Kami
Forum Cat
Posts: 40,032
Mini-Profile Theme: Kami's Mini-Profile
#f35f71
156500
0
Offline
Jul 24, 2021 11:48:29 GMT -8
Kami
40,032
July 2010
kamiyakaoru
Kami's Mini-Profile
|
Post by Kami on Dec 14, 2013 8:17:20 GMT -8
This isn't really a problem, per se.
I understand why the feature to see if a conversation has been read was removed, but to be quite honest that's proving to be an issue for me. As many people know, I help run an RP forum, and it's now become impossible to determine whether or not a player is ignoring important messages about their character application, or a disciplinary issue, or whatever.
I have sent two PMs to new members recently, both of whom have been online several times in the past few days since I sent said PMs; neither of them has responded, and I cannot tell if it's because the messages have gone unread or because they're ignoring said messages.
This winds up presenting a problem when it comes to determining how long we should hold onto their character application, which puts a real snag in how efficiently our forum runs.
I know you can't cater to an individual forum or forum genre, but is there anything that can be done to help situations like these? It's now become impossible to tell, and I think it's inevitable that one day I'll send a PM and someone will say they never got it -- and I will be unable to determine if they're lying or not.
I'm not asking for opened/closed icon to come back or anything, mind you, I just need some way, any way at all, of telling if a PM was opened. For example, Facebook has a thing in its messages that will say "seen on [date time]", and group messages say "seen by [participant(s)]". Something like that even would be quite helpful.
|
|
inherit
156956
0
Feb 29, 2024 13:09:26 GMT -8
Lady Squid
California Squid
1,134
August 2010
squidknox
|
Post by Lady Squid on Dec 14, 2013 8:39:27 GMT -8
KamiI second your request! We would really appreciate this feature too.
|
|
Former Member
inherit
guest@proboards.com
131621
0
May 1, 2024 23:51:17 GMT -8
Former Member
0
January 1970
Former Member
|
Post by Former Member on Dec 14, 2013 9:21:19 GMT -8
I.. third this?
This is one of the things I miss most about V4. I never heard complaint about it before, personally, though I know you guys have said it was complained about often.
My personal solution is to re-add it as an option to admins in forum settings with the default as disabled. If the admin enables it, the members can just leave the forum if it's truly that bothersome to them. Admins would be aware, then, that enabling it was a chance of losing members. However, for people like Kami and I (and lady squid) we can enable it because we need it, or at least Kami said she does and I know I do. I can't stand being an admin and not knowing if my important messages are read or not, it is extremely detrimental to mass PMs and important notices and, like Kami said, someone is just going to claim they didn't get the PM. It has become pointless to message some members about problems. I've had to handle so many problems via PM before on my V4 site. Correcting/chastising members, asking them to change something, etc. If they could simply ignore it and I wouldn't know whether or not they read it, I wouldn't know if I needed to take further action on the matter or maybe resend the PM, etc.
Another solution would be making it a member group option, like seeing invisible members. The cry against unread/read messages, I'm sure, is privacy, right? Well, seeing an invisible member is a privacy issue and you guys deem it fit for staff to be allowed to see invisible members, so why not deem staff capable of seeing if a pm is read or unread? Make it something a staff member can have included in their powers. The logic to allow staff to see invisible members applies to this: it's needed for us to successfully moderate a forum.
|
|
inherit
182185
0
Apr 28, 2013 19:19:40 GMT -8
Thomasss
5,180
August 2012
thomje112
|
Post by Thomasss on Dec 14, 2013 9:32:20 GMT -8
I'd actually like this idea! It would be helpful, even if is a Facebook type of message
|
|
inherit
(??_?)
181912
0
1
Jul 6, 2015 20:35:17 GMT -8
CheatAreZee
56,804
March 2005
zyvoloski
Ricky's Mini-Profile
|
Post by CheatAreZee on Dec 14, 2013 9:34:29 GMT -8
There have been many requests for something like this, so there will no doubt be something that will be added in the future. I like the "last read" idea particularly myself. There should be a solution implemented at some point in the future, though unfortunately I can't provide a timeframe With the above said though, in the meantime if the message is in your outbox then it was sent to the member successfully. So if you send a message and it is in your outbox and the member claims they never received it, that would be one way you would know if they're not being truthful.
|
|
Kami
Forum Cat
Posts: 40,032
Mini-Profile Theme: Kami's Mini-Profile
#f35f71
156500
0
Offline
Jul 24, 2021 11:48:29 GMT -8
Kami
40,032
July 2010
kamiyakaoru
Kami's Mini-Profile
|
Post by Kami on Dec 14, 2013 11:54:08 GMT -8
There have been many requests for something like this, so there will no doubt be something that will be added in the future. I like the "last read" idea particularly myself. There should be a solution implemented at some point in the future, though unfortunately I can't provide a timeframe :( With the above said though, in the meantime if the message is in your outbox then it was sent to the member successfully. So if you send a message and it is in your outbox and the member claims they never received it, that would be one way you would know if they're not being truthful. I think the only issue with that is even if they received it, they may have not realised they had a message. I've tried to add things that would help people (a popup, the little bubble notification) on my custom layout but unfortunately sometimes people *still* miss the fact that they have new messages.
|
|
Former Member
inherit
guest@proboards.com
131621
0
May 1, 2024 23:51:17 GMT -8
Former Member
0
January 1970
Former Member
|
Post by Former Member on Dec 14, 2013 11:56:33 GMT -8
Very true. I've had people miss flashing big pop-ups before xD
|
|
inherit
(??_?)
