From what I can tell, it seems to be notification of new posts in your subscribed communities. I know it seems like a lot, but remember that Lemmy used to have about 100 active users 18 months ago. Having 50k users is a pretty recent thing, and definitely happened after this option was added.
I've enabled it and will report back once I get a notification.
Came to post that I just tried to activate the setting out of curiosity (on lemmy.ml and lemm.ee), and there seems to be a block against it.
The following message appeared in the browser console:
The Notification permission may only be requested from inside a short running user-generated event handler.
So I'm guessing it got turned off at some point or it's optional for instance admins?
How certain are you of what it's supposed to do?
Did it actually register in the settings for you? (When I tried to activate it and save, lemmy sort of updated itself without the setting on ... that may have happened to you too)
The following message appeared in the browser console:
I don't get this, but also I have already blocked browser notifications so maybe that's why I don't see it. My assumption though is that the notifications aren't only browser notifications, but follow the normal Lemmy notification process of browser (if enabled), notification icon, and email (if enabled).
Did it actually register in the settings for you? (When I tried to activate it and save, lemmy sort of updated itself without the setting on … that may have happened to you too)
It didn't! It clears when I try to turn it on. I didn't notice the first time!
How certain are you of what it’s supposed to do?
Not at all! I just read around some old github issues, but to be honest I never saw anything concrete.
So I’m guessing it got turned off at some point or it’s optional for instance admins?
I'm an instance admin, so it's not that. On Beehaw (running previous version of Lemmy, 0.18.4 instead of 0.19.5) it lets you enable it, so it must have broken somewhat recently (in the last 6 months). But I didn't seem to get a notification despite a new post appearing in a community I'm subscribed to.
So now I'm even less certain of what it is than I was in my first post, when I wasn't very certain.
I don’t get this, but also I have already blocked browser notifications so maybe that’s why I don’t see it.
I’m talking about the dev tools in the browser, not any notifications or anything. That this message appears in the console indicates that it’s broken in some way, as it’s an error message.
In fact my guess would be that the option is a vestige from back when lemmy kept the page constantly up to date with live updates. It’s was way too resource intensive so they let it go and maybe didn’t clean this up.
I’m talking about the dev tools in the browser, not any notifications or anything. That this message appears in the console indicates that it’s broken in some way, as it’s an error message.
Yeah I understood that, but I don't see that error. I do see like 10 other ones though, but not related to this setting!
In fact my guess would be that the option is a vestige from back when lemmy kept the page constantly up to date with live updates. It’s was way too resource intensive so they let it go and maybe didn’t clean this up.
I think you're right. I found it on this page in the docs. It talks about it being a pop-up notification, which used to happen back when Lemmy used websockets to update the page in real time.
This docs seem to nail it down. Couldn’t find that. Thanks!
I had searched yesterday and couldn't find it, but had another go and managed to find it.
I also asked in the Matrix lemmy general chat but no one seemed to know. Might get an answer from a dev at some point but I'm beginning to suspect it does nothing anymore.
Well the error I got in the browser suggests it needs to be in a web socket session or something, so there’s a chance the underlying backend code is still around and functional.
I’ve actually figured bringing the live updates thing back for temporary live chats could be an awesome feature.
Having so many people permanently connected to the server wasn't manageable for the early Lemmy software, and I doubt that has changed. WebSockets made more sense when Lemmy users were measured in the hundreds.
The notifications were super annoying once the userbase started to take off!
Oh I know ... I'm thinking of a feature where any community is allotted a certain amount of "live chat time" where they can run a websocket session for live chats. Presumably there's a way to manage the resource overhead and get to a sweet spot. Plus, instead of updating everything, it'd only have to be comments in a single post.
Oh I get what you mean now. Yeah, live threads are probably fine. There wouldn't be the same overhead of every single user being permanently connected to the server, only the ones actually on the thread. So long as every thread wasn't a live one it would probably be fine.
To be fair, the existing polling solution might be able to be leveraged for this as well. I think it's probably not so much a technical challenge as it is a nice to have feature when Lemmy doesn't have a lot of must have features (though it's improving).
Lemmy doesn’t have a lot of must have features (though it’s improving)
Fair, though I’m increasingly thinking multi-communities are pretty much “must-have”
It would be nice, but remember we are in a position where there is no way for a user to report something to admins. If someone sets up a community and puts illegal things in it, they can just quickly close the reports and they will disappear from the admins report view.
Lemmy also saves images for thumbnails in full resolution, and has no clearing of this copy, meaning the image storage just grows and grows.
Multi-communities are way down the list!
Fair!
As an admin … do you think there’d be scope to build and provide a moderation plug-in?
I figure it could be a separate sideloaded server that calls the lemmy API and/or DB as necessary. This way it can be a separate project, be developed more experimentally in a less performance oriented fashion (I’m thinking a Python flask app) as it’s only mods and admins using it, and if it requires work from core lemmy devs should only ever need a new API endpoint (which is less onerous than a whole new feature).
Adding a link to it in the default lemmy UI for mods shouldn’t be too hard either.
There are a bunch of tools already! Some of the alternate frontends have extra tools to help, plus there are auto-mod tools as well. See this page:
https://github.com/dbeley/awesome-lemmy?tab=readme-ov-file#tools
I would expect a multi-reddit type function could be built in an app or frontend without needing core Lemmy changes too. Isn't it just a matter of pulling the data from each community and displaying it in one combined feed?
I would expect a multi-reddit type function could be built in an app or frontend without needing core Lemmy changes too. Isn’t it just a matter of pulling the data from each community and displaying it in one combined feed?
Yea ... but then each front end would need to implement it. Seems like some useful API endpoints would be better so the clients can just focus on the GUI.
awesome-lemmy has definitely gotten more awesome since I last saw it (IE, there are more things there)!!
Though I'm not sure there's anything there quite touching on what I'm thinking about. I regularly hear about the lack of good moderation tools/interfaces ... so I figure it makes sense to start a single project that's relatively fast moving and comfortable with function creep to give admins/mods the tools or at least interface they want and need. The auto-mod stuff is important too, but the sense I get is that mods and admins feel somewhat blind and helpless with the tools as they are, which feels ripe to me for a richer interface.
Yea … but then each front end would need to implement it.
The mods/admins would just have to use the one with the functionality. Isn't that the same as your proposal? I'm not sure I follow what makes it different.
Oh sorry ... I was talking about multi-communities, like for every user not just mods/admins.
Ah right. Because I think you could build it into a frontend or app and anyone using that app would be able to see a feed of joined up communities.
I'm not sure how a different implementation would work. There is a lot of public/private key stuff happening in ActivityPub so you can be sure that the federated posts are actually coming from the community you subscribe to and the users it claims wrote them.
If you work it out I'd be interested to see!
FYI, a Lemmy dev confirmed this setting doesn't actually exist in the database anymore. A relic of times gone by, and it's going to be removed in the next version.
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