TracyIsland Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 Has this issue been raised before? I was just trying to share a post link, you know the one Matt created that has the mobile phone secret share symbol, with Coding Jungle. I suddenly realized after clicking on Matt's secret symbol in the header of the post, next to the post #, that of all the social share icons listed, there wasn't one for PM. Why is that? I would think it would be easy to add that feature to the social share set of icons and functionality, where when you click on the PM icon, a popup appears with a to field (you type and an autocomplete fills in the member's name), and then you add just a body message comment, along with the autopasted link from Matt's secret symbol. The subject line would be prefilled with something like: "Surferboy has shared a link" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfarber Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 "Huge gaping hole" seems a bit dramatic after reading your actual suggestion :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyIsland Posted March 27, 2013 Author Share Posted March 27, 2013 hmmm, well some might consider a large oversight since PM is big feature of the ip board, and not having that feature to share a link with others within the community seems like a huge, monstrous, gravity-collapsing hole .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Management Matt Posted March 27, 2013 Management Share Posted March 27, 2013 By "Matt's Secret Symbol" do you mean the commonly used share symbol as seen on sites such as the bbc.co.uk and well... thousands of sites? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyIsland Posted March 27, 2013 Author Share Posted March 27, 2013 okay Matt, you made your point but I would think that if you stood in Piccadilly Circus and asked passers by, one by one, what the symbol meant, most of them would not know. Aunt Madge would certainly not know until I told her and I really don't want to have to spend any more time with her than needed. My point is that tech savvy folks know but the average user does not know that Share = Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Management Matt Posted March 27, 2013 Management Share Posted March 27, 2013 okay Matt, you made your point but I would think that if you stood in Piccadilly Circus and asked passers by, one by one, what the symbol meant, most of them would not know. Aunt Madge would certainly not know until I told her and I really don't want to have to spend any more time with her than needed. My point is that tech savvy folks know but the average user does not know that Share = matts_secret.jpg I phoned your Aunt, and she said she knew exactly what it meant. I also stood in Piccadilly circus and asked passers by. Not many stopped to give me an answer, but I did collect £1.78 in loose change tossed at my feet, so not a complete waste of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hexsplosions Posted March 27, 2013 Share Posted March 27, 2013 Whilst I don't agree with the analogy of a huge gaping hole, I do agree that not everybody knows what that symbol means. To use Matt's example, the BBC also use the word "share" alongside the symbol. This presence of that word indicates the BBC recognised that not all audiences would know what that symbol means, and thus elaborated. The problem with such symbols is that they are not memorable for the average, non-internet-savvy, user. Icons like those of Facebook, Twitter and even the less successful Google+ are brands and easily recognisable. The share icon isn't. I have to ask though... considering users are already on the board surely they can just use the View New Content link to find stuff themselves? If there were a "share via PM" button I would actually be fearful of using it. It would make it too convenient for people to start their own private little conversation about the content which then fails to benefit other members or the site itself. Requiring a little effort, e.g. having to copy and paste the link into a PM, serves to deter this behaviour. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyIsland Posted March 27, 2013 Author Share Posted March 27, 2013 Whilst I don't agree with the analogy of a huge gaping hole, I do agree that not everybody knows what that symbol means. To use Matt's example, the BBC also use the word "share" alongside the symbol. This presence of that word indicates the BBC recognised that not all audiences would know what that symbol means, and thus elaborated. The problem with such symbols is that they are not memorable for the average, non-internet-savvy, user. Icons like those of Facebook, Twitter and even the less successful Google+ are brands and easily recognisable. The share icon isn't. I have to ask though... considering users are already on the board surely they can just use the View New Content link to find stuff themselves? If there were a "share via PM" button I would actually be fearful of using it. It would make it too convenient for people to start their own private little conversation about the content which then fails to benefit other members or the site itself. Requiring a little effort, e.g. having to copy and paste the link into a PM, serves to deter this behaviour. Okay, you said it better than me. Thanks. The reason I was suggesting a PM icon in particular for the posts, and not as much for a topic in general, is to share one part of a discussion. Just using the two or three recent bigger topics under discussion: smartphone, pizza tipping, and ipb editor/bbc code. All of those topics have pages and pages of posts now. So do some of the larger support topics for marketplace files. Can you see how it would be easier if I was chatting with someone, or skyping with someone while simultaneously being online with them, to pm the post share link? I don't see how your suggestion of using the View New Content link would easily address helping someone find the 6th post on the 4th page of a topic. In the over-the-top hit the drama button original post, I did give an example of when I would have liked to use the PM feature to share a link. Coding Jungle and I were skyping back and forth about a particular third-party application and I found a particular post in the support topic for that file that I wanted him to see. At the moment when I clicked Matt's secret symbol, I realized that this was odd, no quick and easy PM feature to share the post with Coding Jungle. Instead, I had to copy the link, then paste it in the box for skype. I can imagine other real world examples when people are in the chat room, or talking offline, and there is a debate or a clarification about a topic. "Oh but did you read his/her post yesterday ...?" That would in turn, allow the other person to perhaps reply differently in the ongoing discussion of a current topic or in a different topic. Also, one of the many great features of the personal messenger is the ability to add other members of the community to a personal message. To me, conversations can go on in a number of formats within and/or surrounding a community: via pm, via a topic, via comments to a blog entry, and via the chatroom. If you look at the social share links provided, it seems to be taking the conversation away from the community when you could or should be keeping the conversation in the community. That's how I came to my dramatic expression. Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jυra Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 I had no idea what Matt's Secret Symbol meant until today. I don't see it often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makoto Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 I've seen it a few times. On my Android phone and a few other misc. websites. I didn't have a clue what it was at first either. I have the icon removed from my forum regardless, because I like keeping things simple. Honestly though, I think I like this icon better: That's entirely personal preference but I'm voicing my opinion for the hell of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyIsland Posted April 3, 2013 Author Share Posted April 3, 2013 Glad you shared! It's one hell of an opinion, and I like it! Not sure if Aunt Madge would though .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenLinks Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 I am not going to let you punch Matt :) There are some common images used around the web by webmaster's. Share icon is the correct icon used by Matt , though for my taste i would not even implement an icon. You already have the post number which is a link to share this functionality. I would use a tooltip instead of url title tag and remove the image. Duplicating the title tag is not wise for there imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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