You've Got Mail

Don't Can't @ Me

In my first midblog, a fun conversation started in the comments (and beyond!) around how Leaflet doesn't natively support @mentions or quoting.

This led to a larger discussion about how the broader ATProto ecosystem could handle notifications that cross the boundaries of specific apps. A good example of that is @mentions for users who may not have a presence in a particular app or quotes originating from another platform.

The good news is that progress is already being made on the infrastructure side. @bmann.ca informed us in a Leaflet that @bad-example.com has built this into microcosm.

Hell yeah. Infra's ready to go, so now we build. Right?

Wrong

The confusing part here is established above: when I @mention Boris and Phil, should the notifications arrive on Bsky or Leaflet? I've @mentioned their Bsky profiles, but I've also mentioned a post on Boris' Leaflet publication and Phil's spacedust repo on Tangled. They also both have a presence on Leaflet, and I @mentioned on Leaflet so...uh...?

This cross-app interaction is powerful, but also quickly overloads and overlaps the responsibilities expected of modern services.

Unified AT Inbox

Perhaps the ability for a user to set a notifications inbox is a path forward. By default, let the platform owner decide where things end up, because not every user will need a dedicated cross-app inbox. But there's space here for notification managers that span across the ecosystem for those of us embedding ourselves deeper into the ATProto ecosystem.

With a dedicated inbox, users can:

• Set common filters across apps
• Choose which kind of notifications open which apps
• Avoid duplicate pings from platforms that have overlapping notification systems
• Choose which apps should skip the inbox and show up on the originating platform

This is obviously heavily inspired by the Android notification system, but that's because I don't like to mess with perfection.

Continued Brainstorming

This is just an early brainstorm, but I'm sure there are other folks who have already been thinking through it. I wanted to share this early so you can tell me if I'm over- or underthinking this.

So, send me your thoughts, please!

Side note: I'm also kinda selfishly starting this conversation since a unified inbox can also be applied to users who bridge from ActivityPub. I want this as an ATProto user, but allowing ActivityPub users to set their account as a notifications inbox would help with further fragmentation as well.