Private messaging

Chris

In the interest of not hammering people with emails every time something happens, I think a daily email is better, but perhaps an exception could be made for chat messages.

I think it may be better to leave the e-mail threshold up the user. Let them choose if they're e-mailed every time something happens, every time xx amount of things happen, or daily, weekly, etc. Though it would be nice for a "priority" mode so if you send a message or chat to someone it will definitely fire them an email as some users may not check forums every day when someone is trying to get ahold of them for one reason or another. Something worth thinking about maybe.

Just an idea.

meetdilip

In my opinion, lesser the emails, the better.

Bri

This is something I had been thinking about as well, and part of me was wishing for a feature like that. But, because of NodeBB's real-time nature, it feels more like a place to hang out with people that are actively online and engaged. Like going to a bar or pub, you go to enjoy the company of people while you're there, and then when you leave, you don't need to be constantly notified of everything that's happening while you're gone. I can see the benefit, and it ~~should~~ could be an option for those that want it (plugin) but ....

Do we want NodeBB to be like all the other forum software before it?

finid

@BDHarrington7

But you can't possibly want to be hanging in front of your monitor just to know what the latest post or latest replies to a topic of interest is. An email notification system makes it possible to be engaged without needing you to be physically chained to your PC at all times.

psychobunny

One of those things,

I think that our chat system can be "repurposed" or at least can "fake" a PM system - depending on how the theme chooses to utilize it. Imagine it otherwise as a real-time private messaging system. The only missing factor is the emails, which I think we should implement sometime after the chaos of our e-mail refactoring happens, so this is post 0.4x. If the user can modify if and when they get email notifications about their chats, then I think everybody will be happy, yeah?

finid

@psychobunny

I guess we will. But I thought that email's on the 0.4.0 list.

psychobunny

Yeah its happening

Just not sure if it will hit chats for 0.4x, but daily emails for threads you're following is coming out soon right @julian?

manuel

subsequent feature request: add notifications for chats and pm

julian

There are notifications for those, currently

manuel

@julian why i don't see notifications for new chats then?
i mean a number up to the chat icon like for "unread" posts

cytrax

I agree with the author of this thread. I think PM system is one of the key core requirements that users expect from community forum software. I think that should definitely be prioritized to enhance adoption rate if the technology.

At this point I am personally committed to using NodeBB. I'm even evaluating the hosted option to ensure I get the best of whatever is available. I use IPB right now and I spend too much time making things work. So I'm not too concerned about being a lab rat. But my community would need basic features such as PM to avoid a rebellion. lol

a_5mith

@cytrax I prefer the chat, it's quick and painless, the only thing I wish it could do is archive old chats that you can go through. But not a huge issue.

cytrax

@a_5mith Don't get me wrong, I totally love the chat system. However, I don't think it replaces PM. I see the chat system as no different to Google Chat. Yet I still email more important topics to the same chat audience.

Here are the reasons why I think chat should not be viewed as a replacement for PM:

Inherent archiving capabilities of PM is important
Advanced editing feature do not exist in chat
PM system gives users the ability to engage in different topics with the same audience but under multiple threads. Chat is very linear and doesn't support compartmentalization of topics. As a result, chat is great for real-time one-to-one dialogue but not so great when you have to discuss a particular topic in a laid out manner.

Those are the reasons I can think of for now.

julian

@cytrax said:

As a result, chat is great for real-time one-to-one dialogue but not so great when you have to discuss a particular topic in a laid out manner.

Any reason why you wouldn't want to use the actual forum itself for that?

psychobunny

I imagine for the private part of it As for the actual feature itself, imo I'd leave it for a plugin rather than build the feature into core

cytrax

@julian said:

@cytrax said:

As a result, chat is great for real-time one-to-one dialogue but not so great when you have to discuss a particular topic in a laid out manner.

Any reason why you wouldn't want to use the actual forum itself for that?

@psychobunny said:

I imagine for the private part of it As for the actual feature itself, imo I'd leave it for a plugin rather than build the feature into core

Yeah, Psychobunny answered the question in the reference to "private".

I don't think PM should be classed as a plugin. If the aim is to make NobeBB displace other forum engines that are already established, then the very minimum would be to have the fundamentals locked down. PM is fundamental to most communities online. It would be a great selling feature.

Let's take SeekingAlpha.com as an example; even though they could run that site without PM system, they still have it and it has come handy when I need to discuss something specific with authors of articles.

Another one is Reddit; Reddit is pretty much the largest community based site online and even they have PM system.

Something as simple as PM system is what a new prospect would look at it. I read somewhere within the forums that it would be great for gaming sites to adopt NobeBB. Well, I am that guy from a gaming site that's looking to start using NobeBB. And I can tell you that it would a deal breaker for my users if I try to force them to use a system without PM. Actually, I would get stones thrown and me and threats made against my dog. lol

a_5mith

@cytrax It's your forum, if my forum got everything they asked for id never have a day off in my life. I recently had someone ask for a way of hovering over a thread and seeing the usernames of every user who'd posted in that thread because they didn't want to read posts from a specific few users. But didn't want to use the ignore feature. shrug

Could the chat not utilise localStorage in html5? Brainstorming here.

psychobunny

Could the chat not utilise localStorage in html5? Brainstorming here.

If we were to do that I think somebody would eventually QQ about not being able to continue their conversation on their phone after they left their desktop etc etc.

And I can tell you that it would a deal breaker for my users if I try to force them to use a system without PM.

Yeah I could see why people who are used to the traditional way wouldn't be too pleased. I see us building some sort of hybrid compromise that takes the best of both worlds, rather than build a whole separately different system, if you know what I mean

<baris>

The current chat feature has no difference than a PM system, the messages are kept forever. It's the front end that just displays the last 50 messages and the presentation looks like its a chat system. It can be themed and/or moved to a separate page and labeled 'private messages'.

cytrax

@a_5mith said:

@cytrax It's your forum, if my forum got everything they asked for id never have a day off in my life. I recently had someone ask for a way of hovering over a thread and seeing the usernames of every user who'd posted in that thread because they didn't want to read posts from a specific few users. But didn't want to use the ignore feature. shrug

Could the chat not utilise localStorage in html5? Brainstorming here.

Nah.. I don't think it's a matter of just giving users what they want. I think there are core features that drive any community and the very best of them have PMs and a form of calendaring. PM especially is fundamental to these communities. Not even Facebook would become what it is today without that feature. I don't think deciding to do without PM gives any advantage to NodeBB but rather puts it at a disadvantage against other engines. You only have to read through this list to see that - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software

@psychobunny said:

Yeah I could see why people who are used to the traditional way wouldn't be too pleased. I see us building some sort of hybrid compromise that takes the best of both worlds, rather than build a whole separately different system, if you know what I mean

@baris said:

The current chat feature has no difference than a PM system, the messages are kept forever. It's the front end that just displays the last 50 messages and the presentation looks like its a chat system. It can be themed and/or moved to a separate page and labeled 'private messages'.

That would be awesome! If the Chat feature actually keeps the message in the backend, it would be great to be able to thread that out in a private system of some kind.