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I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

blog.danpetrolito.xyz

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Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#251

Post by Grimblewald »

johndhi wrote: post #36
johndhi wrote: post #35

I had the idea of making a website where anyone of a group of friends can post their evening plans - go to trivia, play tennis, etc - and others would be able to sign up to join. Never made it but glad to see these things can work.

Anyone know if something like this already exists I could buy or use?

use a kanban board. FOSS options exist for web-hosted implementations. Kanban works because It supports a 'backlog' of events to do, timelines for things to do that are on a deadline (e.g. concerts) and allows people to add activities / plans to backlogs which get moved to 'ready to do' as things are done / cleared. Keeps everything organised and simple, with good over-sight on what's going on when. Downside is it requires friends already somewhat technical or at least willing to learn.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#252

Post by BLKNSLVR »

donatj wrote: post #20

Mildly reminds me how being online on AIM or ICQ was an actual invitation to chat. I had so many interesting conversations with people I barely knew. There's no source of that signal that someone is open to chitchat these days, and it's in my opinion kind of killed what was once great about online communication.

Discord indicates who's online with the green dot.

It can be modified to never show you're online, or show 'away' or something, but it's similar. It also displays how many are online in a channel on a server, and then you can open the list.

Despite that, however, it still feels 'different' to how it was, but I think we're also 'different'. Being (significantly) older now I have more responsibilities and pressures for my time so I'm less likely (like zero chance) to be sitting idle waiting for random chats.

We'd have to ask those who are, now, the age we were then - but then they also have no frame of reference. My son is often chatting to his friends online, but I think they're exclusively friends from meatspace rather than electronic strangers.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#253

Post by BLKNSLVR »

squigz wrote: post #221
tomashubelbauer wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 32 and Discord is the harbinger of getting out of touch with technology for me. It is clearly a great service, because so many people use it and seem happy with it, but it is _not_ for me. And I wish that wasn't the case because Discord is pretty much _the_ spot for the communities I'd like to hang around with. But I wasn't able to get on top of its notification system or get past the gamer heavy UI. Does your fr…

Don't worry - I've been on Discord for years and have ran a community for 6 and still don't understand the notification system.

Thirded.

Sometimes I get notifications about some things, and sometimes I don't. I think it's actually a bit (lot?) broken.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#254

Post by BrenBarn »

donatj wrote: post #20

Mildly reminds me how being online on AIM or ICQ was an actual invitation to chat. I had so many interesting conversations with people I barely knew. There's no source of that signal that someone is open to chitchat these days, and it's in my opinion kind of killed what was once great about online communication.

Yeah, I've thought this for a while now. It's like it used to be you either were available to chat or you weren't, but now it's like everyone is half-available at all times. I agree with other commenters that the fact that you had to be sitting at a desktop was also a factor. Finishing what you were doing and logging into AIM (or taking down your away message) was the equivalent of opening your door, going into the lounge/breakroom, etc. --- a signal of openness to interaction.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#255

Post by BLKNSLVR »

tomashubelbauer wrote: post #209
rockostrich wrote: post #134

I think Discord is the best chat app for friend groups and it's not even close. At this point I've written the following bots specifically for my friend group's server: # Music Quiz Bot Existing apps work ok. A lot of paid and don't let you use a specific Spotify playlist. The only thing annoying about this one is that none of the Discord API wrappers handle audio very well so I've found that this one gets a bit flak…

I'm 32 and Discord is the harbinger of getting out of touch with technology for me. It is clearly a great service, because so many people use it and seem happy with it, but it is _not_ for me. And I wish that wasn't the case because Discord is pretty much _the_ spot for the communities I'd like to hang around with. But I wasn't able to get on top of its notification system or get past the gamer heavy UI. Does your fr…

I managed to get extended family onto Discord. Also have one just for my non-extended family. It works great.

Signal has stuck for a couple of friends, but has decidedly not stuck for anyone else - and the ones it stuck for were either already on it or have a privacy bent.

