solved 2 simple questions about private messaging/following

Just a simple question here-
As I understand it, members have to be 'following' each other in order to send private messages, right? So...

1) -Do BOTH have to be following each other for private message between them to work, or can one send a PM when only a one way Follow is there?

2) -when you get a notice that someone is either now following you OR is wanting to follow you and awaiting your approval to follow you...is there a link supplied so you can immediately also 'follow' them in return? If not, woudln't that make sense? Is it a TWO step process of: they follow me, and then i may or may not follow them back?
maybe I've missed seeing it so far, or am not getting how the following system works...?

Thanks, this is hard to test since my site is not live.


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 04/03/15 07:16:42PM

anyone? thanks!


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

No - if you were following me, but I was not following you, you could not initiate a PN to me, but I could to you.


It has a direct link to the new follower's profile - due to the security implications of having the "follow back" link directly in the email it is NOT included.

So as it works now you would click on the included URL to view the user's profile and THEN press "follow" if you want to follow.

This is done this way due to the built in CSRF protection in Jamroom to prevent someone hijacking your cookie session and making your account do things (i.e. via a script set as the SRC for an image).

Hope this helps!


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Understood. Makes sense. Thanks!- now I know and can explain to my members! ('cause on Ning it's different)


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

No problem


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

It's a bit hard to remember, but it works if I think of it like this:
When you follow someone, it's like giving them a business card that enables them to contact you. But you would need THEIR businees card (a follow) from them in order for you to contact them.


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

Yeah that makes sense. And it's done this way since history has shown that if you allow a one-way connection to send a note, it becomes a target for spammers.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

To clarify though, it had to be a two way thing on Ning as well before being able to send messages: in Ning, you can't just 'friend' someone on your own- you had to send them a friend Request. The request had option to accept or decline it. If the person accepted it, then you were both 'friends' (both following each other). Only once a friend request was accepted could either of you send the other private messages. And neither person would appear on the other's profile page 'friend list' until a friend request was accepted, thus sealing the connection.
But, Jamroom is not Ning!


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

Yeah that's a traditional "friends" setup which is a little bit different than Jamroom's "followers" but for the most part they get you a really similar setup.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Fantastic explanation.

I do like Ning's "friend request"

Since we approve members, hopefully we have not admitted a spammer but they do sneak in. If they do spam, members send me a message and I ban them.

We use our internal messaging a LOT.
updated by @lora-mcmeans: 01/26/15 01:31:26PM

Lora, the JR private messaging system works fine as well.
You don't see it on this forum (the JR.net forums) because it's not activated here.
For your JR site, if you want it you must purchase the "Private Notes" module and activate it on your site. (at least I had to, not sure if it's included with any bundles of modules you are buying). Modules for special features are pretty reasonably priced I think, and are one-time purchases which you can then use forever on your JR site. JR sends out updates regularly to keep them updated, and notifies you to apply the update.

Once it's activated, members can 'follow' each other and if the following goes both ways , they can private message each other all they want, and have their INBOX and threaded messages to see.

Think of giving someone a follow as similar to the 'friend request'. If that person 'follows' you back, then it's similar to accepting a friend request, and you can then private message each other.


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

There is a Invite module coming soon. That will message followers and/or a list of email addresses inviting them to follow you, like a song/video/blog or generally get them to a specific page.


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

awesome

Can I see who I'm following? I mean as opposed to who follows me?

@iamtimbo -

There is no "who I am following" list at the moment. This was brought up in another thread on this topic.

It's a necessary addition. The question is how does it get surfaced in the UI?

I thought it might be nice to add it to the stats section, only visible to the profile owner. Do you have other thoughts?

Still waiting to hear back on when this might get implemented.

I suppose it may well depend on how many items might be in it! If someone is following hundreds of profiles, then listing them might be tricky, but I guess no different to how many might be following you.....

I think as a tab in the profile (like 'Followers' already is) would be the best - much easier then for an NC (sorry JRC) to format them as per the other outputs....

Tabbing it is not a bad idea and there are lots of examples of this in the UI already so it would make sense from that perspective.

As far as formatting the page I imagine it would be the same layout as ../follow. And though it's a really bad idea to add feature requests this way, I really would like to see the same 2/.../8 controller as in image galleries so that I could see all of my followers without having to scroll through many pages.
updated by @claygordon: 02/04/15 08:10:33AM

I think a tab in the existing followers section is a good idea.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

I've been playing - I think it's a case of using Aparna to create a module, copying the code from the Followers module, and then essentially reversing the lookup, but as I'm still only just getting my head around it all, I'm not currently sure what values to play with, and there's not a lot in the Followers module data store to play with....

Just an update on this thread that the latest Followers module has a new "Profiles You Follow" option that shows up in the User drop down menu (you can see it here on Jamroom.net).


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Brian, you're a hero!

Great!


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015