Activiy Log Watcher - seeking advice for how to use this

The Activity Log Watcher module looks like something that might be very useful, but I do not know what kinds of activity I should give most attention to.

How can we create a filter to catch signs of imminent trouble, or trouble that has started. What are the worst things that might happen?

When I go from the module to the Documentation link, there is "page not found" message. My suggestion for Documentation is to provide some examples of activity filter strings that are likely to be commonly useful, or useful for catching rare but big problems as early as possible.

For example, it is annoying for users of a network to find a "Page not found" message. Is that an event that shows up in activity logs, and is it possible to watch for this in order to clean out links to non-existing pages, or to create the pages that users are looking for?


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)
updated by @researchcooperative: 03/21/21 10:23:38AM

I think the module was created to allow developers greatest space of movement in that 'How' its supposed to be used is left to them.

Think the premise is: The activity log exist, it contains stuff, if you want to do stuff when stuff is put there, use this module.

There already exists a feature to log "Page Not Found" to the activity log, its at
MODULES -> CORE -> SYSTEM CORE -> ACTIVITY LOG -> log 404 Not Found

Turn that on and you'll see any URL that a customer lands on that results in a Not Found error.

Be aware that bots scan sites so you'll probably see a lot of:
type urls and others that just dont make sense like
This is bots guessing that your site might be 'Wordpress' or 'Drupal' and if it is, then they will try to run through a list of known attacks for those systems.

The way a developer might use it could be to add a log to the activity log:
Then use the module to watch for that and notify the developer when it does.

Thanks. All good.

I wonder if there are any jr network owners/developers who have found particular activities that all or many network owners should be monitoring?


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)

Some ideas:
* If you wanted to know when one of your users posts a new blog post. (so you could go check it)
* If you wanted to know if any forum posts were deleted by your staff. (so you could ask them about why it was deleted)
* if you wanted to know when someone downloaded a specific thing. (that shows up as a log entry)
* if you wanted to keep an eye on the specific activities of one email address.
* if you have something like this "Payments: Stripe has transferred $50 to the active bank account".

What it does is when your conditions match it sends you an email to tell you that it happened.

So scan your activity log for things you're interested in.

A footnote to the above: i.e. we can monitor for positive activities, not just negative.


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)