Social groups

[lacemaker]

Am I being thick?Where do you find the social groups on the forum?I can get to the 2 I have joined by the quick links ,is that how?
Thank you Daphne

[stillscrapping]

If you click on User CP at the top of the page, scroll down on the LHS and just click on the link for social groups. This will show them all. You can view any of them but can only post in a private group if you are invited.

Hope that helps.

[MaryAnne]

Quick Links works too, either way

[Ali M]

Can I ask a question about SG...(apologies to lace maker for wading in !)

will it ever be possible to have a button lit to show when someone is on line & visible in the SG thread....like the green button in other posts??Sometimes Im not sure if Im talking to myself or not...probably am..LOL!!

also is there an email notification button to click to notify me when someone posts in my SG for my team..??

eddited to add..just seen MAs answer to the email notifiation in another thread..sorry..

[MaryAnne]

I think that the important thing to note about SG Chat is that is was designed to be a limited-feature place for fast moving chat, almost like an IM system, but with multiple people in there at the same time and the posts remaining stored rather than going away when you leave. The benefit of it was to keep the server load down - so nothing that is likely to increase the server load is there (no signatures, no email notifications, etc.)

We were able to add the Photopost link but so far that has been about it. We are limiited to what vB allows in the basic template. I mentioned before (somewhere - I am all over the place today :D) that we will make a note of the features people really really want added and watch for any sort of solution from vB (or indeed a hack written by another forum owner/operator)

It may be these things are just not possible without custom programming - they may not be possible at all - but all we can do is keep watching.

[lacemaker]

Thank you So now have 2 ways to see them
Daphne

[theresa b]

daphne - if you are just quickly wanting to go to groups you have already joined... what you can do is click on your own username in the top right hand corner - where it says welcome just below the row of 5 los...

that takes you to your profile page... and on there is a list of your social groups... just click on the group name and it will take you there...

[didi]

will it ever be possible to have a button lit to show when someone is on line & visible in the SG thread....like the green button in other posts??Sometimes Im not sure if Im talking to myself or not...probably am..LOL!!

.

I've just noticed a little blue man next to my name that says I am on line in SG he is greyed out if someone is offline
I think he needs a name now though:P

[Ali M]

Thanks SMAX...brilliant!!

[Mary Buttons]

I've just noticed a little blue man next to my name that says I am on line in SG he is greyed out if someone is offline
I think he needs a name now though:P

Like the idea of a name what shall it be it could be Max Smax without the 's' :lol:

Right he has a name now it is Bertie

[Scraphamster]

MaryAnne (if you're around and I know you must all be busy at the moment), is there any chance that we could have a thread somewhere that people could just say if they've created a Social Group - so we don't have to wade through loads of team chat pages or try to guess a search term to see if there are any new groups we might like to join, but could just pop onto the thread to see if there's any Social Groups that have been created that we might fancy joining?

[silverst170]

Can I ask please can anyone start a group?

thanks

[joanne26b]

Can I ask please can anyone start a group?

thanks
Yes as far as I know anyone can start a group. I think it is stated in one of MaryAnne or SMAX's posts but I don't want to trawl through them all:P

[MaryAnne]

MaryAnne (if you're around and I know you must all be busy at the moment), is there any chance that we could have a thread somewhere that people could just say if they've created a Social Group - so we don't have to wade through loads of team chat pages or try to guess a search term to see if there are any new groups we might like to join, but could just pop onto the thread to see if there's any Social Groups that have been created that we might fancy joining?

I hadn't thought of this, to be honest, but I am hesitant to make a specific place to announce. Those threads are just going to hang around cluttering thing up :)

Ideally, those creating SG threads would name them something specific, and add something descriptive to the subtitle so people who fancy joining in a public thread can just do so. What Smax and I also have not discussed is how to get rid on inactive SG threads! Or if they expire after a certin amount of time. I'll add it to the list of things that we need to sort out :)

[MaryAnne]

Can I ask please can anyone start a group?

thanks

Yep. Anyone can start a group, but do be careful of starting a group that is advertising - for example we wouldn't let a Sponsor start a group for their customers :) Or for something that is not a sponsor of UKS (like some home party plan). If you want a thread for a specific crop it's probably best in Crop Chat still, as that will have a set life - once the crop is over there will be little if any posting in it and that goes back to the post about what to do with "dead" groups. The team threads are likely to be about as permanent as anything is on UKS. So think about whether your group is likely to have a long shelf life. I had thought Swaps might be good for SC Chat but after having a chat with Bunny it appears probably NOT. I do wonder if the Pifs and Rak threads would be better in there but we need to have a chat about that - it's one case where the LAST post is really the only important one :D

[silverst170]

Thank you

[JaneH]

I still don't understand what benefits we've/UKS's gained from the social group thing. I find them so cumbersome and limiting. We can't see signature lines, we can't use quotes (which is VERY helpful for seeing what someone is talking about!), and they're a right pain to get to. I'm almost ready to quit my team over it.

