[listener] allow user to make history public / private

Proposal voted on assembly Oct 23.

By default, a user’s history will be private. But should a user wish to share:

As an authed user, I can toggle on/off whether I want the list of tracks on my history page (henceforth “history”) to be public to other authed users. I can set what date range to share, including “all time”.

As an authed user, I can navigate to another user’s profile and see the public history for the date range they shared. I can listen to the tracks using the same UI as available on the /tracks page (click on one track and the system plays the track, then the next track, then the next track)

As an authed third-party developer, I can use the API to see the public history of users who have opted to share all or a subsection of their history to build playlisting / musical exploration tools

The UI (fine print) should also remind user that they can share specific sets of tracks by creating a playlist.

Previous Notes / Versions
  • As an authed user, I can toggle on/off whether I want the list of tracks on my history page (henceforth “history”) to be public to other authed users. I can set what date range to share, including “all time”.
  • As an authed user, I can navigate to another user’s profile and see the public history for the date range they shared. I can listen to the tracks using the same UI as available on the /tracks page (click on one track and the system plays the track, then the next track, then the next track)
  • As an authed third-party developer, I can use the API to see the public history of users who have opted to share all or a subsection of their history to build playlisting / musical exploration tools

updates per :earth_americas: Community Assembly 2 | October 16th

If a user decide to share their history, the user can an interval (number and unit) from which to share through now. For example, one of:

  • tracks with plays from 5 days ago through now
  • tracks with plays from 1 week ago through now
  • tracks with plays from 2 months ago through now
  • tracks with plays from 4 months ago through now

as time passes what would be shared would stay the same ‘interval ago’ but would be the more recent interval. ‘1 day ago - now’ on Thursday would be Wednesday - Thursday, on Friday it would be Thursday - Friday.

The UI (fine print) should also remind user that they can share specific sets of tracks by creating a playlist.

3 Likes

🌎 Community Assembly 2 | October 16th liked this proposal. They decided it should be refined more through forum discussion before implementation.

It reminded some participants of Last.fm’s “Music neighbors” feature which they enjoyed.

@llk: "We should clarify the level of user control over their history (can they delete parts of their history that they don’t want to see appear or is an on/off switch for the entire history? Can they clear their history so it doesn’t appear anymore? If users would not want to share particular parts of their history, they should not share their history and share other things like playlists (or favorites). If it turns into ‘users should be able to edit the past’, this feature may become unfeasible. A compromise could be: ‘user can pick what date range to share’. We should clarify if members want other features (possibility to find “music neighbors” through history comparison? other features?)

updated based on comments @Hakanto

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Excellent clarifications, @boopboop!

What do you think about adding a relative range? For example:

  • Last 2 weeks
  • Last 3 months

Updated to be just the choice of interval through now, since it keeps the past in the past and still has some sharing.

If the user really wants to be picky about what they share, they shouldn’t use this feature and instead make a public playlist.

Sorry to come back to it because I get that this is more intense work UI wise so not as immediate to go for, but I still think a “clear history” option should be proposed, not exactly in the sense of it being useful to others, but rather as one more control over something we’ve talked about a lot here which is digital dignity.

I’m assuming people’s data on Resonate are their own? If so this should mean they can, if they feel so inclined, delete their entire history.

It doesn’t need to be a huge red button that’s always there, it’ll probably be a niche feature that would only concern people who are especially preocupated with their online privacy. But in an age where our data are harnessed as a power tool by most platforms, I would at least want some clarifications as to “who owns the history data / who gets to control it / who gets to delete it / how”.

Again, I’m only posting this because I think it matters, and I would be perfectly ok if in the meantime, we just implement an on/off switch for public/private history, in the spirit of not stalling the entire proposition because of one feature. If it could be added to the proposition that further considerations of user control over their history data can be explored, I’d be happy with that, and also, if I can have someone enlighten me as to legally who owns the data as of now on the platform, that’d be lovely as well.

@LLK GDPR mandates that resonate must allow users to delete their data, currently this requirement is met via an invitation for users to contact support to ask for this, after which an admin would do it manually.

Allowing users to delete their own play history (as opposed to contact support) imo should be a separate feature/proposal than this one, since it would have non-trivial impacts on other parts of the system.

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Completely OK to make this another proposal for the sake of simplicity if it requires non-trivial work.

1 Like