Web: Send a notification (github, browser, or otherwise) instead of email for tips/bounties.

[TimVanMourik]

At the moment, when a bounty is awarded an email is sent out to the claimer. Depending on the GitHub email settings, however, this email never arrives.

TODO: Find out which settings are the culprits

TODO: Allow a GitHub user to list his/her awarded claims, for when the email never arrived

[owocki]

thanks, i was also thinking of programming the tip emailer to comb through past commits and send the email to the email in the commit history for that user. right now the system naively assumes it can access the github user email.

[TimVanMourik]

It would be great if it created a GitHub notification additional to or instead of the email. But I presume that requires the installation of a GitHub add-on from the user, or something alike? If it were possible, it could circumvent messy combing-for-email solutions :)
And related, is the link in the email (+MetaMask) at the moment the only thing you need for claiming? I.e. if I hack into your email (but not GitHub account), can I hijack the bounty? A login to GitHub seems like a logical requirement for claiming a bounty.

[owocki]

i'm not aware of any API create notification functionality on github

[owocki]

https://developer.github.com/v3/activity/notifications/

[gitcoinbot]

__The funding of 0.1 ETH (71.42 USD) attached has been claimed by @@ian-cawood.__

@@ian-cawood, please leave a comment to let the funder (@owocki) and the other parties involved your implementation plan. If you don't leave a comment, the funder may expire your claim at their discretion.

• Learn more on the gitcoin issue page
• Questions? Get help on the Gitcoin Slack
• $10858.09 more Funded OSS Work Available at: https://gitcoin.co/explorer

[owocki]

👋 @ian-cawood

[ian-cawood]

Hi @owocki and @TimVanMourik. I've been looking through the notifications api and there doesn't seem to be a create notification. I'll look through it in more detail and see if I can find another solution.

[owocki]

great.. im happy to get creative here. maybe we can tag a github user on a github issue instead?

the problem is then providing them a link which allows them to claim the bounty. (because the link needs to be private, and the post will be public) perhaps when @mbeacom 's work to integrate github /oauth into the system is done, we can have them present the 'secret link' once they ahve authenticated with github.

[ian-cawood]

We can assign someone to an issue with the github api. Will you please explain what you would like to happen after that. As far as I understand this is what should happen when a user has claimed a bounty? So for instance after I claimed this bounty successfully it should be clear that the issue is mine regardless of email settings etc.

[thelostone-mc]

@ian-cawood What if it's just a general tip ? A few days ago, I got a tip for helping out generally (It is a corner case, can be ignored)

So tell me if I get this right ?

1. Notify via issue or user
2. redirected to gitcoin where they get secret link after authenticated
3. Let the claim. (nothing new here )

Is that the flow ?

Thoughts on having a rewards tab on gitcoin and shoot out a notification to the user (tagging them at a user / issue level ), to go check out their gitcoin profile and claim it ?

[ian-cawood]

If it's just a general tip my idea does fall flat. I'm not too sure about the flow quite yet. But that sounds good as far as flow goes @owocki. A rewards tab would be nice to see a list of all bounties received. Thanks so much for the input @thelostone-mc.

[thelostone-mc]

If you need a extra pair of hands to help. ! DM ^_^
( once we get everything clarified )

[owocki]

We can assign someone to an issue with the github api.

This is a good idea! Note that the gitcoinbot won't have permissions to do assignees on some github repos though.

If it's just a general tip my idea does fall flat.

Yep. I think the problem we're trying to solve here (or at least my intent in writing this ticket)... is that a user needs to be able to receive the private key of their transaction in order to claim the tip. Normally, this is done over email. But with Github API, we sometimes can't get the users email address.

We obviously can't post the link to the private key publicly.. So perhaps we can put a link to some Oauth flow on gitcoin.co where the user can _prove_ they own a specific github username, and then show them the private key.

[ian-cawood]

@owocki Thanks for the information. I'm guessing this is blocked until the github integration is done. Should I wait for that to be done?

[mbeacom]

Just a note. I don't believe you'll be able to assign non-contributors/members of a repository to an issue.

