@itai Yes, I do see your suggestion as an intermediate and feasible position. Although I must say that the possibility of being tagged by others should be disable by default, and that is a point I consider central and very important, and not just a matter of policy of use.

I don't think that we need that feature but here is an idea to solve the privacy issue if anyone would like to implement it:

When implementing this feature we have to deal with "bad pods" which could allow tagging users without their permission. Therefore users should only be able to tag themselves in photos. They are able to add a tag but there is no way to associate another user with that tag so the only user that is associated with that tag is the user who added it.

We could allow contacts to send a "message" to a user and ask him to tag himself on a photo. We could even implement a feature "automatically add a tag if a contact suggests it" but IMO it should be always the user who tags himself.

When implementing this feature we have to deal with “bad pods” which could allow tagging users without their permission. Therefore users should only be able to tag themselves in photos.

@steffenvanbergerem, I don't understand - if allowing to be tagged by others is a user setting how is the pod relevant?

We could allow contacts to send a “message” to a user and ask him to tag himself on a photo.

That's the option to be tagged by others after own authorization :)

@itai This is an important implementation detail. When you are able to tag a contact in a photo then you can modify your pod's code to do that without the contact's permission. When you are just able to add a tag but not to add an associated user to that tag then you are the only user who could be associated with that tag.

@steffenvanbergerem, If I you understood correctly:
1. My suggesion: User A "tags" user B in a photo. User B set his options to be tagged only after authorization, he sees the photo and authorizes, so he is tagged in the photo.
2. Your suggestion: User A "tags" user B in a photo. User B receives a special 'message' to tag himself, and does so.

Security and privacy wise these seem the same to to me, except that in option 2 user B needs a few more clicks to actually tag himself, instead of just clicking 'authorize'. If someone goes the length of changing the code to tag users without authorization he could also do it option 2.
And one could just send a private message and ask someone to tag himself.

@itai As I said this is an (important) implementation detail. In both cases the user experience could be basically the same. The "special message" shouldn't be a regular private message. It could be something like a notification and when the user agrees he is automatically tagged in the photo. Like I said this is just about who is able to tag someone. I'll try to explain that:

option 1:
User A: asks for authorization
User B: accepts
User A: adds tag

option 2:
User A: asks user B to tag himself
User B: tags himself (automatically)

When choosing option 2 we don't have to implement any authorization process and we don't have to think about how to prevent User A from tagging User B without his permission.

OK I understand, so user experience for user B would be the same - no need to manually tag from his perspective, just 'authorize'. Sounds good to me.

I created a proposal which summarizes this good discussion to see where we stand and if there is a general will to implement this feature (IMHO it's important for a social network , as I mentioned earlier).

1. In photos we will only see tagged people if they are contacts of us.

Is there any reason for that? Why don't we just use the privacy options the post/photo gives us? (Everyone who is allowed to see the photo would be allowed to see the tagged people)

Is there any reason for that? Why don’t we just use the privacy options the post/photo gives us? (Everyone who is allowed to see the photo would be allowed to see the tagged people).

Because not everyone who can see the photo may be contacts of those who are tagged, and this is to prevent "profile leaking" which is important to some.

I think photo tagging is annoying. I don't like photo tagging at all

@sethmartin, In contrast I think photo tagging is important to diaspora. Care to explain why you find it annoying? Do you upload photos of friends? It is a very convenient feature.

I have no Facebook friends to ask … since I have no account there any more.

But just in case one would tag me on a photo, I'd demand him or her to remove it from the web. I do not want any photo of me in the web (except I upload it on my own … displaying only one person). So what do you suggest in this case?

Here in Germany, the law grants the citizens a "right on the own picture".

Hence I upload only photos showing things. Who knows, what "bad guys" could do with my photo a few years from now?

But just in case one would tag me on a photo, I’d demand him or her to remove it from the web. I do not want any photo of me in the web

That is your right of course. However do you understand that according to this proposal you would not be tagged without your permission?

I want to ask something: if lots of privacy issues has to be addressed, how this will be explained to non-geek people?

We want to atract people, but we have to explain them the reasons behind all this. Its nice to say "you can 'tag' your friend", but we have to explain the privacy issue there:
"But just people you want, also people they want, also people who you have as contact, also people who you have at the aspect, also..."

I think it may be much to explain, maybe difficult... Remember, we have to make them easy as well and ensure that privacy is our maximum, our primary objective. We don't want to let them think we don't have "control" about that.

I use the @-mention to call the attention to the people involved in a photograph. Is more simple and respect the aspect privacy feature.

It's pointless to discuss features if there's nobody to implement them.

