MaryAnne
20-05-2008, 02:11 PM
After taking on board the feedback about the Social Groups as used for Team Chat, especially the concerns of the Team Leaders for logging points, we have a possible, although not ideal, solution.
The reality of it is that we had to upgrade vB for the security and anti-spamming fixes the new version contains. Unfortunately vB has not included some options for customisation that we would have liked. Things like allowing full signatures in SG Chat defeats the purpose of it (as part of the benefit of SG Chat over Team threads in a forum is making the software run faster - which many have commented on in a positive way and resulted in record breaking stats for yesterday of 3621 unique people visiting UKS and 160,000 page views, even with the site closed for 1/2 the day!) Even so, if enough people ask for it, vB might listen and add it. Until then we have come up with some possible solutions to specific problems.
Let me address the points as I have seen them:
1. No points listed in signatures: this is the biggie for Team and House leaders. Not all SG chat groups require this. As a solution for those who do I would suggest the following:
- We rename the Team Chat forum to Team Points forum and allow thread starters to delete their own threads (this is what we call a “soft delete” - it is hidden, and can be revived by an admin until we hard delete it so if there is a problem and the info is required after the thread is “deleted” for a month you will still be able to get to it through me, Smax, or Bunny) Team Leaders only to start threads and random posts or chit chat will be deleted.
- Team leaders post the first day of the month with all the essential info on points in a Team named thread.
- all team members post their point totals in that thread over the month
- once the Team Leader has totted up the points, they delete that thread and start a new one for the next month
- Teams that are for chat only do not need to have a thread. The thread is for POINTS ONLY not chat.
2. No Blog links in signatures - this CAN be added, by you, on the fly, by using the Link icon (looks like a little blue globe with a paperclip over it) when you want to direct people to your blog. So, no, we can’t make it appear with every post in the SG chat section but you can add it if you want to reference a particular blog post by doing a link. Readers can get to a blog by clicking a highlighted name > About Me and clicking the blog link in their signature. Not ideal as it is an extra step, but for the time being it will work.
No solution for now:
3. Reading top down, first post to last, rather than Last post to first - this is not an option. I have asked Smax to express our wish for this to be added in as an option and we can only hope more forums want this and vB will eventually add it back in - this also applies to to the Pick-a-page menu being top AND bottom
As with ANY upgrade, we really need to USE the features to identify the problems. You have pointed out to us some glaring problems and we have taken that on board. We will communicate with vB the issues as we see them and then add any further upgrade adaptations that solve those problems. In the meantime we have addressed as best we can workaround solutions given the limits of the software.
Any other ideas, do feel free to PM them to me - I am all ears!
The reality of it is that we had to upgrade vB for the security and anti-spamming fixes the new version contains. Unfortunately vB has not included some options for customisation that we would have liked. Things like allowing full signatures in SG Chat defeats the purpose of it (as part of the benefit of SG Chat over Team threads in a forum is making the software run faster - which many have commented on in a positive way and resulted in record breaking stats for yesterday of 3621 unique people visiting UKS and 160,000 page views, even with the site closed for 1/2 the day!) Even so, if enough people ask for it, vB might listen and add it. Until then we have come up with some possible solutions to specific problems.
Let me address the points as I have seen them:
1. No points listed in signatures: this is the biggie for Team and House leaders. Not all SG chat groups require this. As a solution for those who do I would suggest the following:
- We rename the Team Chat forum to Team Points forum and allow thread starters to delete their own threads (this is what we call a “soft delete” - it is hidden, and can be revived by an admin until we hard delete it so if there is a problem and the info is required after the thread is “deleted” for a month you will still be able to get to it through me, Smax, or Bunny) Team Leaders only to start threads and random posts or chit chat will be deleted.
- Team leaders post the first day of the month with all the essential info on points in a Team named thread.
- all team members post their point totals in that thread over the month
- once the Team Leader has totted up the points, they delete that thread and start a new one for the next month
- Teams that are for chat only do not need to have a thread. The thread is for POINTS ONLY not chat.
2. No Blog links in signatures - this CAN be added, by you, on the fly, by using the Link icon (looks like a little blue globe with a paperclip over it) when you want to direct people to your blog. So, no, we can’t make it appear with every post in the SG chat section but you can add it if you want to reference a particular blog post by doing a link. Readers can get to a blog by clicking a highlighted name > About Me and clicking the blog link in their signature. Not ideal as it is an extra step, but for the time being it will work.
No solution for now:
3. Reading top down, first post to last, rather than Last post to first - this is not an option. I have asked Smax to express our wish for this to be added in as an option and we can only hope more forums want this and vB will eventually add it back in - this also applies to to the Pick-a-page menu being top AND bottom
As with ANY upgrade, we really need to USE the features to identify the problems. You have pointed out to us some glaring problems and we have taken that on board. We will communicate with vB the issues as we see them and then add any further upgrade adaptations that solve those problems. In the meantime we have addressed as best we can workaround solutions given the limits of the software.
Any other ideas, do feel free to PM them to me - I am all ears!