sfmlab

New Feature: Download History (Patreon)

Published:

2023-02-19 07:16:43

Imported:

2023-02

Content

Hi everyone,

Many people have mentioned in the past that they remember downloading a certain file, but can't find easily the original on the site.

Today, I deployed a new "download history" feature to address this. You can find yours under the "Download History" menu options in your account settings. Note that it will only show downloads from today onward, since no records were kept previously.

And that leads us to one particular consequence that I want to explicitly mention. By default, the site is now automatically keeping a record of when a particular account has been used to access a specific file. I understand that not everyone will want their download history tracked for various reasons. That's why you have the ability to opt-out using a feature flag under your settings. More granular managing/deleting of your download history is coming very soon.

When designing features like this, I, personally, prefer having the privacy conscious option be the default. And by that philosophy, that would necessitate making the feature opt-in. However, in this instance, I decided against that, and instead made it an opt-out. This feature is intended to help remind people what they've downloaded after the fact. If users search for this feature afterward, only to find that no history was kept because they didn't enable it up front, this limits the utility of this feature tremendously. The goal is to have people find their download history and be relieved that it was kept, rather than disappointed that they had to enable it on their own.

Nevertheless, I want to work towards making this feature an opt-in in the future. The best way of doing this, would be to have a more comprehensive and clear "onboarding" process for new users upon registration. In the sense that the site asks you a few basic questions regarding features to enable and content to filter. But it might take a while before we get there.

In any case, I want to make it clear that this feature is intended solely as a utility for site users. It doesn't factor into any kind of content algorithm, and your history is only viewable for you. Should this change, I'll make an effort to clearly communicate this in advance.

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