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What happens if I want to PM someone but they're still not signed up for ClauChat? You should probably also answer this on your page.

JoeCortopassi 10y ago
Most people that want to be available on HN have a form of contact in their about profile, we use that to connect you out of band until they sign up, if they choose to sign up
todd3834 10y ago
We are considering a few things. Our first pass is to use mechanical turk so that we get the email address from the profile page and send an email with the message. We want to be sure not to bother people who truly don't want to participate so we are working on a solution to make sure this doesn't turn into a way to spam HN users.
- zitterbewegung 10y ago
  Please don't do this I really would want this opt in . If I were you I would disregard the message .
  - todd3834 10y ago
    I'm very sensitive to this issue as a long time HN user I don't want to get spammed. However, as I was brainstorming this I came to this conclusion: If you put your email address in your HN profile you are opting in to people being able to reach you. ClapChat will just be a client for doing that easily and we will do everything to make sure a bot can't abuse this. For starters, you have to be authenticated to send a message so we can tell if someone is abusing the system and spamming people. Secondly, you can unsubscribe from ClapChat emails so that it will never bother you. This is something I feel we can strike a balance with, open to any feedback and ideas people have.
    - grzm 10y ago
      I reiterate your parent: please don't do this. Scraping a resource for email addresses and sending unsolicited email would be understood by a lot of people as spam. This would be different if they put something like the following in their profile: clap.chat: myemail@example.com Edit: spelling
      - todd3834 10y ago
        > Scrapping a resource for email addresses and sending unsolicited email would be understood by a lot of people as spam We don't even want to dance the line with spam. Thanks for the feedback. What if when you try to message a user who hasn't signed up and it opens their profile page and the user can type in the email address manually if it is available. Then we don't have to pay for mechanical turk and the user is just using ClapChat as their email client in a way. I'm convinced we can crack this nut in a way that works and doesn't bother people :)
        grzm 10y ago
        I appreciate the dilemma: you understandably want to limit the friction in connecting HN members, and one of the means by which you're considering doing so has historically been abused so people are sensitive to it. I think 'zitterbewegung still has the right idea: it needs to be opt-in.
        foota 10y ago
        I don't see an issue with having a user type in an email address from someone's profile. Like the parent says in this case they're basically just using clapchat as their email client. Perhaps they could even set-up an SMTP gateway such that hn users could receive clapchats from emails sent to them @clapchat.io or whatever. Then maybe in the email they send have a tasteful link to also sign-up for clapchat. Edit: upon thinking about it more, it might be better to randomly generate an address used for each conversation, to prevent a spammer from sending email to someone's @clapchat address
- peteretep 10y ago
  Seems to be a lot of dissent around this idea. I think if you send the original message to my email, and make reply-to without your app easy (or transparent or whatever), then you're just making it easier for other users to email me and that's OK. If I have to sign up to your service to read or reply to the message then it would be spam.
  - JoeCortopassi 10y ago
    That's how we have it :-) Albeit with a call to action in the footer of the message to sign up. If you, don't though it will continue to work
kowdermeister 10y ago
My suggestion would be that the extension should display a speech bubble icon next to the usernames their service recognizes.

JoeCortopassi 10y ago

Most people that want to be available on HN have a form of contact in their about profile, we use that to connect you out of band until they sign up, if they choose to sign up

todd3834 10y ago

We are considering a few things. Our first pass is to use mechanical turk so that we get the email address from the profile page and send an email with the message. We want to be sure not to bother people who truly don't want to participate so we are working on a solution to make sure this doesn't turn into a way to spam HN users.

zitterbewegung 10y ago
Please don't do this I really would want this opt in . If I were you I would disregard the message .
- todd3834 10y ago
  I'm very sensitive to this issue as a long time HN user I don't want to get spammed. However, as I was brainstorming this I came to this conclusion: If you put your email address in your HN profile you are opting in to people being able to reach you. ClapChat will just be a client for doing that easily and we will do everything to make sure a bot can't abuse this. For starters, you have to be authenticated to send a message so we can tell if someone is abusing the system and spamming people. Secondly, you can unsubscribe from ClapChat emails so that it will never bother you. This is something I feel we can strike a balance with, open to any feedback and ideas people have.
  - grzm 10y ago
    I reiterate your parent: please don't do this. Scraping a resource for email addresses and sending unsolicited email would be understood by a lot of people as spam. This would be different if they put something like the following in their profile: clap.chat: myemail@example.com Edit: spelling
    - todd3834 10y ago
      > Scrapping a resource for email addresses and sending unsolicited email would be understood by a lot of people as spam We don't even want to dance the line with spam. Thanks for the feedback. What if when you try to message a user who hasn't signed up and it opens their profile page and the user can type in the email address manually if it is available. Then we don't have to pay for mechanical turk and the user is just using ClapChat as their email client in a way. I'm convinced we can crack this nut in a way that works and doesn't bother people :)
      - grzm 10y ago
        I appreciate the dilemma: you understandably want to limit the friction in connecting HN members, and one of the means by which you're considering doing so has historically been abused so people are sensitive to it. I think 'zitterbewegung still has the right idea: it needs to be opt-in.
        foota 10y ago
        I don't see an issue with having a user type in an email address from someone's profile. Like the parent says in this case they're basically just using clapchat as their email client. Perhaps they could even set-up an SMTP gateway such that hn users could receive clapchats from emails sent to them @clapchat.io or whatever. Then maybe in the email they send have a tasteful link to also sign-up for clapchat. Edit: upon thinking about it more, it might be better to randomly generate an address used for each conversation, to prevent a spammer from sending email to someone's @clapchat address
peteretep 10y ago
Seems to be a lot of dissent around this idea. I think if you send the original message to my email, and make reply-to without your app easy (or transparent or whatever), then you're just making it easier for other users to email me and that's OK. If I have to sign up to your service to read or reply to the message then it would be spam.
- JoeCortopassi 10y ago
  That's how we have it :-) Albeit with a call to action in the footer of the message to sign up. If you, don't though it will continue to work

kowdermeister 10y ago

My suggestion would be that the extension should display a speech bubble icon next to the usernames their service recognizes.