Signal, back then at least, didn't do group chats, or nowhere near as conveniently as Discord. So much so that I don't even know if Signal does group chats now as I only ever use it for one-on-one.

I set up a Matrix server back then too, didn't take. Discord won.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#256

Post by lurkshark »

sneak wrote: post #182
rockostrich wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're all aware of this and we have multiple people working in the defense industry with high clearances in the server. If something needs to be shared that can't be made public then it doesn't go in Discord. This covers about 99.9% of our correspondences.

The cognitive overhead of remembering where I can talk about what with which people seems exhausting. I deleted all chat apps except Signal from my phone. Signal really should support bots. > can't be made public then it doesn't go in Discord. This covers about 99.9% Sometimes I forget that my friend groups are nothing like most peoples’ friend groups.

> Signal really should support bots.

I feel the same way. If Signal supported bots/an API and “Communities” (in the WhatsApp sense) I’d finally be able to cutover all my use-cases from Discord. I get that the E2EE is a bit tricky for an API, and that you can kind of hack together Communities by just having a couple group chats, but the UX gap is just a little too big

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#257

Post by Larrikin »

bdangubic wrote: post #214
Zak wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone makers keep touting AI features in their phones, but I haven't seen anyone applying it to notifications. Here's my holy grail: the phone should, using on-device processing determine whether I want to be disturbed with a given notification now, when I'm not busy, at a specified time of day, or never.

you gonna sacrifice a shitton of privacy for a very small convenience here…

Their request could be handled by a slightly complex ML model, usage over time by dumb if else statements in an on device program, or trivially by Ollama on a mid computer hosted on a home server.

The default doesn't have to be that all the data must be fed up to a company, computers can actually do a lot without it coming from someone else's server.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#258

Post by bmacho »

hn_acc1 wrote: post #224
gausswho wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like many who lived through this inversion I can absolutely relate. I've culled my notifications substantially and my life is better for it. But I miss that feeling of firing up AIM and seeking out someone to chat with. Or someone spotting my arrival and immediately saying hi. I realized yesterday that I don't use phones like others do. I want to be in airplane mode whenever my phone is locked. Not Do Not Disturb mod…

This. I don't even want my computer to send data / check email unless I tell it to. And I ESPECIALLY don't want it sending telemetry / receiving ads asynchronously.

> This. I don't even want my computer to send data / check email unless I tell it to. And I ESPECIALLY don't want it sending telemetry / receiving ads asynchronously.

This should be the job of the OS, but ironically the OS is the biggest offender.

Should be solvable by a strong firewall/local proxy that blocks everything by default, only allows browser, and has an easy and convenient way to allow some outgoing traffic temporarily.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#259

Post by lazyeye »

dandano wrote: post #231
lazyeye wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do discord events allow for connections to ifttt or zapier? Or even just trigger a webhook? If so then you can trigger a smart light bulb in each persons home via these services. To get this to work you create 2 applets triggered by the same webhook. One to turn the light on, then another to turn it off after a specified delay.

Of course, you can code whatever you want into the event that I hook into - that is my idea for the IoT device I mentioned.

ok then all you need is a mid-tier IFTTT subscription (approx $30 a year) and a TAPO or LIFX wifi smart bulb to set this up.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#260

Post by andrewaylett »

whatevertrevor wrote: post #216
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I don't hang out with people like that. If you can't put down your Distractify 9000 to play a game with me, then clearly I am not very interesting to you and it's better for both of us to do more engaging activities with more engaging people. People bristle at this sometimes- they'll ask why we don't hang out as much and I'll explain- and like, I get it, nobody likes feeling called out or criticized, and I d…

I think there's a mismatch of expectations which is a solid reason to pursue friendships elsewhere. I think the other party in scenarios like this probably assumes (incorrectly of course) that you appreciate the break so you can check your phone too. There's definitely something borked with our brains though. I have had multiple people express surprise when I tell them that I will not check any notifications when I'm…

In the UK, "stopped with the engine running" counts as "driving" for the purposes of smartphone use — no using your phone when stopped at the lights.

Not that the rule stops some people from doing it anyway, of course.

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