https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/lx08r2/announcing_online_presence_indicators/
created by lift_ticket83 on 03/03/2021 at 18:05 UTC
0 upvotes, 249 top-level comments (showing 25)
Howdy, Fellow Redditors
Starting today we’re going to begin running a new prototype feature that displays whether or not users are actively online via an Online Presence Indicator. This indicator will appear on your profile avatar as a green dot if you’re active and online, and will only appear next to your posts and comments.
The intent of this feature is to drive greater engagement amongst our users and encourage more posts and comments across the site. We believe Online Presence Indicators could be beneficial to some of our communities where we see more real-time discussions unfolding (r/CasualConversation or r/caps) and to our smaller communities where some users may be hesitant to post or comment because they’re unsure whether or not there are active users within the community.
A few things to call out:
https://i.redd.it/rsa2mt5nluk61.gif
https://i.redd.it/8hggkgtnluk61.gif
I’m sure you’ve got them! Our team will be hanging out in the comments to answer them and can address any additional feedback or suggestions that you might have.
Comment by lift_ticket83 at 16/03/2021 at 19:31 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Hello again, Reddit
Last week we announced the first phase of a new feature, Online Presence Indicator[1]. Thank you to everyone for the feedback on that post and for raising the concerns that many of you had.
1: https://new.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/lx08r2/announcing_online_presence_indicators/
We’re back today to better address several of the safety and privacy considerations for this feature, in addition to letting you know about our latest rollout plans.
Several user concerns brought up in last week’s post were already being incorporated in updates we were making to the feature prior to the next rollout phase, and we’ve also made a few new changes based on feedback from you all. All of these updates and changes are outlined below:
Starting this week, we’re going to roll out a public-facing version of this feature to 10% of our Android users. That subset of Android users will be able to see the presence indicators of any other users who have toggled the feature “On.” If you have toggled the feature “Off” no one will be able to view that decision and no indicator would show up next to your avatar.
Over the coming weeks and months we will gradually roll this out to more users and we will be sure to update this post as we go along. We’ll also be utilizing our announcement banner to keep users up to date on our progress and our latest rollout plans with this feature.
Comment by ani625 at 03/03/2021 at 18:22 UTC
317 upvotes, 10 direct replies
Comment by Nerdlinger at 03/03/2021 at 18:52 UTC
152 upvotes, 3 direct replies
If you do not want to display your status indicator, you can opt-out of this feature by clicking into your profile (on the redesign or in-app) and toggling off “Online.” Your new online status will be “Hiding.” See the below examples for how this works on both desktop and in-app:
No, no, no. Holy hyperfuck no.
This bullshit should be **opt-in**, not opt-out.
Comment by SuitingUncle620 at 03/03/2021 at 19:11 UTC*
136 upvotes, 7 direct replies
Sorry, who asked for this?
You guys seem hellbent on focusing on stuff *no one* has fucking asked for. All of you should be ashamed of yourselves.
You’ve destroyed the mobile app too. Feedback is *never* taken into account anymore. Screw you guys seriously.
Comment by [deleted] at 03/03/2021 at 19:03 UTC*
108 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[removed]
Comment by MoralMidgetry at 03/03/2021 at 18:19 UTC
284 upvotes, 8 direct replies
Why the fuck is presence information public by default?
Comment by [deleted] at 03/03/2021 at 18:32 UTC*
80 upvotes, 3 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by SweetJibbaJams at 03/03/2021 at 19:01 UTC
79 upvotes, 2 direct replies
As a mod, this is an absolute nightmare of a feature.
Comment by justcool393 at 03/03/2021 at 18:08 UTC
210 upvotes, 10 direct replies
I'm a little confused about the purpose given the asynchronous nature of Reddit
Comment by x647 at 03/03/2021 at 19:04 UTC*
139 upvotes, 4 direct replies
From `"www.reddit.com/prefs"` > Click profile icon (top right corner) > Turn off (Uncheck) "Online Status" from menu
Else use:
From `https://old.reddit.com/settings/` > Scroll down to "Display options" > Turn off (Uncheck) "let others see my online status"
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^((*Videos provided by admin lift_ticket83))
^(Edit Note: op) ^(`u/lift_ticket83`) ^(DID provide 2 examples to turn off the new feature (new reddit & Mobile) ^(in the main post, but everyone seems to TL;DR and jump to the comments for rage. Just re-shared for the comment surfers.))
Comment by pornypornporner at 03/03/2021 at 18:35 UTC
58 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Please allow permanent disabling of this feature.
I, especially, don't want anyone to know when this account is online.
Comment by [deleted] at 03/03/2021 at 18:56 UTC
52 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by [deleted] at 03/03/2021 at 19:13 UTC
50 upvotes, 3 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by eriophora at 03/03/2021 at 19:00 UTC*
46 upvotes, 2 direct replies
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/beta/comments/lx3aw8/feedback_a_collection_of_concerns_about_the_new/
Hi there! I am one of the mods over at r/Fantasy. In the past, we have had users who have been victims of large-scale harassment campaigns. I am worried how a feature like this could be abused by groups to target our community members.
I don't think that showing as "hiding" is a good alternative. It would be much better for this to work like all other online indicators, where "invisible" shows as offline. Being set to "hiding" would just offer one more avenue of harassment and would likely escalate issues when targets are perceived as responding to the harassment by changing their online status.
Even on a smaller scale, I believe this would encourage faster, more vitriolic escalations in the slap-fights we already have to spend a great deal of time and energy moderating. Now, rather than having a chance to step away and use the rest of reddit, someone may continue commenting if they do not receive a response because they see that the person is online. This is not the type of increased engagement that is good for anyone. This may happen either in thread or encourage chats/DMs outside of it. We have frequently had lackluster responses from the admin to this type of smaller scale harassment, and I do not wish to see it increase.
