Freegle Tech Report 14-3-31
Freegle Tech Report March 2014
Posts 13248-13344
Members 94
If you are interested in participating then you are welcome to join us, even if you only want to dip in and out. Mods are wanted who are willing to try out new stuff, test any tweaks done, or just comment - please come along.
General.
General maintenance, and Geek stuff is mostly quiet.
Changing over the servers is still ongoing, as is the work on Snaply for Android users. Mostly this month has been about answering queries.
Losing communication with Groups.
Trying to contact some groups has been an ongoing problem for Freegle. It is especially annoying when there is a chance of local publicity which is missed or when members questions are passed on by our Admin team and ignored. There is also the fact that several of these groups have been abandoned, and we are unable to close them down.
.
Edward proposed sending out a message and keeping records of it being at least opened and of groups not responding to owner emails..
We decided that it would be okay to do this once a month for those responding and more often for those not.
Current proposal is: - contact once per month - offer links for "I'm an active mod" vs "I'm on this group but not active" - keep track for each group -
Another suggestion is that we have a team of mods sending out personalised messages..
What to you think?
Freegle Direct
The ‘We notice you've not been freegling recently’ emails came out to someone who had been. It seems that there has been a misconception in the 30day and 90day notifications. If you like me thought it would send the first one out after 30days to new members but existing members get them after 90days I have probably told you that. In fact all members will get them if they have not freegled for 30days and again if after a further 90days if still not freegled. Each time they put a post on it will revert to 30days. These settings can be changed or turned off.
Events.
Someone posting a community event to two or more groups, found that only the first one gets through because of the crossposting to owner address problem even though she waits a while.
There is nothing we can do about this issue, except wait between postings and hope it is long enough.
The clock change may have caused some problems with the event timings. Please report if you see a problem.
A moderator received an event to verify and noticed a couple of errors. She asked if she could approve it and then amend it and was told she could..
Mapping
When I map items i sometimes get the message ‘Freegle Direct has hit Google's limit on mapping. Please try in a few hours.’
There is a limit for free use, or we have to pay. Weekends are particularly busy. If you wait a while or even a day or so, it will probably be okay and will correct later.
There were quite a lot of Facebook event failing reports sent out in the middle of the month.
If you just get the odd one or two you can ignore them. It is not connected to events but posts. There is a time limit set to keep trying and if for some reason it has been exceeded you will get one for each post which did not make it. Also though from time to time it may require re-authorising. In this case you will get one for each post. Just follow the links to reauthorise. If they do not stop then contact me offlist and I will have a look. sueandjean @ gmail.com
Snaply.
Andrew has now got a new (inhouse) developer working on it and progress is picking up. A lot of the bugs causing it to crash have been sorted.
It is again available for testing if you want to download it and give it a spin.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zpmjx9gmggths4f/Snaply%200_01.apk It isn’t live so you can make up posts.
Twitter
If you have a Twitter account you can use it to post Freegle posts to the group Facebook page. Just follow the steps below. Unfortunately you seem only able to connect one page, if you find a way to do more let us know please.
This article shows you how to connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts so that your Tweets will automatically post to your Facebook wall.
To connect your Twitter account and your Facebook profile:
Log in to the Twitter account you want to associate with your Facebook profile.
Go to your Settings menu's Profile tab.
Scroll to the bottom and click Sign in to Facebook and connect your accounts.
When prompted, select the privacy settings for who will see your Tweets posted to your Facebook wall. It is set to public by default.
Click Log in with Facebook and enter your Facebook login credentials.
Click Allow to accept permissions.
Your Tweets will now post to your profile Facebook wall and your username will be displayed there as well. @Replies will not be posted.
To connect your Twitter account to a Facebook Page:
If you have a Facebook Fan Page, or are the admin of one, you can post Tweets from your Twitter account to your Facebook Page. Follow the steps above to connect to your Facebook profile.
In your Twitter profile settings page, Select the page you'd like to connect to. When prompted, click to allow permission to post to the selected Facebook Page:
Other stuff.
Scammers and Scams . Please report spammers via ModTools, or if you're not using that, via the form at http://modtools.org/submitspammer.php
Questions asked and answered.
Q. Could we have a ‘Do not reply’ address on the ‘You have not posted reminders as some members get confused and respond with a post or question?
A. It was felt it was better to receive any responses, so that the moderators can help the members, than to just have their contact attempts lost in the ether.
Q. My edits appear to have worked but are not holding.
A. I have noticed with Neo that I can edit the subject line without clicking on edit and it appears changed. However to make this permanent I have to open up the editing form and save.
Q. I have a member whose posts are being rejected. She was an FB member and logs show she left a year ago.
A. Send the FB user address an invite ticking the email only box and she should be able to post again.
Q. The FB option to log in on the Freegle direct page doesn't work.
A. This was caused by the Chrome Avast extension blocking the Facebook login.
Q.Locations with start with our group name are being refused, but we have other locations which include that word.
A. A warning flashes up but members can still post. However it can be recoded to only use the whole word and ignore the others along these lines.
(\bstone/b)|(\bham\b)|(\blittlehampton\b)|(\bfishpool\b) or ask for help.
Jean
Freegle Tech
2nd April 2014
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