Shoutbox

I know this topic has been discussed before here, and I truly apologize for bringing it back up but I believe I've found something that might work or something to consider. Please don’t flood this thread with useless information that has already been discussed in the thread posted above, as they aren’t going to happen.

MP! Detection, a well desired feature in MSG Plus!. Reason why we can not have it: Privacy issues.

Ok, so here's my thinking in MSG plus! There's a feature that allows you to make "personalized status" by adding a suffix of "{status}" to your Display Name, Plus! on your contacts computer, reads and determines that it’s a personal status then displays accordingly. The reason I'm mentioning this, we're saying the status tag is not an invasion of privacy.

Therefor my suggestion is to make a prefix of "[MP]" as the "" would represent the version number. Then the contacts MP! will read and determine by the , that you have -- MSG Plus! x.xx -- then take that prefix and change it into an icon (if possible) to make it more recognizable.

With this when you send a message with MP! content, it will check if your contact has the prefix of [MP] in their name and determine if the contact can receive this feature (if in the future a new features is a valuable, it will still send the content, that a version lower can handle but not the new feature). If your contact does not have [MP] as a prefix, you will be displayed a notice like, "Your contact does not have or is hiding MSG plus! and your message could not be sent. Would you like to /ping?" If your contact can not handle the feature you are sending, it will displayed something like, "Your contact has MSG Plus x.xx and does not support the feature you're sending. Your message was not sent" Your contact will receive a message like, "Your contact has tried to send you MSG Plus! content that is not supported by your version. Would you like to upgrade?"

Just like in the personal status non MSG Plus!'ers see the suffix of {Status} they will see a prefix of [MP]. As I mentioned above I do not believe this would be a privacy issue, as this is an optional tag. You will no longer receive MP! content if turned off, unless your contact has "/ping"ed you and now their MP! will bypass the [MP] check until ether of you log off, but you will still be able to send MSG Plus content.

The reason I have decided to use a prefix is because it’s not privet and it’s more like a “/ping” but in your name. I don’t know if this will work but I thought I’d suggest it.

This is all just an idea and can be changed to work better with the program. Please tell me if this will work, or is a good way to implement it into an already super program. Thanks for your time and comments.

--just a thought that came to my mind thought i'd suggest it. --

It's a good idea actually, although whether it'll get done or not I don't know.

yeah it is too, as long as it doesn't take up too much space in your nickname while using a personalised message. As even though this could be hidden to msgplus users, people not using msgplus would see it.

I just read the whole other thread (man that was long!). This doesn't seem to break an privacy issues here. It looks like a great idea.

*waits for it to get shot down by Cookie

quote:

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Originally posted by Chestah
even though this could be hidden to msgplus users, people not using msgplus would see it.

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If the person allows Plus to put the tag there that is

quote:

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Originally posted by Chestah
As long as it doesn't take up too much space in your nickname while using a personalised message.

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Yeah the [MP] is only a suggestion, could make it shorter. Try it out, put it in your name and tell me if you like the look.
-opinions wanted-

It's enough pain in the ass to see KeyStorm {in bed} (Away) when you don't have Plus! installed, so it would be even worse if there was also a tag prepended to the nickname. This, also, would screw up alphabetic sorting a bit more (format nicknames already does).

I've always supported Plus! Detection. And there are several ways to make a legal detection possible (one of them making a big prompt during installation with no default choice, like in the adware license). Once bypassed this privacy issue, there's lots of ways to make Plus! be recognised and tracked. As it was suggested before, the first nickname sent to a contact in a conversation (conversation nickname is different to the contact list nickname and is internally independent, like proved by Stuffplug and in the same way your personal status tag does not appear in conversations) a similar tag along appended to the nickname and that would be checked by the other Plus!. This would be a subtile and still effective way to have acknowledge the presence of Plus! in the remote contact machine.

And yes, that would make the user experience even better. It would tell the user when certain features are used that they may not work if the contact has still not sent such a Plus! identificator. Now custom sounds have come this makes more sense. Non-Plus! users get to see the ugly sound-ID, as well as all format characters in a nickname and in the text.

However, Patchou is not willing to do this for some reasons I can't seem to understand, because all contras are beaten by all the pro's and still there is no real violation. We can remember that every Plus sends by default user statistics to the server, and it isn't much of a matter someone telling their contacts that they have Plus! installed.
Even worse, it's always a pain to have to ask whether the contact has Plus! or not before you send a custom sound.

