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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

#61

Post by jedimastert »

Arainach wrote: post #54

I didn't see this in the article, but why not just organize the games in a Discord text channel? Discord has very granular notifications that seem the perfect solution here, so folks can see there are unread messages in #games, and the folks gaming are already on the server. One big noisy chat for everything is an antipattern, as any group of sufficient size eventually learns.

Also this might be a premature optimization issue, it seems like the friend group is only five people and probably very unlikely to grow

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

#62

Post by nottorp »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #50
bartread wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and the channels that are available... well, here's an example. I'm a member of a couple of professional WhatsApp groups... both of which are so notification heavy that I've permanently muted them, and therefore never visit and as a result derive no benefit from. And, at least for me, there's something about WhatsApp that makes it unamenable to the kind of dip in and out interaction you used to get with IM serv…

That's the problem with phone apps. They either spam you with notifications or you forget to open them. Desktop IRC clients were more available for passive checking whenever you glanced at the window, but out of the way otherwise.

You can treat whatsapp as an irc client, it's all in your head :)

I have multiple friend groups on whatsapp - i just check them once in a while to see if anything interesting was posted. All the chat apps I'm on are muted and the mute is muted again to make sure.

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

#63

Post by jedimastert »

IAmBroom wrote: post #53
dkersten wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the early days of Skype and Google talk, calling random strangers and… actually having a conversation with them. I remember they were always confused and surprised to get a random call from a stranger, but were almost always happy to chat anyway!

Sounds exactly like ham radio operators.

Wait hold on, I think you're genuinely onto something here.

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

#64

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

m-hodges wrote: post #40

This is great. For years I’ve been wanting to solve the “link problem” in my Signal group. My friends post a ton of great links that get lost in the scrollback and I’d love a way to get just a dedicated queue. I’ve thought about things like a private subreddit or even just a different link group; but everything just felt like moving the problem and change management. Great to see this type of solution worked for you!

I think Signal should just create a pin option like how discord and a lot of others have.

But in the meantime if I had to genuinely suggest a method without any friction if you are okay with using code like the author did, then I'd suggest something and lemme know what you think

Why don't you just create a special emoji that would only be used for the purposes of Pin, like (Oh the irony), and then have a signal cli or signal-bot https://github.com/signal-bot/signal-bot where you could do something like /pins and it would show the pins but you would need a different mobile number or account for that and honestly just a big hassle. I could think of other ways but we would never reach the native User experience that signal could provide if it would allow pin natively

EDIT: Even a more simpler way could be if we could just search the chat emojis and we could just search and it would show it

Also I am surprised that HN doesn't allow emojis

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

#65

Post by stndef »

IAmBroom wrote: post #56
f3b5 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is a pretty cool hardware project, I would be quite annoyed to be your partner. No offense, but it almost reads as satire that you want to flash LEDs in every corner of the house if your wife doesn't look at her phone notifications quickly enough.

No offense, but your privilege is offensively visible. Deaf people need this.

Yup! I have significant hearing loss to the point that I'm useless without hearing aids.

I'm going to take this idea for my partner to use to get my attention if needed. Having it tie into Home Assistant is a win for me as well.

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

#66

Post by 101008 »

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.

This is something I've always wanted to write about, and I imagine that someday I'll end up with a long article, but basically, it's the idea that the internet used to be offline by default, and now it's online by default.

People used to be offline by default. You had to “connect to the internet.” Open MSN, go into forums and check the latest unread messages, come back from a concert and manually upload the photos to your Fotolog or wherever. Now it's the opposite. We are online by default. The expectation is that we're always connected and respond quickly. Going to a sports event or a concert? You have to post a story to Instagram from that very place, not when you get home. Someone sends you an email or a WhatsApp message? You’re expected to reply as soon as possible.

That’s what I miss most about the internet—the idea and the feeling that I would go online when I wanted to, not that I lived inside the internet 24/7.

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

#68

Post by apps4datr2025 »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #64
m-hodges wrote: post #40

This is great. For years I’ve been wanting to solve the “link problem” in my Signal group. My friends post a ton of great links that get lost in the scrollback and I’d love a way to get just a dedicated queue. I’ve thought about things like a private subreddit or even just a different link group; but everything just felt like moving the problem and change management. Great to see this type of solution worked for you!

I think Signal should just create a pin option like how discord and a lot of others have. But in the meantime if I had to genuinely suggest a method without any friction if you are okay with using code like the author did, then I'd suggest something and lemme know what you think Why don't you just create a special emoji that would only be used for the purposes of Pin, like (Oh the irony), and then have a signal cli o…

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

#69

Post by apps4datr2025 »

mebizzle wrote: post #51
aCodeCrafter wrote: post #19

This is really interesting as a way to keep people connected on a regular basis. I wonder if something similar could be done for groups who aren't necessarily into gaming: like say a "virtual fireplace" where folks could just pop into a call and talk

Discord is already like that for a lot of niche communities and fandoms that aren't necessarily gaming; it just all evolved on a gaming-focused platform.

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

#70

Post by sgarland »

DrillShopper wrote: post #42
thedanbob wrote: post #24

> I also had this idea to turn this into an IoT device that has 5 RGB lights and sits on your desk. It would light up when each friend you have delegated joins your Discord voice channel and you could customize the colour for each friend. If I get some traction I might turn it into a real product, so email me at my email address in my about page if that seems something you'd like. Hah, I'm also building something lik…

My partner is disabled, and my home office is far enough from the bedroom/her work desk that I sometimes can't hear her when she could use, wants, or needs help. These very different priorities make messaging me difficult for her sometimes, not to mention that I can't know what the urgency is if she messages me over SMS/Signal/etc. As a result, we were looking into a very similar system where we each have an LED sign…

That’s a great idea! I remember on an Android phone - maybe Galaxy Nexus, or the original Pixel - you could blink an LED with different colors for different app notifications. I had blue, yellow, red, and green for various apps, and so without ever having the screen turn on or the device make sounds, I could tell if I should bother to check.

To me, not having any sensory disabilities, that’s a lower cognitive load than banners or other text/icon-based notifications.

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