Hi,
Recently arrived on Diaspora, it took me a while to find a way to send a private message to a specific user. I intuitively went to the user’s page, thinking I would find a “contact” button. But it wasn’t there.
I finally read the tutorial to figure out how to initiate a private conversation : Notifications and conversations - The diaspora* Project
It would be more intuitive and easier to have the same button on the user’s page https://diaspora-fr.org/people/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx to open the conversation window with the user’s address already filled in the “to” field.
The conversations ‘envelope’ icon indeed appears on a user’s page exactly where you have placed it. However, it only appears there if you are able to start a conversation with that person. In order for that to be possible, the two of you have to be sharing with each other. If they are not sharing with you, or if you are not sharing with them, then it’s not possible to have a private conversation with them.
If you are sharing with that person, there will also be an @ icon for @-mentioning that person. This will be there regardless whether or not they are sharing with you.
I hope that helps. I’m going to mark this discussion as resolved, and close it, because what you request is already there.
Thank you for your explanation. I don’t have any contact sharing with me yet to test it.
So, there is no way to contact a member until he shares with you? But how to ask somebody to share with you if you can’t contact him? It’s endless…
You can @mention that person. They will then get a notification of your communication, just as they would if you opened a conversation. If you want the contact to be private, you can put that person into an aspect that contains only them, and share only to that aspect.
‘Conversations’ don’t really add anything to the communication other than collecting them on a separate page. You don’t need to be able to ‘DM’/‘PM’ people in order to contact them.
I don’t understand why you feel you need to use the ‘conversations’ feature to talk to someone, rather than just talking to them using ordinary posts. What exactly is it you want to do?
To communicate with others, just post things that they will be able to read. You can do this either by posting to aspects that you have placed them in or by posting publicly.
To get a notification to someone, @-mention them. To do this, you need to have started sharing with them (by adding them to an aspect). They do not need to do anything to receive your notification. They can then, if they want, respond to your post.
The (private) ‘conversations’ feature isn’t the main way to communicate with others. I think probably it was added just because Facebook has a similar feature. Unless there’s something specific you want to do for which communication through ordinary posts isn’t appropriate, you can forget about the ‘conversations’ feature for now.
If you haven’t, do read Part 5 – Start sharing! of the tutorials. That explains how to communicate with people in Diaspora. ‘Conversations’ is a niche feature, and not particularly useful for day-to-day conversations with others.
People also get a notification when you start sharing with them, so they can also start sharing with you if they know you, so maybe there isn’t a need to mention them and tell them to start sharing with you.
Sorry if my questions seems naive, i’m a rookie in Diaspora.
The aim is to initiate a private conversation with a member i don’t know yet (a first contact). If i use a ordinary post, our conversation will be public, isn’t it?
However, i just want to send a private message to get in touch with a new “friend”.
It may be weird here, probably because it’s a “facebook behavior” to first add a friend before conversing with him…
Thanks, i understand now.
So if i want a private discussion, i have to create an aspect with this single person and mention her?
It means i’ll have as many aspects as private conversations?
Once the person added you to an aspect, you can create a private conversation with her. This is to avoid being spammed, but maybe we can discuss about that? Or a setting “I may be contacted even if I don’t share”? I don’t know.
Thanks for this precision. Indeed this process may limit the enthusiasm of new users. If we want to attract new Diasporians, maybe an option “I agree to be contacted directly” would alleviate this constraint … in this case the contact button would appear on the profile of the person even if you’re not in mutual sharing. What do you think?
