Helping my members see their 'pending' Followers
Using Jamroom
Please see above post- is this module actually doing what it says it does in the module's description? I'm not seeing that happening.
Forum Activity for @strumelia
Using Jamroom
Please see above post- is this module actually doing what it says it does in the module's description? I'm not seeing that happening.
Helping my members see their 'pending' Followers
Using Jamroom
OK, I had a chance today to go over a few things in the Followers To Friends module that are confusing or misleading (to me).
There are actually FOUR areas or wordings that have caused me confusion and I'd like to present them in a way that hopefully doesn't cause confusion for YOU, Michael!
The following is the biggest issue (I'll get to the other 3 in one post, but after this first most important one) :
In the FollowersToFriends module Description, it says this:
"Automatically create a follow back when a new follower is approved"
(see screenshot below)
When this module was first created (to help mimic the Ning friends system), I took this literally and was very relieved. However, I don't see this module actually doing that. Now that I've used the nifty new Tool to set all my member profiles to NOT require approval for new followers (and OMG that's so great!!)... I'm not seeing (and never have) that when a member follows another member, there is a 'follow back' created....EVEN WHEN THE PERSON APPROVED THE NEW FOLLOWER. It's just never been happening. In fact, I had a panicked member just now email because she's trying to make a quick sale of a dulcimer, has 'followed' the buyer earlier this afternoon, and cannot exchange PMs. I went to check the buyer's profile, and they have not had a follow back created, and yet they are still set (as I did earlier) to not require approval for new followers.
Am I not understanding this module description, or the intended function of the 'FTF' module, still?
Does it perhaps do this follow back function ONLY if the module goes through the Approve action? (thus negating any 'follow backs' for all members who have their profile "require Approval for followers" set to OFF?)
This Follow/PM arrangement continues to confound me. It's the single one thing that seemed more logical and simple to me on Ning.
Please first help me understand the above module description and how it's now supposed to work for me (now that I used the new Tool on all my members). Thank you so much!
updated by @strumelia: 02/18/18 06:06:37PM
Helping my members see their 'pending' Followers
Using Jamroom
Sorry- I had to work all day today. Will try to get to this tomorrow about the help message wordings. Thanks!
Helping my members see their 'pending' Followers
Using Jamroom
Just to be clear, yes I totally get that the checkbox cannot reflect that 'some' users are this and 'other' users are that... that it reflects/effects ALL profiles. That was never confusing for me.
Helping my members see their 'pending' Followers
Using Jamroom
Yes I do understand and appreciate all that Michael.
I guess what I mean is that since the help wording simply says "If this is checked, anyone following a profile will need to be approved by the profile owner."... and when I come back to the Tool window and find the box has become checked again (even though I ran the tool as unchecked prior to that, and I left it unchecked when I left that page).. well it makes me think it went ahead and unset all the profiles to their 'checked' state again when I wasn't looking. Have we not all had it happen where our checkboxes somewhere online reset themselves and caused us problems? But now I know that's not true in this instance. I think the help wording could maybe be clearer to avoid this confusion among non-developer folks such as myself.
Aside from all that... I'm so HAPPY to have this added customization- thank you thank you!!! :D This will solve a lot of my site problems with inept members struggling to grasp the Follow system.
Helping my members see their 'pending' Followers
Using Jamroom
Forgive me, but this is confusing to me.
I hear what you are saying and I think I see how you are explaining that it works. Yes the Global checkbox is important ...but that controls the default setting only for NEW profiles.
But the help wording on the TOOL checkbox, which changes the setting for ALL current members, says this:
"If this is checked, anyone following a profile will need to be approved by the profile owner. This tool changes EVERYONES state to what is selected here. If checked, when a friend request comes in the profile owner will need to click 'approve' for each pending profile before they are friends."
Are you saying that that tool checkbox can be checked when you go to look at it under the Tool tab, but that it only matters if it's checked or unchecked when you actually hit the button there to "update all profiles" ? If so, then the help wording is misleading- since it merely says "if the box is checked"... not "check or uncheck this box and then run the tool to reset all profiles the way you want". Since that checkbox seems to by default check itself again when you go away and then come back to it, it makes it seem like the state of all the profiles has been reset again by the Tool. I'm thinking others will be quite confused by this as well- it sure confounded me. I expect checkboxes to behave themselves and STAY checked or unchecked... lol.
Perhaps if the help wording for the Tool made this clearer?
Sorry to be such a bother... I'm really THRILLED to be able to have these two new features on the Followers to Friends module! I just want to help folks in the future to not get confused as i did.
Helping my members see their 'pending' Followers
Using Jamroom
Ok thanks for answering my questions!
Michael, I'm wondering if there's a glitch going on-
As master admin, I use the Tool to set all profiles UNchecked to allow following without approval.
Then I go and change my OWN profile to check the box having me approve my own new followers.
Then I go back to the Tool and I find that the box is now checked again.
I tried this also when logged in as a regular member quota. After the master admin ran the tool and unchecked it (to allow follows without approval), I logged in as a regular member I checked the Approve box on my own profile settings. Then I logged back in as Admin -and I go to the Tool and find the box has been checked again... to make all new follows for everyone have to be Approved. Maybe I'm not understanding something?
updated by @strumelia: 02/13/18 01:15:55PM
Helping my members see their 'pending' Followers
Using Jamroom
OK, so I want to understand how this now works- can you please answer the following questions for me about these new functions?...
