Have you seen this news?

[benpate@mastodon.social]

@reflex @earth_walker

Yup. The current notifications UX on Mastodon is not great.

Fortunately, they know it. I can't speak for their plans or timelines, but I know that they've been considering ways to change it.

It's a thorny topic, especially for a huge system with millions of distributed users.

My hope (completely made up by me) is that this E2EE project gives them an opportunity to revisit notifications in general.

I have confidence in the Mastodon team to make something fantastic :)

[d1@autistics.life]

@mikebabcock @benpate Just saying, Mastodon does allow the free-form links in the profile (default of 4).

[benpate@mastodon.social]

@d1 @mikebabcock

Yep. That's a good point. And profile links would work great for people who already have Matrix, Signal, whatever.

But it's tough to ask someone to sign up for a whole new service just to send a private message.

It would be nice if our default tools could do that on their own, without any additional work.

I don't understand why so many people see this as an "either/or" instead of an "and" ... why is that?

Let's refer to my 6th favorite meme:

[sicp@freebeerextremist.com]

@rusty__shackleford @sampler @benpate @dusk I think federated E2EE can be done if it's implemented in a smart way (where the highest level of control is at the user, a la Revolver), but whenever Mastdon has the choice between doing it the smart way or the stupid way they always assume things that aren't feasible and end up doing it the stupid way; they want to have their cake and eat it too, so the first thing that goes through their heads when talking about encryption is "how can we moderate/control this".

[sicp@freebeerextremist.com]

@benroyce @sampler @rusty__shackleford @benpate @dusk

[benpate@mastodon.social]

I believe in this project wholeheartedly. It's been built/vetted by numerous teams of *very smart people*

* MLS is an open protocol loosely based on Signal, with broad industry support

* MLS+ActivityPub spec has been honed by the W3C E2EE Task Force

* Practical engineering by two teams of top-notch developers: Bonfire and Emissary (me)

* https://swicg.github.io/activitypub-e2ee/mls
* https://emissary.dev/e2ee

I'm confident it'll be "implemented in a smart way" 🤘🏻

@sicp @rusty__shackleford @sampler @dusk

[earth_walker@mindly.social]

@benpate @reflex I'm ready to exit the conversation, you don't need to tag me from here. Thx

[sicp@freebeerextremist.com]

@benpate @rusty__shackleford @sampler @dusk Whatever a committee-steered project with a government subsidy of $500K can half ass in a few years, a lone hacker with a budget of cup noodles and a vision can whip up in a few months and actually achieve its goals. I bid you good luck with your project, but someday someone's gonna come out with something that'll make your approach obsolete overnight. I have a lot more confidence in .

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@sicp @sampler @rusty__shackleford @benpate @dusk

yes hello can i help you?

[sicp@freebeerextremist.com]

@benroyce @sampler @rusty__shackleford @benpate @dusk do you guys not have emchojoms?

[benpate@mastodon.social]

Sorry, no. It's just me and my cup of noodles 🍜

@sicp @benroyce @sampler @rusty__shackleford @dusk

[benpate@mastodon.social]

Having sat through numerous W3C meetings, I can confirm that your point is a valid. Design by committee is awful.

But we obviously don't know each other in person, or you would not have these reservations. All the way up and down the stack, the engineers on this project are very, very good.

🍜

@sicp @rusty__shackleford @sampler @dusk