Privacy Rewrite GSoC Project

John Bailey rekkanoryo at rekkanoryo.org
Wed Aug 5 10:00:15 EDT 2009


Mark Doliner wrote:
> I don't think it's wise to empty the block list stored on the server.
> I think people expect that list to remain in tact, and if they use
> another IM client at another location they'll be confused/annoyed that
> they're block list is empty.  In this case my vote would be to not
> have an "allow all users" option for MSN.

In some cases you're going to *have* to empty the server-side block list to
achieve the privacy setting the user wants, whether you like it or not.
Particularly on protocols where you don't have an option "Allow all users" at
the protocol level.  How else do you say you don't want to block anyone?

> Hmm, I wonder if this will be easy for users to figure out?  I wonder
> if maybe it would be better if the list of blocked users was more
> closely related to the privacy state for some protocols, and less
> closely related to the privacy state for others.
<snip>

Doing this sounds like all you want to accomplish is changing the UI and
forgetting about any changes to the core.  That defeats the abstraction I and
several others were aiming for.  We may be creating a system that's too powerful
for users *at first*, but providing a unified interface with the option of more
granularity and flexibility will be better for us long-term.  We abstract
various features in the different protocols anyway; this should be no different.

John

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