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As opposed to how the software works, which seems to be the bulk of suggestions, I am more focused on what it does.

For example, I would like to see a bug appear somewhere when a watched member logs in. This would only be seen by a mod or admin. This especially if a watched member posts.

It gets tedious for a mod to keep updating the whose online.

This would help us keep track of problem members in a timely fashion.

And the mood emoticon drives me nuts, personally. I know it can be turned off for the whole board, but I would greatly appreciate that function to be by individual choice.

We screen new members. It would be useful if control panel turned a different color when someone is waiting in the queue.

Just some thoughts.

I like that idea. An indicator next to the PM indicator would work nicely.

Thanks, I was beginning to wonder if I was whistling in the wind.

I have another one and this one is kinda serious;

We are a marriage advocates site. And we are growing like a yard full of weeds. There are reasons for that in that we are a non-profit and most all of the other sites are for-profit or guru based.

Sometimes we have someone in crisis get on the board. We have developed standard procedures to handle those cases, but at one time, we were over 800 posts a day (2 1/2 months from opening) with a moderator crew of 2 who were trained and a couple of more in training. We simply can't screen posts fast enough.

Right now, posts are down because it is the holiday season, so we are going to do a forum upgrade during the slow period. We expect to be slammed in January if our experience on other forums is any indication.

I foresee a real need to have the notify button trigger some sort of beacon or flag appear somewhere like the PM flag. For example, we have had one teen cutting, three suicide issues, and several domestic violence deals show up. We know what to do, it is the knowing that we need to do it that is the problem.

In the grind of trying to keep up, sometimes we forget to keep checking our emails for notify issues. Heck it would even be useful if notify went somewhere within UBB and not to email. That way, someone could say - on it - and we wouldn't get duplicate efforts. I would love to see an IM integration.

Maybe I need to talk to Gizmo or someone about how much it would cost to do some special stuff, you think?

Maybe shout box could be turned into an admin deal - only? Gonna think about that one. It would probably work best with a clickable post number thing. Click on #15406# and go right to it in the main display.

Larry

I been asking for all notification to happen in the one place (The forum) for over 3 years. its crazy to have to have look at your e-mails only to have to visit the site your monitoring anyway.

An e-mail alone does not always put it in context.

And to top it off your members think that your being ignorant and not resolving notified posts.

Would be nice to sent a Thank you for the notification too.

You can make the shout box viewable to admin only.

Love the idea of a NOTIFY flag for Admin and those moderators of that forum.

I think to be fair the ideal solution would be, e-mails and notify flag they would compliment each situation.

Mark:

Yea, I played with shoutbox last night and the mods like it. I am going to test it to see if can be seen by just mods and admins without leaving a large hole when I position it near the top.

After I posted to the above, I had a duh moment and activated shoutbox. What would be nice would be the shout box as a detachable that always stays on top and the footprint can be adjusted. That way the individual mod could park it somewhere out of the way and it would be a true internal IM, usable by all admins and mods. I do note that an island can be changed to external. Apparently the basic code already exists to almost do what I would like to see, maybe?

I am disturbed that you have been asking for something pretty simple as code writing goes for three years without a response.

Currently, when someone logs in with an IP address that is already on line, admins get a head's up in a PM. Ummm, excuse me, how hard is it to do the same thing for notify? Or for that matter, in shout box. ?????

Perhaps the powers that be, which seems to be Rick, got burned out reading suggestions.

Larry

IIRC

the reply to the requests was that's how Forum "Owners" wanted it.

Not the Admin and Mods, who may run the show.

It works if your someone whom has set up several sites / forums,
and your not day to day active. So its an e-mail that will bring you back to the forum.

Its a no brainer to me.
Why should you have to visit 2 sources to fix or act on a reported post. NOT everyone is Gmail or MSN. My e-mails
go via my home pc.

There is one member that has implemented such a tweak on there forums, i cant remember there name now.

And a option to reply to a Notified "Message" even if just to say thanks. But i thank them on there submit so that's just a extra please lol

I used to have 20 programmers working for me. The atomic cloud of ego hovering over the building was both obvious and annoying when I arrived at work daily. I had three at the genius level.