1) Once I have used the Tool to reset all profiles to UNchecked (to allow new followers to follow without having to be approved by them)... the checkbx still remains so that a member can reverse that for themselves if they like, correct?
2) members will then still get a notification that they HAVE a new follower... just not the notification saying they need to approve a new follower, correct? (assuming they have their notifications ON).
3) with all this set as I described, member B can go ahead and actively follow member A, but will still not be able to PM member A until A has followed member B in return (via the Follow button on profile pages. Correct?
4) by my using the Tool today to reset all members to not require followers to be approved, will this automatically approve all CURRENTLY PENDING followers for everyone? (understanding that a member might reset that checkbox and thus get new pending followers in the future) Correct? ...And if correct, will all these newly approved followers trigger any new notifications to either member A or B?
note- I noticed a little wording issue- once you use the Tool to reset the approve function for everyone to OFF, the generated popup message's wording seems to imply that it's setting approval checkbox to ON- see screenshot. This is minor of course and doesn't mean the tool is not working right, but for a moment it had me scratching my head when I saw it.
Helping my members see their 'pending' Followers
Using Jamroom
Strumelia:
The Second issue I need to address involves the "Friends to Followers" module, which I have activated.
Please see the below screenshot of the "Tools" tab of this module. It still uses the same confusing wording of "Set all site profiles to 'Follower Approve'"... which I always THOUGHT meant to make it so that 'follows' would be automatically approved... when in fact it meant the OPPOSITE... that a follow would not become active until the follow-ee Approved it.
I know you JR Team have already changed the wording about this in the regular 'Follow' module language string, but the language also needs changing in the Followers to Friends module Tools tab.
So, I now recall over a year ago when I first got this module (when it was new and you guys had created it to help with these very issues amongst us former ning site owners)... I recall wanting to set all profiles settings to automatically Approve new follows, and I KNOW I clicked that Tool button.... which immediately set all my thousands of members to the option that I absolutely did NOT want (to require each Follow be pending until Approved). Yikes, that's how that all got set that way... the tool did the exact opposite of what I actually wanted it to.
This reciprocal Follow/privatemessage/ thing has been incredibly difficult to get my members to understand, and also very difficult for me to figure out the right solution to, short of allowing all members to PM all members freely without even needing to Follow -which I don't want because some members might use it for marketing purposes.
What I'd really like is for there to be a SISTER Tool for the Followers to Friends module that would UNDO that one tool.. and switch it back to UNchecking the option to require follow Approval, on all profile pages. It was all too easy to misinterpret that wording on the tool (which ought to be changed to clarify it better) and I stupidly messed everything up a year ago by clicking the tool.
--- Can we get a Tool there to change ALL profiles back to the OTHER setting state again, where follows do not need to be approved. If I could do that it'd be so helpful.
I ALSO want to change the default for NEW members so that that "approve" box in their profile settings is UNCHECKED by default. Right now all new members have it checked. It's causing so much difficulty since my members seem to seldom comb through their Settings, leaving many settings as their default. How can I change this default for new members signing up on my site?
Thanks for bearing with all this.
The Second issue I need to address involves the "Friends to Followers" module, which I have activated.
Please see the below screenshot of the "Tools" tab of this module. It still uses the same confusing wording of "Set all site profiles to 'Follower Approve'"... which I always THOUGHT meant to make it so that 'follows' would be automatically approved... when in fact it meant the OPPOSITE... that a follow would not become active until the follow-ee Approved it.
I know you JR Team have already changed the wording about this in the regular 'Follow' module language string, but the language also needs changing in the Followers to Friends module Tools tab.
So, I now recall over a year ago when I first got this module (when it was new and you guys had created it to help with these very issues amongst us former ning site owners)... I recall wanting to set all profiles settings to automatically Approve new follows, and I KNOW I clicked that Tool button.... which immediately set all my thousands of members to the option that I absolutely did NOT want (to require each Follow be pending until Approved). Yikes, that's how that all got set that way... the tool did the exact opposite of what I actually wanted it to.
This reciprocal Follow/privatemessage/ thing has been incredibly difficult to get my members to understand, and also very difficult for me to figure out the right solution to, short of allowing all members to PM all members freely without even needing to Follow -which I don't want because some members might use it for marketing purposes.
What I'd really like is for there to be a SISTER Tool for the Followers to Friends module that would UNDO that one tool.. and switch it back to UNchecking the option to require follow Approval, on all profile pages. It was all too easy to misinterpret that wording on the tool (which ought to be changed to clarify it better) and I stupidly messed everything up a year ago by clicking the tool.
--- Can we get a Tool there to change ALL profiles back to the OTHER setting state again, where follows do not need to be approved. If I could do that it'd be so helpful.
I ALSO want to change the default for NEW members so that that "approve" box in their profile settings is UNCHECKED by default. Right now all new members have it checked. It's causing so much difficulty since my members seem to seldom comb through their Settings, leaving many settings as their default. How can I change this default for new members signing up on my site?
Thanks for bearing with all this.
Sorry to have to keep pursuing this, but I really need to do something about the loose ends remaining with my site's 'follow' issues.
Plus I forgot to add the screenshot in my last post. Thank you!