Can you address these concerns?
Comment by julian88888888 at 03/03/2021 at 18:51 UTC
83 upvotes, 5 direct replies
What’s not being said is Users don’t hate change. Users hate change that doesn't make their life better…
This doesn't make my life better.
Sincerely,
- mod of /r/ProductManagement
Comment by h0nest_Bender at 03/03/2021 at 18:27 UTC
76 upvotes, 2 direct replies
If you do not want to display your status indicator, you can opt-out
It should be opt-in.
Comment by Naouak at 03/03/2021 at 18:41 UTC
37 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Will this *ALWAYS* be off if I turned this off now? You've reactivated several times notifications on the mobile apps to users, I don't want to broadcast to every one when I'm checking reddit because it was turned on again in an update.
Comment by creesch at 03/03/2021 at 18:08 UTC*
130 upvotes, 5 direct replies
you can opt-out of this feature by clicking into your profile (on the redesign or in-app) and toggling off “Online.” Your new online status will be “Hiding.” See the below examples for how this works on both desktop and in-app:
That is **not** opt-out though, that is just a bit of a fuck you to people not wanting to be dragged into a game of "but you were online so why didn't you respond" by just shifting to "why are you hiding your online status".
Why not make it a proper opt-out like any other tool providing an online indicator that just shows you as offline?
Comment by [deleted] at 03/03/2021 at 19:09 UTC
34 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by PotRoastPotato at 03/03/2021 at 18:36 UTC
63 upvotes, 3 direct replies
This **really** should not be opt-out.
Comment by Bardfinn at 03/03/2021 at 19:18 UTC
227 upvotes, 17 direct replies
I have a question:
Those of us who are chronically harassed and stalked -- how do we opt out of this manner of broadcasting telemetry altogether?
Those of us who moderate communities where literal hundreds and thousands of accounts join and wait for "the mods are asleep" to attempt to deluge the community with shock porn, hateful image macros, rape threats, death threats, ASCII image art depicting pornography and scatological acts -- How do we opt out of this manner of broadcasting telemetry altogether?
Those of us who have been unlucky enough to have been doxxed, and for whom this manner of telemetry broadcast will alert the people who want to rape and murder us that we are home -- or out of the house -- or asleep -- how do we opt out of this manner of broadcast telemetry?
What will this broadcast telemetry do to make Reddit safer to use for women and gender / sexual minorities?
Will this be turned on by default for everyone? Will it be turned off by default for everyone?
Can the "Hiding" status indicator label be changed to something that doesn't convey an active intent and agency?
I ***do not want*** this feature on my account. I don't want "Online", I don't want "Not Online". I don't want "Available" or "Not Available". I don't want "Away" or "AFK" or anything like that.
I want -- when people retrieve the .JSON that describes my account's metadata, for this field to not be filled by `NULL` as a value, but to be *entirely absent from the dictionary*.
Comment by kunstlich at 03/03/2021 at 20:01 UTC
77 upvotes, 2 direct replies
From your privacy policy[1], emphasis mine.
1: https://www.redditinc.com/policies/privacy-policy
Reddit only shares nonpublic information about you in the following ways. We do not sell this information.
**With your consent. We may share information about you with your consent or at your direction.**
Whether I am online or not is not public information. I did not consent to this change as it is opt-out, not opt-in. Implied consent is a slope Reddit has been happy to slide down in the past, so this does not surprise me in the slightest.
Comment by [deleted] at 03/03/2021 at 19:22 UTC
25 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The intent of this feature is to drive greater engagement amongst our users and encourage more posts and comments across the site. We believe Online Presence Indicators could be beneficial to some of our communities where we see more real-time discussions unfolding (r/CasualConversation or r/caps) and to our smaller communities where some users may be hesitant to post or comment because they’re unsure whether or not there are active users within the community.
Based on what? Who came to you and said *"I would post more if I could see an ocean of green dots next to usernames"*? Who came to you and said *"Our community is dying and if there were little green dots we think it'd come back to life?"* Did you do some kind of survey or research? What questions did you ask? What were the results?
Because in all honesty, the fact that you're going with opt-out instead of opt-in says very clearly to me that you are being disingenuous. If you really thought that users wanted this, I think you wouldn't be tricking them into having it enabled by default and hiding this announcement in a sub that almost nobody reads. And that makes me feel like your explanation of intent is just post hoc PR and not the real reason.
Comment by brandonsmash at 03/03/2021 at 19:56 UTC
45 upvotes, 3 direct replies
“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
Comment by Security_Chief_Odo at 03/03/2021 at 21:00 UTC
25 upvotes, 1 direct replies
/u/spez /u/lift_ticket83 /u/KeyserSosa /u/Chtorrr /u/sodypop
I'm in this post and I **DON'T LIKE IT**.
Why are you adding more features for unscrupulous users to abuse and harass other users with? I echo what others have said below, this is not well thought out. This is a useless feature. I don't care who is online on reddit and I don't want people to know when I'm online on reddit. **If I want to engage with a user I'll leave them a comment**. Guess what, they get a PM (if they enabled it in options) about comment replies!
Do you see that? **OPT IN** feature for comment notifications, and **asynchronous communications**. It does not matter one iota to another redditor, or to me, that the person I am replying to is online right now, or not. It Does Not Matter.
You think this will 'drive engagement' or whatever the damn marketing term is, but you're wrong. You realize a lot of reddit users reddit at work? *(read as, slacking off not working , instead reading reddit)*. When this new presence icon, people will be able to see when I'm redditing. So I guess I'll have to stop keeping a reddit tab open and actually work occasionally. There goes the 'online user presence'.