My 2 cents.

why not just use /ping ?

quote:

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Originally posted by KeyStorm
However, Patchou is not willing to do this for some reasons I can't seem to understand

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He doesn't want to use the MSN protocol as this can be the cause for more problems and even people blaming Messenger Plus! for *beeping* up their connection and what not...

He also doesn't want Messenger Plus! to connect to the other user directly (P2P) either for the same reasons

(and I totaly understand this and agree with him)

As for the feature: the only benefit will be that you don't have to type /ping (or the likes) manually. In Plus! there are no features which explicitly depend on such a thing.

The ideas of auto-checking if the user can recieve custom sounds or custom names or something are nice, but not mandatory and not practical because such a auto-check feature could always be disabled by the other user (for privacy reasons), making the "benefit" of auto-detecing features which can be used, rather useless. Making the whole auto-detect-plus-version useless...

quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
In Plus! there are no features which explicitly depend on such a thing.

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Custom sounds, text format, nickname formatting and surely some others cause that non-Plus users see a lot of weird things.

quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
He doesn't want to use the MSN protocol as this can be the cause for more problems and even people blaming Messenger Plus! for *beeping* up their connection and what not...

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I didn't talk about protcol reverse-tricking. I said adding certain strings to the first sent message (like for example a transparent smilie with the code (!MP352)) or to the first chat-nickname sent saying hey! I've got this plus version. This is a legal use of the protocol (like using the formatting characters or sending the soundID) that is nearly transparent at human level.

quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
He also doesn't want Messenger Plus! to connect to the other user directly (P2P) either for the same reasons

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This is completely understandable, there is no real need for that.

quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
such a auto-check feature could always be disabled by the other user (for privacy reasons), making the "benefit" of auto-detecing features which can be used, rather useless. Making the whole auto-detect-plus-version useless...

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New setup step:

code:

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Plus! now lets your contacts with Plus! automatically know whether you have Plus! installed or not. This makes a lot easier to use its best features like Custom Sounds and Nickname Colouring. Leave this box checked to enable this feature. If, for privacy reasons, you prefer not to let other Plus!-enabled contacts know you have Plus! installed, uncheck it. This option does neither enable nor disable any Plus! feature, but makes easier to know if some features will work well on your contact's side or not. Either way will still be able to know whether others have Plus! installed or not.

[X] Allow Plus! to silently let others Plus! contacts know you have it installed

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(unchecking this could also disable the /ping response, by default)

Now: how many people would realistically uncheck the option? Who would care that much about privacy to not to let others know the version of your Plus! (and implicitly that they have Plus! installed)?
I don't think that would be many people. As well as very few actually disable the option of sending usage stats to the server.


What happens if you try to send a Custom Sound, for example, to a user that doesn't have Plus! (or that may have that option disabled but you know s/he has). Well, Plus! may show you a dialog telling you:

code:

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Warning: This user may not have Plus! installed. The feature you are trying to use will probably not work as expected on this contact. Are you sure you want to use this feature?
[ ] Don't ask me again for this contact.
[Yes] [No]

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If you know s/he has, check the box and press Yes. If you're not sure, press Yes. If you know s/he doesn't or are too unsure to send the sound, press No. If that contact told you he would never be using Plus! check the box.


I think Plus! should be nice to non-Plus! users. Let me put another example and I'm done, ok?

Name formatting is a pain in the ass for non-Plus!ers and even worse if you coloured your nickname with a rainbow.

When you start to chat with one contact, the first time you say something to the other, the full tagged nickname may be sent along, but the further times, Plus could replace the chat-name with a no color version of it (with no tags) and then two things could happen:
Non-Plus! users would see the nickname well, in plain text, not formatted, but at least without the ugly tags.
Plus! users: Plus! would see "aha, the nickname is the same just without tags, let's remember the tags and replace the nickname with the one with the tags".
Ok, you can say here this would require some cheating with the protocol. But this would not cause anything strange, because what it would do is to cuttoff certain characters and not add odd things to it whatsoever.

This is KeyStorm's dissertation about Plus! Detection for today, expect a lot more in the future

Btw, pleased to see you around, Cookie