Feature request

[Aidan Karley]

I know from previous discussion with JamesMc that he’s not the developer of the code that is being used, but here’s a feature request to pass on to the Raven/PHPnuke team. Or a module to consider adding to the site, if it’s available for production use (I just looked at the stats module and saw 111 guests online and 9 members. ‘Nuff said!)

If there’s something that implements functionality equivalent to the PHPbb3.x and/ or SlashCode "Friends and Foes" feature … or some per-user list of frequently-PM’d users … that’d be pretty handy.

On which subject, I’d better go and teach OILC_neil, at the other end of the room, how to use a PM.

TIA.

[Stephen Black]

Not sure what you are asking for, but just a point of order so to speak that this site is used by not only UK people but by people the world over.

So I would be concerned that any move to have a Uni0n type list while useful for the locals cuts out the rest of the users from around the world

[Ray Shields]

what on earth is "pseudo-fora"

And why isn’t there a "none of the above" choice.

[Aidan Karley]

Not sure what you are asking for, but just a point of order so to speak that this site is used by not only UK people but by people the world over.

I first encountered the "Friends and Foes" features on SlashDot, a "News for Nerds" site that’s been going since about 1997. While it’s got a strongly American membership, it’s by no means "regionalised".

What a "friends & foes" feature requires is that the membership record for each user name includes space for a list of user names considered "friends" and a list of user names considered "foes" ; commonly the "friends" appear high on the list of members when you’re picking a user to send a PM or email to (along with the author of a particular posting, any other respondents … it’s up to the implementing code-writer), also topics started by "friends" may be displayed higher for a particular user.
Essentially, flagging someone aS A "FRIEND" (bloody CapsLock key!) is indicating to the site’s page production code that "user X considers messages and posts by users Y and Z to be likely of higher value than average".
Correspondingly, for user X to flag someone as a "foe" is a way of indicating that X considers posts by users P, Q, and R as being retarded wastes of electrons.
Because of the personal nature of the "friend/ foe" ranking, it’s not easy for users A, B, or C to find out who are friends of user X, and who are foes, unless user X chooses to display it.

It’s a common feature in bulletin board software packages ; this board runs on code re-worked from PHPbb version 2 (for reasons JamesMc has discussed offline), and friend / foe tracking was introduced in version 3 of PHPbb. I’m not a PHPbb guru, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the maintainers of the package that JamesMc is using have at least looked at "back-porting" the friends/foe features into the package that this site uses.

It does make managing who you have relationships with on any particular single bulletin board somewhat easier. In the context of this board, I’d use it for flagging the users on the board who I know are members of the RMT, and therefore whom I have a duty of service to. At which point, keeping my "friends/ foe" list private becomes important. It is however, a feature request. If it doesn’t happen, then I’ll end up using a page in my notebook instead.

[Aidan Karley]

what on earth is "pseudo-fora"

The help information appears to be presented by the normal "discussion forum" software of the site, but it seems to be from a database with read-only access for general users. So in structure it appears to be a "forum", but you can’t contribute to it, so it’s not a normal forum. Hence pseudo-forum.

And why isn’t there a "none of the above" choice.

Because I didn’t think of it. Voting isn’t compulsory, is it? also, does the site keep track of who cast each vote, or does it allow jerrymandering and "voting the graveyard" and all the other tricks of the democracy-fixing game.

The "I didn’t think of it" excuse above illuminates the pseudo-forum nature of the help files. If, as a user, I could edit the help files about setting up votes to include a reminder to include a NULL option in a vote, then the help system would be just like another set of topics on the board. but that would also leave them open to vandalism, and add to the administrative hassle of running the site.
The site administrator could always, if he thought it important enough, modify the "help" pseudo-forum to address this point. Or even make a group of trusted users who have authority to do such edits for him.

[Ray Shields]

Voting isnt compulsory but then you would get a feel for the number of people who are quite happy with what we have.

Im still not sure what you are on about. Quite happy with what we have, thanks. Please feel free to set up your own normal forum.

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