Dear Lazyweb: MSN

[prog]

I am starting to suspect that you cannot send an MSN Messenger IM to someone unless both you and the intended receiver are on each others' contact lists. Is this true?

Comments

[xartofnothingx.livejournal.com]

yup - msn messenger is bullshit that way :)

[prog.livejournal.com]

Poopy. This drops a wedge in part of my Planbeast plans.

I find that I _can_ fire off messages to strangers if I'm using the messenger app on Windows, but that seems to be the only exception so far.

[popecrunch.livejournal.com]

Any reason Planbeast itself can't have a messenger account, with a requirement that users of the service add it to their contact list?

[prog.livejournal.com]

Sadly, yes - MS limits the number of contacts that any single user can have. We could do some terrible hackery to get around this, but I don't wanna go there.

I'm seeing if I can't get around this with some Perl wizardry, but I'm prepared to drop this as a launch requirement if I can't get it working soon. It's quite literally a bell/whistle.

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

I think... but am not sure... that it's a per-user option. I certainly USED to receive spam over MSN until I set an option saying "accept messages only from people on my contact list". I'm not sure what the deal is where sending messages is concerned.

[prog.livejournal.com]

It's starting to look like each MSN account has a whitelist, as you say, and that it's activated by default on brand-new accounts. So what I want to do is definitely possible, but the app will have to instruct users to either add Planbeast as an MSN contact, or turn off their whitelist.

Kind of stinky, because this dooms us to getting bug reports forever from users who didn't read the directions complaining that they never got their IMs. But, better than nothing.

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, at sign up time, if you tell it to send messages at all it will immediately send you a confirmation code so it can make sure the messages are getting through. Without the confirmation code it will refuse to do IM notifications?

[prog.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm just moaning. The bug reports would have to be getting truly chronic before I'd resort to more work. :)

I'm more grumbly about putting more work on the user's plate, since 90 percent of them will look at the instructions and say "Meh, never mind." But that's a worst-case of them voluntarily not using a feature, which is acceptable to me.

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

Haha, moaning is an OK solution too :)