Goob is right, in that, you should not be able to be found by any criteria that you have not deemed to be public. This should be very explicit. i.e.; not even assuming because you cross post with another network, that you want to be found using your id from that network.
So I think that is doable. Pods should not return results of users that have not enabled they wish to be found using that criteria.
As stated before, I think this is a little different from the mentioned search problem. If I search for 10 people and find no one (this happened, just because the network is so small), I may give up. If I can search for my friends without manually entering each one, I’m more likely to find someone to use Diaspora with.
maybe a stupid question, but what keeps anyone from publicly (or ‘limited to contacts’) announcing your D* presence on FB or Twitter to your friends and letting them add you?
Sharing your D*id like that won’t be anything different than someone stumbling over your profile by other means (public posts, hashtags, name search…).
ps: so far we have collected 4 cents and 2 pfennige in this discussion
My solution to the ‘contacting lots of people I already know to find out whether they are on D* and if so what their ID is’ issue, as I stated before, would be to send my contacts an email asking them. You could place a link to your D* profile page in the email so that people can click on it to find you and then can start sharing with you. There’s already a link to an invitation URL on joindiaspora.com which can be sent by email - not that an invitation is needed any more, but it’s another way to get people you know to connect with you on D*, or at least to let them know that you are on D* and want to connect with them.
Or, as Florian suggests, give a link to your D* profile to your contacts on FB, Twitter, etc.
I think it’s far better practice (from the point of view of privacy and so on) to give out your details to people you wish to contact, rather than uploading or entering the contact details of people who may not wish this to be done.
I honestly don’t think this is an issue which needs coding or any feature built in. The problems Brandon raises will disappear by and large once (a) federation is sorted out, and (b) more people join the network, which will happen when the fundamental issues such as federation have been sorted out and a proper release version of the software is available.
Florian, can we put the 4 cents and 2 pfennige into D* funds?
Why advertise an D* account to people that have probably never heard of it, or don’t think it is worth their time (mass emailing your address book)?
You can post something in Twitter but what is the likelihood the people you want to see it, will see it? Very unlikely actually.
The same goes for Facebook status updates. These messages are usually seen by a small percentage of your contacts. You can put it on your profile but friends would have to manually check that in order to know it was there (very unlikely).
You can send direct messages, but that is manual labor, on the internet medium where scripting / automation is not cutting edge technology. Smart thermostats, automatic headlights porch-lights and sprinklers, ATM machines: all examples of automating that which is possible, through the general opinion that automation is more desirable than manual labor.
Based on what is proposed, no D* account will be shown that has not indicated that it wants to be found (opt-in). It seems no privacy is being violated.
ok, to me it seems the proposal was a little premature, since we don’t seem to have reached a point where we can all agree on… or the majority of people who have voted so far really don’t care
tl;dr but just my point of view. I see the diaspora handle as an email. If you know someone IRL, you have to ask him his e-mail, you can’t find his e-mail elsewhere. There is no e-mail directory.
Ok, I liked Florian Staudacher’s comment on advertising you own D* elsewhere. Based on this I got this idea that I don’t really know if it’s good or not:
An application (or something) that
Share your D* account name in your other social network in your profile, with option of doing it so publically or especifically shared
Search for this especific field in yours friend’s profile in this other social network.
Make a list of the resoults found
Create options of searching those D* accounts name inside Diaspora, preferable in a mass way.
create options of share/follow those found in D*.
I think this wouldn’t be ivasive, beacouse you would only share you D* account name if you choose to use the “app”. And you would only finda people that also has shared theier D* account name in their profile too.
Of course, te first one to use the app wouldn’t find no one, beacouse he/she would be also the first to share his D* account name in a standardized way. But this could be contorned by making the app run periodically, aways with an option of shuting it down anytime…
That’s my suggestion, Hope you enjoy it. And sorry for my bad english.