@sebaspedersen and others - using mentions instead of tags is actually worse for privacy because people can mention and so associate you with a photo without the control of parts 2,3, and 4 here. Best for privacy would actually be to disable mentioning for photos or limit it in a similar way to the proposal... With that said, if there was an option to mention people in individual photos rather than in posts, it would answer the need of this proposal as far as I'm concerned (I don't mind that much about people associating me with photos, obviously many of you are more sensitive to that which is why I suggested 2-4).

Itai, you may be right, and the privacy implications of @-mentioning in photos perhaps has to be discussed separately. But the answer to that problem is surely not to add a new way to tag people in photos! We already have a way (mentions) of 'tagging' someone - if we're going to use anything, let's use that and tie up any privacy leaks present in the current system of mentions.

Goob, I generally agree. As I said, if there was a way to @ mention people in individual photos it would answer the need of this proposal.
Currently mentions only work for posts which may group several unrelated photos, we can’t mention people in photos published by somebody else (in comments), and we can’t mention ourselves at all, even in our posts. So this system is not really suitable for tagging contacts and ourselves in photos.

That's true, but there are discussions on organising photos (we recently agreed to use #tags to organise photos), and about enabling mentions in comments.

In my opinion, the way to approach this would be to work on using the existing #tags and @-mentions in diaspora* to cover this instance. That is, organising photos through use of #tags so that they can be viewed outside the context of a particular post, and extending @-mentions so that (a) they can be used in comments, and perhaps also (b) so that they can be used as a means of mentioning ('tagging') people in photos, within the privacy guidelines you mention above.

I like to idea of using mentions for tagging contacts in photos (if it is expanded as you describe). Still it's not without issues: for example how to differentiate mentioning of someone who is actually in the photo from mentioning meant to get someone's attention to the discussion about a photo (in its comments). I think it is an implementation detail however, and as the proposal doesn't specify exactly how it should be implemented, there is no contradiction.

@adrenalin Please read the proposal carefully. Uploading photos is possible right now and this proposal won't change anything about it. The proposal also says that YOU should be able to tag YOURSELF on a photo. You won't be able to tag anyone but yourself. The only thing your contacts are able to do is to send you a private message and ask you to tag yourself on a photo. Again: you are the onyl one to decide if you would like to tag yourself on a photo.

@steffenvanbergerem

photo tagging of other users annoys me, getting tagging requests I am forced to deal with are annoying too. Having this implemented in the general profile settings with default "no" will lead to confusion (remember the nsf-tag??) . And implementing that feature is a waist of time as long as we have lots of more important stuff to get done.

My 2 cents. So still strongly against this, not only a simple "no" sorry.

@adrenalin That's fine. It's your decision. Just wanted to make sure that your decision is based on valid reasons which it is like you pointed out in your answer.

@adrenalin I understand that people may be annoyed by those requests so people need to be able to disable tagging for their account or at least disable those notifications. And about the "waste of time" argument: Diaspora* is currently a kind of DOocracy- so if there's someone willing to implement this feature after a successful proposal it wil be done, if nobody wants to do it it wouldn't be.

Imho blocking is a quite strong vote and you should reconsider it. Nevertheless, I accept your vote.

@trollischmittlauch I won't leave d* if it gets implemented :)) . I used the "blocking" instead of the simple "no" to show I really strongly disagree on the feature and there won't be anything to convince me about how desperately needed a photo-tagging feature is. I did/ do not want to block the discussion or implementation. It just means I am out of this topic as my final (strong) decision is permanent.

The vote is kind of moot anyway since AFAIK no one plans to implement the feature any time soon? :) Should we extend the vote since it seems to be very finely cut to each side? Allow more discussion etc.

well we have a result? 9:7+1 so 9Yay 8Nay or does "blocking count double :))

Ohh please take your time to find someone willing to work on implementing it. :P

Blocking is just a strong no. We decided that when we started using Loomio :)

:))

There are good arguments for each side. I still believe it is an important feature, yet I understand without someone willing to implement it it's not very relevant (as I see most developers here wouldn't want it). Since the discussion is ongoing and we're divided I'm extending the closing date by three days. After that if needed I will make a revised proposal and see if we can better agree.

BTW I think the current proposal answers all privacy concerns so privacy alone should not be a reason to vote it down. Please address specific issues (not everyone did it).

@itai I didn't address any specific issue, because I figured it was not a requirement for voting.

Personally, I would never EVER want to see photo's tagged on D*. The ONLY time it would ever be even remotely of value, is if it was for your own personal reference only.

Everyone seems to forget that it would only take a single nefarious entity to start a Pod. Then they would have access to practically all relationships between accounts.

This is just another way to trace relationships. Epic privacy fail.

