Birthday Notification

Care to dates and details makes birthday congratulation nice. Notifications will kill the magic.

@bh I totally agree with you!
If you really "care" about somebody's birthday, ask them and remember it yourself ;-)

Agreed with bh.

No. I think this is a very important "feature" of facebook. I, and I know others do as well, rely on it a lot. It will be another reason not to join diaspora, if this is not provided.

Asking others for important stuff in their lifes - noone wants to be that social in a social network ;)

What about opt-in notifications: by default, you are not notified, but you can activate it?
On facebook, if someone does not wish you a happy birthday, you know they actively ignored the notification (assuming they logged in on that day). I think at least we want to avoid that situation.
Edit: apparently facebook has an option too.

i think what people expect as default is that they are notified, so maybe there should be an opt-out once you enter your birthday. if i enter my birthday, the only possible reason for that is to let others know, i guess...

edit: i guess you are right, it might be a better idea not to have notifications on by default. but then, this needs to be actively communicated to the user with a text saying something like "we want to avoid these awkward situations blala.. if you still want others to be notified of your birthday/be notified of theirs please click over there". :)

if i enter my birthday, the only possible reason for that is to let others know, i guess…

Just those who wonder :)

When you create an account, you get guided around; I guess the existence of the option could be pointed out in that tour.

Same as usual : ok, there are lot of "important features" but who is going to develop them ?

Plus, consider that very few people, compared to Facebook are likely to give their real birthday date. This will be ridiculous to see streams highlighted with fake birthday events...

well this is supposed to replace facebook, not stay a small niche "product", right? :)
apart from that, you are correct: it should be purely optional to give a birth date, i think.

well this is supposed to replace facebook

Nope, this is not. diaspora* clearly doesn't have the means to replace any commercial product estimated at multiple billions dollars on stock exchange market...