On the other hand, many of them were my friends and I treasured them as both individuals and for their talents. My role was telling, explaining to them, how those who bought our products and for whom they were thus accountable in terms of the income they enjoyed doing the work they enjoyed, were important in the great scheme of things.

I was even successful, sometimes.

The line quoted above is an Ivory Tower comeback that means; "we don't wanna do that right now." This is a polite way of saying that what is important to you is not important to us.

Many forums are managed by volunteers who act as admins and mods, and retaining them can be a challenge. Making admin and mod jobs easier to do should be a major focus for both owners and developers of forum software.

Larry
larry.on.ma@gmail.com

And another little bit of programming that would help:

A small check box somewhere on the command line of a post where a moderator could check that they had read it, would be useful. Log that event so we would know who.

See why?

My duh! moment has paid off. We are using shout box all the time now for the admins and mods. And our traffic has recovered from the Thanksgiving Holiday. We are not yet at the level we were from meta discussion days and the heavy influx of new folks, but we are getting there. We continue to exceed the two established (ten years) guru forums in post count and member activity.

Larry
www.marriageadvocates.com

And yet another observation. I posted my admiration for UBB forum software in the update thread and I meant what I said.

I have an eye for detail and usability. This always served me well when I was in charge of delivering the message to developers how users felt about the product, the usability, the look and feel, and possible improvements.

So I post a few things here with hope.

One of the things I have noticed is interesting. When maximized, the front end of the forums is nicely done. Right and and left hand islands are given the page space they deserve, especially considering that ads are usually in those locations.

When not maximized, front end page reads are still pretty much as they should be.

At maximum or not maximum, the right hand island is squeezed for other page reads, such as threads or posting. It seems to me that the middle should be the one squeezed to protect ad islands and other information.

Matter of fact, a long set of characters in a post with no break can take the whole display to the right a considerable distance.

Just saying.

All good stuff in this topic. Not falling on deaf ears, just so ya know

Thanks Rick. I think UBB is the best of the best, which does not mean it has everything anybody could ever want. Just trying to help.

Likely the only thing really requiring any programming time is squeezing the middle. There are so many things that interact with each other, that one may or may not be practical.

Nice to know the thread is being read.

Larry

Very interested, how are you dealing with the suicide issues?

Hi Larry. That's a great idea about a shout box for admins and mods only.
1. Do you have both, a public one and a private one on the same side?
2. Does the private one take up a blank space?
3. How do you add a private one? Been trying to figure that out but have missed the correct method.

Thanks.

Tee:

On subject of suicide. Here is an actual post from a moderator to a potential suicidal person:
__________


I'm so sorry for the continued pain. I want you to have some information for the future - just in case.

I'm going to give you a website and a phone number. Please remember they are here or write them down. I'm glad you found ways to work through the feelings the other day, but you never know if that awful feeling will return after hours:

www.turn2me.org

1 800 273 TALK (or 1 800 273 8255. Calls are automatically forwarded to a hotline in a location near you.

I have a son who attempted suicide so I take your words very seriously. Please consider talking with your doctor about your suicidal feelings. There is no shame in getting help to get through this difficult time.

Take care!!

Official posts are always done in bold green.

Shout box permissions are done under Permissions - site permissions, who can see shout box and can use shoutbox.

It does not leave a hole.

Larry
www.marriageadvocates.com

Thanks Larry. Suicide posts are complicated things so thanks for that link. Those posts not only affect the commenter but other members as well and that's what we've been struggling with.

Shout box. Does that mean you just have the one shout box and not 2, one for the members and one for the admins and mods? Our member SB is quite active so we don't want to lose it.
It would be great to have one on the right column for the members and one on the left for admins and mods. Much better than PMing all day long.

Thanks again.

I don't think 7.5.x supports more than one shout box. I looked at it and that is what I concluded. There might be a way to turn a custom island into a shout box though.

would be a small to medium mod to enable a 2nd admin/moderator shoutbox

but it's not standard for sure

Thanks, will pass that on.