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Midnight Modding

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Are they really though? (Yes, I'm asking this sincerely).

I personally never pay attention to whether someone is online or offline or not. I don't find online status (again, personally) to be very important when participating on a forum. It's different, to me, when you are on a social networking site, but replying to a topic I don't typically care if the user is online or not.

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Most features people want I almost never use. However yes with this I did always look at images to see whow as online wehn reading topics. I probably used that and individual post "top" buttons more than any other non-essential-to-posting features. no huge deal losing top buttons and even this is not a huge deal, but I sure liked those images. :smile:

By the way that weird issue where text is invisible happened just now in this topic with my own first post. Weird.

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  • Management

Does the user being online or offline impact how you reply to the topic? I don't see how it does especially when you also allow users to login anonymously meaning they will always show offline.

The point of a forum, as opposed to a chat room, is that you don't have to be "online" to participate in a conversation. For example, I am often online but not on our forums here. Yet if someone posts a reply to a topic I am tracking I get an email and instantly read the topic. I would not want someone choosing not to post because the little indicator next to me name shows offline.


To summarize: the online indicator on a forum is misleading to the average user. The average user does not understand that, unlike your instant messenger application, the user could have signed off 15 minutes before and it would still show them online. So, in the end, the online indicator is not really telling you what you think it is nor is it bringing any useful information to you that will impact how you interact with the topics.

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I would even say that it more likely encourages me to reply to someone when seeing that the person is online. And I am pretty sure that my users will not like the idea that this feature has been taken away.

The only reason I suppose for taking this feature away, is that it might slow down the server. Other than that, I do not understand why getting rid of this feature.

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It sometimes encourages me to reply also. In fact oddly in some cases I am encouraged to by knowing they're NOT online and sometimes by knowing they ARE online. I can't think of exact examples right now, but it's happened frequently.

I'm hoping maybe someone will have time to add it in as an optional feature. I know I could do it as a hook, but I personally don't like doing that type of mod since I would have to spend soem time being sure of where to do things and if existing data is already available etc etc whereas Matt or Brandon probably know without thinking what to do.

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Yeah, this was removed and I can see how this would be something some would want. I think it's a testament to the ease at which IP.Board 3.2 can now be modded that it was only about a 20 minute job to whip up a hook that brings this functionality back:

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Wow what a cool way of showing the link too. Thanks very much as it will also help me see what's new to make hooks easier. :smile:

What did you use to have the link look like that? No bb code or html is shown when quoting your post. I haven't played with 3.2 yet to know if it's a feature for ipb in general, something for marketplace, something only here, or something yuo did yourself with html.

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What did you use to have the link look like that? No bb code or html is shown when quoting your post. I haven't played with 3.2 yet to know if it's a feature for ipb in general, something for marketplace, something only here, or something yuo did yourself with html.



I used the My Media button in the editor.
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Does the user being online or offline impact how you reply to the topic? I don't see how it does especially when you also allow users to login anonymously meaning they will always show offline.



The point of a forum, as opposed to a chat room, is that you don't have to be "online" to participate in a conversation. For example, I am often online but not on our forums here. Yet if someone posts a reply to a topic I am tracking I get an email and instantly read the topic. I would not want someone choosing not to post because the little indicator next to me name shows offline.




To summarize: the online indicator on a forum is misleading to the average user. The average user does not understand that, unlike your instant messenger application, the user could have signed off 15 minutes before and it would still show them online. So, in the end, the online indicator is not really telling you what you think it is nor is it bringing any useful information to you that will impact how you interact with the topics.




Yes, I honestly use it to determine if whether I will post now or wait until later in some instances (depending on the topic of course), especially if you are in a good discussion / debate, or want to post before a member is offline if I need certain info in a hurry. If they are offline, I might post or send a pm to another member who is online. It's just a convenient way of seeing who is online and knowing when you can probably expect a reply.
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To summarize: the online indicator on a forum is misleading to the average user. The average user does not understand that, unlike your instant messenger application, the user could have signed off 15 minutes before and it would still show them online. So, in the end, the online indicator is not really telling you what you think it is nor is it bringing any useful information to you that will impact how you interact with the topics.




I have a suggestion for this. How about if you put your mouse over the (ONLINE) icon, a tooltip shows up displaying for example: "Last active 2 miutes ago" like on the profiles.
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Well I am happy to not have it, and would like to see a lot of other unnecessary fluff go. Way too much junk has been added in the last couple of years, and IP.Board becomes less appealing to me every year.

It's getting so one cannot navagate without inadvertantly mousing over popups, popouts and other ajax lookie-here-at-this folderall.

Worst of all is the Social Network integration which is showing your members and would be members what they might find more appealing. It is akin to Southwest Airlines showing Delta ads in flight. Too many forum owners prefer eye candy to functionality and easy use.

My $.02

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Worst of all is the Social Network integration which is showing your members and would be members what they might find more appealing. It is akin to Southwest Airlines showing Delta ads in flight. Too many forum owners prefer eye candy to functionality and easy use.



My $.02



I do not think I can disagree with that. I do prefer easy to use over eye candy.
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It never really made much difference to me. When I open a topic I'm either going to respond, or not, and that decision, plus whatever I'd have to say, would not be influenced by whether the person I'm responding to is online or not. It might make me think "huh, they might get right back to me", but I tend to be someone who posts then moves on to the next task.

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Used this feature a ton! Especially when doing moderation it really helps to be able to quickly see in the topic you're currently moderating if the affected users are online or offline without having to go to their profile or having to load an extra popup.

Did not like the "Online" badge in the hook that was posted and I prefer the more subtle msn-type indicator that was posted earlier in the topic. I assume it's a quite easy fix though and just swap images.

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Did not like the "Online" badge in the hook that was posted and I prefer the more subtle msn-type indicator that was posted earlier in the topic. I assume it's a quite easy fix though and just swap images.



Wasn't a big fan of it myself, but I wanted to be consistent with what the board now uses for this display.
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