[owocki]

another idea: https://github.com/gitcoinco/web/issues/154

[tra38]

Message I sent to @owocki (and @owocki asked me to propose this to this thread for comments).

[2:37]
@owocki, I found an answer on the StackExchange network stating that whenever you transfer a repository to someone else, an email is automatically generated informing the user that there is a pending transfer and that it is up to them to accept or decline the transfer.
[2:39]
This hack may be used as a way to get in contact with a programmer who hasn't provided an email address...since now GitHub is generating the email on behalf of you. I, er, want to test it out, so would you mind me attempting to create a fake repo and transferring it over to you to see if you'd get an alert? (edited)
[2:58 PM]
(On the other hand, as it is a hack-y way to generate alerts, maybe GitHub might get angry if we try to use it. So maybe it wasn't the best idea.)

[owocki]

@ian-cawood still interested in this issue? i see youre the claimee at https://gitcoin.co/funding/details?url=https://github.com/gitcoinco/web/issues/43

[ian-cawood]

Yeah I'm still interested. If you'd like someone else with more experience with the code base to tackle it I would understand.

[owocki]

i dont particularly mind if you dont have exp with the codebase... i'd just ask that if you don't plan on building soon, then you release it so that someone else can take it.

[mbeacom]

I will note... with the addition of GH integration, I am pulling the primary email (whether the user sets their email as private or not) and using that as the notification email address. Also, for tips, all valid emails are snagged from their /user/emails and attached to the tip for notification. Previously, this was happening via the GH events email lookup, but as long as the user auths with GH... the emails will always be available for notification.

We could simply add a view after GH integration/express interest is merged that requires a valid GH auth and render claimable tips there. I'd be nervous about treading down the path of sending notifications via repo transfer request. I'd be up for using something like OneSignal (since it's free) to send browser/mobile/etc push notifications to associated devices/browsers/sms/whatever.

Beyond Onesignal, we could probably whip up notification functionality via SNS as well (since it seems gitcoin already uses some AWS services, i.e. cloudfront).

[ian-cawood]

@mbeacom thanks for the input I'm looking through the stuff you suggested now. @owocki I'm still keen to do it. Looking at it in depth tomorrow and will probably have some questions that I'll ask on slack.

[owocki]

We could simply add a view after GH integration/express interest is merged that requires a valid GH auth and render claimable tips there. I'd be nervous about treading down the path of sending notifications via repo transfer request.

i like this path. although its still a little broken if we can't even notify the user (maybe this is solved by your comment lso, for tips, all valid emails are snagged from their /user/emails and attached to the tip for notification. above?)

I'd be up for using something like OneSignal (since it's free) to send browser/mobile/etc push notifications to associated devices/browsers/sms/whatever.

hows the distribution of OneSignal? i.e. if we send a notification to it what are the odds of it getting to a user?

[mbeacom]

@owocki The notifications are similar to what you've seen elsewhere for browsers. It would require the user to opt-in to the browser based notifications in order to receive them.
However, OneSignal could be used for the mobile application push notifications as well and allow us to keep it in one place.

As far as the emails, at least for tips, all valid email addresses found registered to the user are added to the tip in the same way the old Tip creation added multiple, but they are all email addresses the user has specifically added to GitHub (so at least one of them should be valid). Other actions like claiming/creating bounties use the primarily, valid email address. Both tip and bounty cases are captured and used regardless of whether or not the user's email address is hidden from public view.

[owocki]

@ian-cawood @mbeacom @tra38 @TimVanMourik @thelostone-mc after thinking through this, i think i'd opt for the browser notification angle.

this, in addition to the @gitcoinbot commenting on the threads that have been bountied, and https://github.com/gitcoinco/web/issues/75, i think solves many of the notification issues for us.

i move that we close down this bounty, and remit a new ticket (with a clear scope and less of a long long discussion attached to it) and new bounty for it. does that seem fair to everyone?

[TimVanMourik]

Haven’t followed the latest details of the thread, but sounds good!