Profile Card and Shared Connections

(#1047) Feature Planned profiles

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Comment by @CritteRo
RexSystem 1 vote originally by @CritteRo on GitHub 7 replies
I think a simple throw-away profile card with a QR code is the wrong approach for an app that people will use as their social media app (text chat, voice chat, forums, etc etc), but the problem is real. Instead I would propose a full Profile Page, with direct link (think fluxer.app/profile/@username.discriminator) that can be linked and be public facing. The page should work the same as the existing profile card (Add to Friends, Message, mutual servers, etc etc), but in a page form with URL, instead of a modal. Having it as a page will allow you to share the link directly, instead of remembering / having to copy the username. This would also allow you to share your profile as a button on other websites (and even verify the link on social media sites like Mastodon).
Comment by @coldreindeer
RexSystem 1 vote originally by @coldreindeer on GitHub
I think I half-understand what you mean. Could you explain with more context please.
Comment by @CritteRo
RexSystem 1 vote originally by @CritteRo on GitHub
Long-story-short, we should allow users to treat their Fluxer profiles as an entry point to the app, not just as an ID that other users might need to search first. So if, let's say, I am a random guy on the internet, and I want other people to reach out to me on Fluxer, I should be able to share a URL directly to my profile, from where people can add me as friends / send DMs, instead of sharing a URL to a community, where others will have to search me in the members list (if they even have access), or worse I have to share just a username#discriminator and tell people to open Fluxer and search for my account themselves (do they have Fluxer? Have they used the search feature before?). If we have a dedicated profile page, I think it would be easier for others to reach out / find us (the actual user), and not us (a simple member of a community). And as I said in the initial message as well, having a dedicated profile page will open other possibilities in the future (like verifying your Fluxer account on the social media sites, the same way you verify your bluesky link on your Fluxer profile now), or feature communities that we like/own on our pages.
Comment by @coldreindeer
RexSystem 1 vote originally by @coldreindeer on GitHub
Wouldn't that make it really easy for people to spam accounts that aren't set to a private mode or smth though?
Comment by @steveman1123
RexSystem 1 vote originally by @steveman1123 on GitHub
Don't people have to be friends before being able to DM each other outside of groups? I think I personally would be willing to have the risk of spam in exchange for the real solution of having my friends on the platform
Comment by @CritteRo
RexSystem 1 vote originally by @CritteRo on GitHub
The risk of spam is very small, especially considering that all social media apps already do this. Not having a profile page is imo an oversight, considering that a big part of the userbase is now treating a chat app as a full social app. And like with all aspects on the app, you could add permissions on:
  • How can view your profile page (public, mutual community members, friends, none)
  • How can view certain parts of the profile page
  • How can DM you (this already exists)
If you already have your username posted on the internet, spam bots can already take that and search your username, the same way normal person can. I would even argue that is easier for a bot to do it, than a person. But they don't, because, especially on Fluxer / Discord, is just a lot easier to simply join a community, scrape all users / all users typing in chats (when the member list is not available), and send them spam that way.
Comment by @coldreindeer
RexSystem 1 vote originally by @coldreindeer on GitHub
Pretty sure discord by default has DMs open to anyone sending you messages unless you change a server you are in to be DMs off or you disable DMs entirely. There's no only accept DMs from friends option. Best case scenario is you see a button with any amount of dm requests you can click on, and if you ignore them you see the app indicator with the number of DMs. Not really a big deal but a social page link anyone can view maybe should get like an only view page if you have a 2FA enabled account? If discord had this idea implemented, probably like 70% of people who use discord would be flooded with spam or would be quickly either deleting the app or googling how to prevent it happening. Of course you can disable DMs entirely or per server but if you disabled every server and had DMs open and this profile card was on discord you'd be forced to disable DMs excluding people on your friends list ig.
Comment by @coldreindeer
RexSystem 1 vote originally by @coldreindeer on GitHub
Reason is say 2FA enabled would be to reduce the number of hacked accounts botting a profile page. Also would encourage people to use 2FA, which most people don't bother I think.