overly extreme simile, it's also very easy to just not buy and drink alcohol. The point of addictive behaviours is that you can't rely on user choice alone. @tootapp My first part of that is that the service determines addictive behavior more than the app. I think the behavior of 3rd-party apps in Twitter were good cases of this the last ~5 years. @ehler The system way is opt-out, though, which seems insufficient, and there's no way around that. Apple are making it easier to access though which is great. No; boo I’m on toot! right now I would disable any kind of notifications/badges immediately I love toot! but there is *nothing* that it needs to tell me the moment it happens Or any time before the next time I open the app and want to check myself |
I was thinking, though, that this mainly applies to things like favourites and other things that you don't REALLY need to know right now. So I was thinking enabling them for mentions only (and maybe some other things that require immediate attention like admin report notifications) might make sense. What do you think?