181912
0
1
Jul 6, 2015 20:35:17 GMT -8
CheatAreZee
56,804
March 2005
zyvoloski
Ricky's Mini-Profile
|
Post by CheatAreZee on Dec 14, 2013 12:00:49 GMT -8
If you have a popup display when someone receives a new PM, and they have the notification bubbles enabled and they're still not reading their PM's, I don't think there's a whole lot more you can do to bring it to their attention. In the end it's up to the user on whether or not they read the message, unfortunately there isn't a way to force them to read it. But the message being in your outbox will at least let you know that they did in fact receive the PM, while the read icon / notification would give you more leverage on whether or not the member actually read the PM it wouldn't help more in the cases where members aren't noticing the PM's in the first place
|
|
Kami
Forum Cat
Posts: 40,032
Mini-Profile Theme: Kami's Mini-Profile
#f35f71
156500
0
Offline
Jul 24, 2021 11:48:29 GMT -8
Kami
40,032
July 2010
kamiyakaoru
Kami's Mini-Profile
|
Post by Kami on Dec 14, 2013 12:06:23 GMT -8
If you have a popup display when someone receives a new PM, and they have the notification bubbles enabled and they're still not reading their PM's, I don't think there's a whole lot more you can do to bring it to their attention. In the end it's up to the user on whether or not they read the message, unfortunately there isn't a way to force them to read it. But the message being in your outbox will at least let you know that they did in fact receive the PM, while the read icon / notification would give you more leverage on whether or not the member actually read the PM it wouldn't help more in the cases where members aren't noticing the PM's in the first place :( But if it's indicated as unread in some manner -- for example, like in v4 -- at least I can be like, "Well they haven't read it so we don't need to make a note that they're ignoring what we've said". You know?
|
|
inherit
(??_?)
181912
0
1
Jul 6, 2015 20:35:17 GMT -8
CheatAreZee
56,804
March 2005
zyvoloski
Ricky's Mini-Profile
|
Post by CheatAreZee on Dec 14, 2013 12:22:23 GMT -8
It makes sense, and I agree it's a usable feature too just so that's known. But the one big hangup, and ultimately why it wasn't introduced from the start, is due to the way the conversation allows for multiple members. While the unread / read notification makes perfect sense with one on one conversations, the challenge is making something like that work when multiple members are involved in the conversation as well. Which something like showing the 'last viewed' date when viewing the list of participants would be one of the possible solutions. So that's something the devs will have to research a bit, and is why it'll take some time before something can be developed. But again, it is on our radar
|
|
Kami
Forum Cat
Posts: 40,032
Mini-Profile Theme: Kami's Mini-Profile
#f35f71
156500
0
Offline
Jul 24, 2021 11:48:29 GMT -8
Kami
40,032
July 2010
kamiyakaoru
Kami's Mini-Profile
|
Post by Kami on Dec 14, 2013 13:13:48 GMT -8
It makes sense, and I agree it's a usable feature too just so that's known. But the one big hangup, and ultimately why it wasn't introduced from the start, is due to the way the conversation allows for multiple members. While the unread / read notification makes perfect sense with one on one conversations, the challenge is making something like that work when multiple members are involved in the conversation as well. Which something like showing the 'last viewed' date when viewing the list of participants would be one of the possible solutions. So that's something the devs will have to research a bit, and is why it'll take some time before something can be developed. But again, it is on our radar :) I get that. If I may throw in my 0.02, I'm actually fairly fond of Facebook's method, of listing who viewed a group message, such as:
Viewed by Ricky
then
Viewed by Ricky, Kami
And so on.
|
|
inherit
(??_?)
181912
0
1
Jul 6, 2015 20:35:17 GMT -8
CheatAreZee
56,804
March 2005
zyvoloski
Ricky's Mini-Profile
|
Post by CheatAreZee on Dec 14, 2013 13:21:35 GMT -8
I just gave a general example, how it'll actually be implemented will ultimately be up to the developers since they'll have to find a way to implement it in a way where it'll be useful but more importantly not taxing the servers. I'll add the facebook example as a suggestion for them to draw inspiration from though
|
|
inherit
The Great Cinnamon Roll
191518
0
Oct 19, 2016 22:17:44 GMT -8
David Clark
Care for some tai chi with your chai tea?
17,602
March 2013
davidlinc1
|
Post by David Clark on Dec 14, 2013 15:37:55 GMT -8
For those who have a dire need to be able to prove whether or not someone has viewed a PM, here's a very very beta plugin I just came up with that will force an automatic reply when a new PM has been opened, but only in a few circumstances. It only works if these conditions are true: a. There are two participants in the conversation - I.E. you, and your recipient. Any more than two and no automatic reply will be made. b. It's a new conversation, and you've only sent one PM. If you send two PMs one-after-the-other, even if the other person hasn't seen them, you will not be notified of when the PM was opened for the first time. Things to note:- The reply you will receive is: "I've just opened this message for the first time. (This PM has been sent automatically.)"
- Staff members are exempt and will not have PMs sent automatically.
- Some may not be happy that a script has made a PM on their behalf.
To test this, send a PM to another non-staff account of yours and then switch accounts and check it. Screenshot: plugin removed for now while alternatives are considered
|
|
Kami
Forum Cat
Posts: 40,032
Mini-Profile Theme: Kami's Mini-Profile
#f35f71
156500
0
Offline
Jul 24, 2021 11:48:29 GMT -8
Kami
40,032
July 2010
kamiyakaoru
Kami's Mini-Profile
|
Post by Kami on Dec 14, 2013 23:50:15 GMT -8
Fantastic. This will work as a go around for now. thanks!
|
|
Former Member
inherit
guest@proboards.com
131621
0
May 1, 2024 23:51:17 GMT -8
Former Member
0
January 1970
Former Member
|
Post by Former Member on Dec 15, 2013 0:42:10 GMT -8
|
|