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Forum Status


IDIMA

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- Let your friends know that you are (Busy, offline, away.. etc)  on/from the forum.

  • Status (Offline, Busy, Away, Invisible.. etc) I have to keep changing my status manually when I leave the computer or play a game. I've gotten many messages from friends that I missed because I was set to Online, but I wasn't at my computer.

Online: Whenever your logged in in your computer.

Away: When you haven't been at your computer for a certain amount of time.

Etc.... Busy, Invisible and offline.

 

Look:

wKGvCWr.png

 

What's your opinion?

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Not really sure if it's really that needed on a forum. I think that's the whole point of the 'Last Visited'. Obviously, it wouldn't be useful if someone logs in anonymously but if you don't, generally people would be able to tell if you are online or when you were last active. If you aren't on your computer, then you aren't on the forum (unless you're on the forum on your phone etc). If you're away, you may still be on the forum but you will be notified of any notifications about who you follow, what you follow, or who messaged you.  I personally feel that the Last Visited does the same thing. I don't think it really matters that people know you are 'Away' or 'Do not Disturb' because they know eventually you will get the notification anyway if they messaged you etc and will get it when you are online next. A forum is a place to discuss ideas, views and where opinions can be exchanged. It's not all about messaging your friends and this is definitely not just a messenger. After all, don't we have the xat chat boxes to talk to people personally?  

 

20 minutes ago, Paul said:

Should be possible since there are mods for IPB 

 

I did a little looking around... couldn't really find anything regarding this with plugins/applications.

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That's a cool idea, but it's only meant to show when the user last visited the forum. It represents a time, not availability.

 

We could also call into question if this would be used enough even if it was implemented. The forum has a nice handful of active users, but that amount of users may be too small to justify a plugin like this. It would have to be extremely easy to change your status, and who knows if people would even look at other people's statuses enough for this to be considered a needed feature.

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5 hours ago, LaFleur said:

I think there is no need for this. The forum is not a chatbox. 

A lot of people use private message feature to communicate with each other for instance volunteers are most of the time bombarded with private messages on the forum.

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20 minutes ago, IDIMA said:

A lot of people use private message feature to communicate with each other for instance volunteers are most of the time bombarded with private messages on the forum.

Yes, however, no matter what status, whether it be do not disturb or busy, people are still going to message them. They know they will get the notification and it will eventually be read when they are available. The status won't stop people from getting the help they need. Like I said, the forum is a place to discuss ideas, views and where opinions can be exchanged. It's not all about the direct messaging. The direct messaging is probably most used by volunteers, and by them having a status that might say 'Do not disturb', won't stop anybody. After all, these users who are messaging them, need help... 

 

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1 hour ago, Lemona said:

Yes, however, no matter what status, whether it be do not disturb or busy, people are still going to message them. They know they will get the notification and it will eventually be read when they are available. The status won't stop people from getting the help they need. Like I said, the forum is a place to discuss ideas, views and where opinions can be exchanged. It's not all about the direct messaging. The direct messaging is probably most used by volunteers, and by them having a status that might say 'Do not disturb', won't stop anybody. After all, these users who are messaging them, need help... 

 

Some volunteers may be busy and some may not be busy, therefore if a user wants to private message one volunteer but they found them busy they can message another to get a faster reply without waiting long time for their question to be answered.

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I agree with Lemona here. Availability status' is only useful for live chatting environments such as Skype, Facebook and the like, who cares if someone on the forum is "busy"? As Lemona said, the forum is a place to share ideas, opinions and private messaging is no more than an add on. Like Lemona also said, if people are going to PM you they are still going to do it whether you are busy or not.

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1 hour ago, Stah said:

I agree with Lemona here. Availability status' is only useful for live chatting environments such as Skype, Facebook and the like, who cares if someone on the forum is "busy"? As Lemona said, the forum is a place to share ideas, opinions and private messaging is no more than an add on. Like Lemona also said, if people are going to PM you they are still going to do it whether you are busy or not.

I believe it was obvious what I have said that why would you PM a volunteer that has "busy" as their status while you can PM another one that doesn't have it to get a faster reply so (that's one good example). At least even if someone sent a pm to a busy volunteer they would know that they are busy therefore, they wouldn't complain about volunteers ignoring people on the forum. I have actually seen multiple users complain about this part, and it actually would take a load off some volunteers' back.

That is your opinion, but the majority of people that have seen the suggestion like/agree with it.

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This is definitely not necessary. It's irrelevant if a person is busy or not as they'll eventually get to see your message. You're failing to understand the whole forum concept.

 

Volunteers aren't meant to respond to private messages instantly, they're being overwhelmed with messages about System Problem (55) currently and there's no way they can reply to all users instantly. Having a busy status wouldn't speed up the process or prevent people from complaining about it in anyway.

 

We already have the last seen feature which is awesome, it shows the last time you were active and it's pretty simple to guess that an user who was last seen 25 minutes ago and isn't active on chats is busy. You could also disable your messenger if you don't want to receive private messages.

 

If you're busy and don't want to be bothered, then you can just log out of your account and check the Sign in anonymous box when logging in. It won't show you on the online users list and your last seen will no longer be updated until you log in again with that option disabled. 


Last but not least, the forum software we're currently using doesn't offer such feature and it's not worth coding a plugin or paying for a plugin for a silly feature like this. 

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19 minutes ago, IDIMA said:

I believe it was obvious what I have said that why would you PM a volunteer that has "busy" as their status while you can PM another one that doesn't have it to get a faster reply so (that's one good example). At least even if someone sent a pm to a busy volunteer they would know that they are busy therefore, they wouldn't complain about volunteers ignoring people on the forum. I have actually seen multiple users complain about that part, and it actually would take a load off some volunteers' back.

That is your opinion, but the majority of people that have seen the suggestion like/agree with it.

You're making it sound like this feature is only useful for volunteers. Many volunteers have direct messaging turned off so it's not really useful at all. Let me remind you that only certain volunteers deal with certain departments. It wouldn't be very useful if they message a volunteer who can't do anything if it's not even their department. The forum isn't a place for users to attack volunteers with direct messages about a ticket response. Currently, the only reason people have been messaging them is due to the fact that some accounts were held in error. Once this passes????? Personally, this feature wouldn't be used or looked at enough and all in all, it's a forum. We have chat boxes to talk to people too!

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You can show up as invisible by checking the login anonymously option. Though, being a moderator and all, I don't know if it actually works.

 

Also, please title your suggestions based on what you suggest.

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