[cw18]

you can quote - you just need to do it manually

if you copy the text you want to quote and go to the post box, click on the last icon across the top (speech bubble) then past the text between them -- which is where your cursor will be sitting. but you have to add the =username inside the first brackets if you want to say who you're quoting.

takes a little bit more effort, but sometimes worth doing -- especially when you're catching up on several pages of posts and need to be sure people know what your post is all about

[leigh11]

while you are in social groups, when u highlight the text you want to copy, you can highlight the name too (also the time of the quote :D:D) i have done it before

[Mary Buttons]

Well I for one love them now I have got used to them. it saves ploughing through loads of general chit chat and you can always ask a teamie to say if there was anything important you need to know.

[Mary Buttons]

while you are in social groups, when u highlight the text you want to copy, you can highlight the name too (also the time of the quote :D:D) i have done it before

and their avatar as well if you want. I like it

[leigh11]

and their avatar as well if you want. I like it

:lol: i didn't know about the avatar too-thats cool :D:D

[MaryAnne]

I have explained that the SG feature is all about keeping the boards running fast by limiting the notifications sent out (literally 1000s a day to everyone who asked to be notified of a new post in a Team chat thread, arguably to biggest threads on UKS), and limiting the display of signature info (again, with 1000s of posts a day across all the Team Chat threads you can see how this would be a HUGE resource hog!)

It is a different way of doing things, yes, but given that much of the Team Chat stuff is a) only of interest to the Team and b) not contributing anything to the UKS scrapbooking knowledge base as a whole, this change makes the site much more usable to the membership as a whole. Storing and indexing a million ""LOL! Me too!" posts is not the best use of UKS resources! As posted, here and elsewhere, you CAN quote, you just have to copy and paste. You CAN see who is online and go directly to a Gallery now, because Smax was able to add those functions even though vB did not provide an easy way to do so, and you CAN collect points by clicking the person's name and viewing their profile. These small additional steps for Team members are BY FAR outweighed by the benefits to the membership overall, esp. NON-TEAM members who found the New Posts function completely unusable give than in 10 pages of NEW POSTS 9 pages were Team Chat posts that were of no interest at all (except to other team members)! If we can limit NEW POSTS to only the general interest forums, like GS, Cardmaking, etc. then it will go back to being a great way to catch up on what is new on UKS - Team Members can still catch up with Team Chat by reading only their own teams SG Chat thread without making everyone else filter those out! Give it time - you are clever people. I know everyone will soon develop a method of reading the SG Chat thread for their Team in a way that suits them best. Even if you just make a note of what PAGE you last read on a scrap of paper by your computer, you will better be able to avoid hunting for where you left off! And if vB, in their wisdom, see fit to add back in some function that makes it easier, we will soon know about it!

[Mary Buttons]

As I have said I like it now I have got used to it but one thing MaryAnne it is no good making a note of the page number of you last post as that changes all the time this way round, better to make a note of the day and time.

[cw18]

I do it by noting the page....

if I leave on page 1 of 22 and come back in at page 1 of 30, then that means I have 8 pages to read -- hence I need to start at page 8 :)

[leigh11]

i always used to put the weekly challenge into the 1st post so the team knew where to find it!

Now i have it on the top post---but now there is a problem-this weeks challenge uses a sketch and there isn't a way of putting piccies into that post:( or even a link to the challenge thread!
or if there is can someone please tell me in 'easy terms' how to do it!!!!

[Scrap_Vamp]

Leigh, you can upload the picture of the sketch into an album in your own profile, and then in turn you can add the same picture to your social group.

This means it will stay visible at the top of the group as long as people don't put loads of other photos up there!

[fiona3103]

i always used to put the weekly challenge into the 1st post so the team knew where to find it!

Now i have it on the top post---but now there is a problem-this weeks challenge uses a sketch and there isn't a way of putting piccies into that post:( or even a link to the challenge thread!
or if there is can someone please tell me in 'easy terms' how to do it!!!!

Hi Leigh, You can still link to another thread (none SG) in the SG thread, in the same way as you linked to threads before.

[leigh11]

think i have done it, by adding the sketch to my album and showing it that way:D:D

thansk guys for your help :D

[Mary Buttons]

i always used to put the weekly challenge into the 1st post so the team knew where to find it!

Now i have it on the top post---but now there is a problem-this weeks challenge uses a sketch and there isn't a way of putting piccies into that post:( or even a link to the challenge thread!
or if there is can someone please tell me in 'easy terms' how to do it!!!!

I just highlighted the whole thing in the challenge thread and pasted it into a post and it took the sketch too as a attached thumbnail I was surprised but it worked you can click it and see it enlarged also you can click onto the setting teams names to see their LO. brilliant I think

[leigh11]

I just highlighted the whole thing in the challenge thread and pasted it into a post and it took the sketch too as a attached thumbnail I was surprised but it worked you can click it and see it enlarged also you can click onto the setting teams names to see their LO. brilliant I think

its worth knowing that you can do that--but then the post would get lost as the team chatted-so you would have to hunt for it :D

[Mary Buttons]

I know that it would get lost but I always copy and past into my computer before I start it that way I can refer back to it when ever I like.