Freegle Tech Report 2013-09-30

Freegle Tech Report September 2013
Posts 12798-12913
Members 99

If anyone is interested in this stuff you are welcome to join us, even if you only want to dip in and out. Mods who are willing to try out new stuff, test any tweaks done, or just comment - please come along.

General maintenance, and answering queries is all that is being done at present.
Yahoo changes are causing some work, and problems.
Edward is also very busy working on a new tool (ModTools) for moderators to use with the Neo version. This is coming along nicely, and any moderator can have a free trial. There will be a charge of $5 (about £3.60) per year per group to help pay the costs incurred.

Server

No real issues, Chris tidied up some outstanding stuff from last months crash.

Work by Paul and Edward to transfer our hosting to Bytemark should start in October.

Freegle Direct

a. A few groups have members who say that they cannot post but can see posts on Direct. There are several reasons for this. We need to know how they sign in and if they see any pop ups or reasons. Some are logging in with the Yahoo button, which is really for existing Yahoo members. They don’t get an Fb username, so they need to keep their membership on the Yahoo group. Check your logs to see if they are, (some never have been and more commonly some have left recently). If not there or it is a slightly different email address invite them.

b. There was a problem with clicking on links in reminders for events which meant messages going to the wrong member. This should now be fixed but please repost it if you see an instance.
There was also a problem with times for an event changing by 1 hour. Hopefully a glitch, but if you see this please forward to geeks @ ilovefreegle.org.

Facebook

Again the main Facebook posts are not showing on individual group pages.
This is Facebook blocking them, and Edward will have another look at how we can avoid this, when he has the time. Meanwhile if you go to the main Freegle website you can repost any on your group page, just click ‘share’ and choose the page.

Yahoo

a. Emails going missing for days: This was happening widely, but seems to be settling down a bit now.
It does mean that you can approve posts but they don’t appear on Direct, Modtools or maybe on Digests, while relevant.

b. Reports of the new topic button acting erratically: If it is not working for members and you don’t have Freegle Direct, you can give them your message maker link. http://mm.freegle.in/group short name.
Unfortunately, embedded images no longer work in Neo and those members on this interface will be unable to see the one on your Yahoo page.

Problems raised and fixed

Some messages were going on with a lot of extra text attached. These were reposts and subsequent reposts may still pick up the extra coding. Newer ones should now be OK.
Some groups were seeing a lot of extraneous stuff appended to their messages.
It appears that these are messages sent to the group because of the problems members who have been Neo’d have, selecting reply to sender.
They will be trapped on FD and hidden but we can’t do anything about Yahoo.

Questions raised and answered.

Q. Can we allow ‘taken’s on FD to be sent from the post tab as some members get confused?
A. No, as we need the subject line to match for statistics and for removing the offer. We will do an introduction email for new members to be sent. This will take some time as we will need to confer with others and get it proof read.

Q. I was surprised when I opened the same group with Firefox and found it still displaying in the classic format. Why?
A. If you have the modplugin, it disables Neo in Firefox for the time being. Also groups with UK in the url have not been neo-d yet.

Q. Do comments made by newish FD members go to all the groups that member joins?
A. Yes

Q. When I upload photos onto the Eastbourne Freegle Message Maker with the item I am offering it seems that people can't see them, only a box with "computer talk" comes up. I can't see them either. On my other groups it is okay.
A. You need to change your group settings to store on site remove from emails.

Q. Is there a quick way to set find and change members set to "Not Allowed to post to group settings" in member export?
A. No, but Edward may be able to do something on the bulk features on ModTools.

Jean
Freegle Tech
01/10/13

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