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.