@starblessed those with concerns similar to yours - which I honestly understand - could simply not tag themselves and disable requests. Then it would is just like photo tagging doesn't exist in d* at all for them. I said earlier that we should think about what is important in a social network to many and implement it while maintaining d* values and privacy. Honestly I think it is a little selfish to prevent a popular feature when it can be disabled individuality. There are privacy concerns with almost any action in a social network, but it should remain social. My 2c.

@itai - Perhaps, but you're missing the point. D* is about privacy and freedom. It is not about creating as many links as possible so that it can open up the system to possible data mining. We want to minimize the problem, not create more ways people can be traced.

Please explain how it would be possible for someone unwanted to use photo tagging as suggested here to link person A to person B, when he will not be able to see person A tagged in a photo unless person A he added him (the unwanted guy) to an aspect. And please if you don’t trust your contacts or the podmin (which can see everything) then don’t use d* in the first place.

I AM a Podmin.

For your proposal to work, every tag on every picture would have to be distributed to every pod where a tagged user is located.

As a Podmin, you can see almost all of this data without too much hassle.

As I stated in my original post, it wouldn't take much for a person/group to create a pod with a few users, and gather all this data. A few connections later and they would have a small but growing connection map.

While what you're saying could be true (I'm not expert on d* security), it is the same for any action a user makes in d*. You're basically saying forget about the privacy measures of d*, there is rouge pod and he knows everything. The only with solution with this approach would be not use it...

Call it what you will. I've cast my vote.

No problems, I wanted to understand better.

I've been thinking about a simpler and more private way to do that and would like to hear your opinion, especially of those who voted no. Basically, the idea is to use the @ mentioning system for photo tagging as was suggested here, and that only you could mention yourself in a photo (no requests etc). This mentioning will be visible to just yourself or to selected aspects, if you choose to do so.
At its base this feature could be by one (privately) just for keeping track of photos he appears in.
A proposed UI is attached.

Any other comments? :) Or should we vote on this?

not sure how much value we'd get from that variant.
would that be possible on all photos or just your own?
what if I wanted to misuse the feature to annoy other people by tagging arbitrary images?

If you were going to have a feature like that, the person who uploaded the photo would have to authorise the 'mention', otherwise people would spam mentions of themselves on many photos, as Florian points out.

I just don't like photo 'tagging', I'm afraid. I really dislike it in social networks that have it, and wouldn't be keen to see it in Diaspora. I know I mentioned 'mentions' before, but I wasn't suggesting we should extend mentions to have a 'tagging' function; I was rather saying 'we already have mentions, let's not have tagging'.

I think we should consider what are the best possible features to have in a different type of social network, rather than merely aping the rubbish features of established networks. I don't think tagging people in photos is one of the best things about social networks, and therefore I don't think we should copy it. There are better things we can do to make Diaspora an attractive network to join and use. Let's dare to be different!

@goob , I for sure don't see photo tagging as a rubbish feature that we only need because Facebook has it, but as something vital to a social network (I said that a few times). I understand your view but I guess we can agree to disagree here.

@florianstaudacher , about spamming or misuse which Goob mentioned too. This should not be different than other forms of spamming (e,g commenting on many posts) and can be dealt accordingly by podmins.

My intention was to allow users to mention themselves in any photo visible to them.

Those who don't like tagging could just use this feature to keep track of photos they appear in, or not at all.

Boy I'm late to this party, but this conversation was kind of a bummer to read through. I'm not personally that into photo tagging either, but I recognize that a lot of people do like it, and it does have a lot of social value for those people. Seems like there's a good amount of self-sabotaging going on in this community by over-reacting to privacy worries and shutting down the conversation instead of trying to find a better way forward. Why is it hard to understand that some people DO like to be tagged and some people DON'T? Are individual privacy controls really not an option?

Most of the "no" votes seem to come with reasons like "I personally don't like it" or "It will be too difficult to do right". Both sound like awful reasons to shut the conversation down right out of the gate. This discussion should have gone on for months, not days.

No, the goal is not to be facebook (powerful features that invade your privacy) but the goal is also not just to be the anti-facebook (weak features that respect your privacy). The real goal should be trying to build the powerful features without the evil stuff. Very difficult, yes, but isn't that the whole point of this project??

I came here because of openness, and I'm finding closed minds.

But again, I'm new here, so somebody set me straight...

I hate to be tagged on the photos ... But I understand that people are interested. I think it is more or less the same style of debate for smileys ! If there is an option to disable and prevent others from tagged me in a photo, I do not see what the problem is !

Excuse me, but for me such feature is a major threat to users' privacy.

Be tagged in a photo or cited in the commentary to the photo, to me it's almost the same thing ... Being on a social network is to be confronted with the risk of spreading his private life. I am of the same opinion, I do not absolutely love someone other than me talking about my private life. But sometimes it can be an important and practical for various reasons.