Remember last used publishing aspect

Features and Ideas
1

Hi!

I need some opinions on this one, so I thought this could be the place. :wink:

I often hear people - especially new users - ask about where the default aspect for new posts could be adjusted. They have understood what “all aspects” and “public” means, but don’t want to switch to public all the time if they primarily post public content.

There were already discussions about switching to “public” as new default, that idea has turned down and I totaly agree with that.

So there are a few ideas how to implement a less static default choice for the publishing aspect:

  1. Change nothing. The user must choose a different aspect than “all aspects” every time to make sure the user does not post public by accident.
  2. Create a default setting on user preferences where the default aspect can be chosen.
  3. Let diaspora remember the last choice and make this the default for the next time the publisher is shown to the user.

The following publisher-occurences would be affected by the default setting: on stream, on activity, on bookmark. If you are viewing your aspects, there are other controls influencing what the selected aspects are.

Choice 1 is status quo today and I think 2 is quite good, but also the difficult one to implement (but as I come to think more of it… now harder than choice 3, you only have to add a aspect-selector control to user preferences). Choice 3 may adjust to the behaviour of the user, but there is a risk the user does not check the aspect selector before posting, accidentially posting something public. This would also true for 2 if set to “public” in user preferences, but that change must be made by the user, so the user should be aware of the default. In constrast the remember-feature would select “public” by default if the last post was sent public.

Any thoughts on this?

Note: This discussion was imported from Loomio. Click here to view the original discussion.

2

I second version 3 and also maybe 2
But I am more than used to version 3 from google+
I think it’s an essential usability feature, to have something like that. If that is too much effort, I’d also be happy with version 2

As far as I am informed, it is possible at the moment to change the settings globally, so everyone defaults to public, or all aspects
which is not really satisfying for me, because I don’t want to force anything on users

Usability is the key to success
or at least one :wink:

3

I’d go for 2.

Create a default setting on user preferences where the default aspect can be chosen.

Number 3. is usability, but it also causes users to possibly forget to change the last choice, thus posting something publicly which was intended as limited. I was annoyed by this in Facebook before they changed it (I think).

4

@jasonrobinson agreed, it does make it a bit "dangerous"
I have posted wrongly before because of that too, awesome would be, being able to change visibility later on
don’t know if that is technically possible though

5

And next we’ll get complaints again why you can’t set public as default.

I’ll just refer to my old idea for my part: https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/issues/2577

6

I agree with 2) - see Github #4319.

  1. would open the risk of someone not realising the visibility had been changed after posting publicly, and might lead to them posting something sensitive to public by mistake. At least in 2) the user has actively chosen for all posts to be public by default.
7

I agree option 2, because if the user is who sets it is less likely to make a mistake at the time of posting, the option 3 is also good, but I prefer the 2, option 2 is something I hope makes long time :slight_smile:

8

I agree with 2)

I think that the issue of posting publicly by mistake should be solved once and for all by changing the color of the ‘Public’ option. The Public option could be blue like the share button, but a different hue. Just to remain elegant.

But just doing something else then gray would definitely solve the security issue, regardless of the setting we chose to adopt concerning the default aspect of posts.

9

A proposal for this color idea? That is a relatively easy code change, I suppose : a slam dunk, right?

10

I prefer the option two as I mostly publish public content, but when I do publish private content, I often forget to change it back to public.

I have had to repost some posts that I have first accidentally sent to just “my ascpects” instead of public.

11

@Faldrian I do not get the question ?

12

I agree with 3)

I’m well aware of the public/private problematic and I am a fervent defender of it. That said, I’m a full grown man, I know what I’m doing, I don’t need the tool to be in my way.

I want my tools to work with me, not against me. I find that solution 2) is a bad solution because if we go like this for every small problems, we will end with a thousand properties to tweak in our account parameters and this is bad UX.

I think we should give some credits to the D* users, they already chose to use D* instead of FB or G+. I think we can say that they know what they’re doing :wink:

13

:bulb: I think I’d prefer 3 with a slight modification: Not having it automatically pick the last one, but the most used one.
Without this modification I’d prefer 2.

14

In my opinion this belongs to the Contacts page and into the aspects dropdown as a star icon. I’d prefer this is to be implemented.