Freegle Tech Report 2013-07-31

Freegle Tech Report July 2013
Posts 12475-12704
Members 96

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 come along.

Server

It needed nursing through a couple of bouts of publicity, but has managed to stay up thanks to Edward and some extra capacity.

 I.loveFreegle.Org website.

Peter is still unable to update the news blog, as there are problems with wordpress updates and our geeks are unable to find the time to fix it. There are some who feel the page is not utilized enough to warrant the time required to sort it out. The link has been disabled for now, as the page has become so out of date.

Direct

• Someone reported getting a Direct mail containing posts from one group, but purporting to have come from a different group. If anyone else has come across this can they forward the mail to support @ ilovefreegle.org please.
• Someone was getting two digests from same email address. It appears to be a gmail, googlemail problem. If you sign in via Yahoo it will use the one on that group, so if you then join with the other on FB or FD you can end up with two.
• Picture upload for IE8 users was not working despite lots of effort to fix it. It should now be okay, but if you get a similar query, do ask what browers and version they are using before reporting it.
• There have been several reports of FD members posts not arriving at the Yahoo group. On checking they have bounced as not in the logs as a member. If you look in the post logs and see any posts from FD memberships. bouncing, send an invite to the fbuser ID and once registered ask them to post again. This can be caused by

1. A moderator denying the membership request
2. The member inadvertently, clicking on the leave the group link after posting.
3. The non syncing of membership lists
4. Some have no traceable reason as yet.

In all cases investigated inviting the FBuser address has worked, except for the member leaving as they will be allocated a different number if they rejoin. Groups who do find these members bouncing are recommended to check their POST logs daily and invite any FB memberships they see bouncing . .

Categories. We were asked to change the Pet category so that we don’t upset those who are against freegling pets. It has now become ‘ Pet Related.’

The way Find a Group works has been changed.
If you are a member of no groups at all (for example when you first sign up) it will now try to detect your location automatically from your browser. If it can, then it'll use that to search automatically. If it can't, then it will put up a popup asking you to type in a location, then search using that.
If you click on Find a Group later, then it's probably to find additional groups, which might or might not be close to you. So in that case it will put up the same popup.
The idea is that it makes it easier when people first sign up - they are guided to their local group without having to type as much, and responding to a clear popup on the screen is easier than having to identify a box that they're supposed to type something in.
It would be nice if people could test this, including signing up from scratch, and let me know how well it works. If it works ok, then perhaps we should revisit the current flow through the main website, which is:
Land on the main website
Realise you have to select "Find a group"
Type in a location and click search
Instead of this we could have a simpler "Get Freegling" button.

Colour Scheme
This has been changed to look warmer.

Events.

• Some groups are not clicking on the confirmation emails for a few days and missing the event start date.

Check you do not filter out messages with moderate on as the original message will be caught in the filter.

• There was a reminder delay, which was sorted..
• Date picker has been improved.
• Events on 24th-26th weren’t being created properly, and when you clicked on the link you got an error.

It is now fixed but if any are still required you will need to recreate them from the details in the confirmation mail.

• New Feature

A feature has been added which lets you add a popup for your group. Members who use the group via FD will see this popup, just once. The idea is that this is a brief message with a link for more info. You can configure a short message in HTML, and the name of a button and a link to go to, if that button is clicked.
Find out more here:http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/Freegle_Direct_Moderator_FAQ#Popups

Facebook

THey have been changing stuff again. You may now be able to get a short url before getting your 25Likes. Just go to your settings and group url and edit and see if it allows you to. Sometime it does and sometimes it doesn’t
They have removed the option to go into any apps you have put on your page and edit them. The main problem which this is that you can no longer set up a group via this means. If you use any other apps like wordpress, these are also affected.  To make someone else and Admin they now have to ‘be your friend’ as well
If you find any more changes which affect you, please report them to support @ ilovefreegle.org

Yahoo

• It was suggested by one of the non techies that as a reply to a Yahoo group joining request is all that is needed, to approve them, then perhaps a moderator could set up an auto-reply filter in their email service to reply to (and hence approve)

This to compensate for changes in the Yahoo rules which no longer allow groups to change their settings to open membership.
This was deemed a good idea and Ollie has agreed to have a bash at knocking something up which will work for all groups who wish to use it.

• Someone has spoken to Andrew Trusty about the "sent from my freecycling account" and he agreed to take it off for all Freegle groups.
• Approving Members. We have had a lot of extra members joining via Direct and many groups have been running out of preapproved memberships. Edward has now made it so that groups that run out will be asked to have 20 pre approved. If they still run out it will go up to 40 and so on to make sure that they can cover these hugh spikes we are getting.

Questions raised and answered.

Q..We have a direct member, and the plugin shows me their e-mail is the same as their FBUser address, is this correct?
A. No a plug in issue update it.
Q. I can’t access the App via Facebook any longer to set it up.
A. I will make the settings configurable instead.
Q. A moderator would like to to change some of the MM text from "where are you based" to "where is the item located" (or similar) . Can this be done?
A. Yes on the Yahoo one, but you will have to email geeks @ ilovefreegle.org with the details.
Q. I have a member who's emails sent via .com are being returned by Mailer Daemon. It seems she has two Yahoo mail accounts one ending in .com and the .co.uk
A. Remove the .com one as it is not working/
Jean
Freegle Tech
31st July 2013

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