Freegle Tech Report 15-01-31

Freegle Tech Report January 2015
Posts 14130-14211
Members 96

General

We have been very quiet here, in part because Edward has been busy with Admin stuff and Chris working on his app.
We now have early versions of both the phone app and the new Freegle Direct interface ready for testing.
Moderators willing to help trial these are welcome to join us. The phone app needs Android 4 or IOS

ICloud email service.

We would still like to hear from anyone using this service to receive their Freegle Direct posts, and let us know if it is working okay.
Please email support @ Ilovefreegle.org if you do, as it is hard to answer queries when we are unable to access it ourselves.

Facebook and Freegle Direct.

Edward is working on V2 and hopes to have it out before the summer. V1 will then be retired. The new version will be much cleaner and usable on apps, phones and tablets.
If you know Backbone, Boostrap, or have CSS skills, and would like to help please - contact geeks@ilovefreegle.org. If you'd like to help test it, then lurk on Tech and watch out for mails from Edward as new features are added..

Phone App.

Chris is now trialling the phone app. It works for offers already and links to your Direct account if you use Facebook or create a password for Yahoo or Google. If you wish to join the trial please join us. Any queries must have the device and operating system used.

Bad Members

Edward has set up a list for moderators to add members who are answering a large number of posts and known to be unreliable.
Rather than ban them from the group, which may cause them to rejoin under another address, a feature has been added to quietly drop mails from them, so that their responses aren’t passed on.
If you have any members like this, please mail geeks@ilovefreegle.org and ask them to add them to the dropmails table. If we get lots, then something similar to the spammer interface can be written.
Would you appreciate a head up when members reply to a large amount of offers? Do join us and give our opinion.

Email Problems

Christian is just finishing the first stage of a much better automated process for Handling the Hotmail and AOL complaints.
Part of the improvement is that it now records now many complaints it receives regarding each email address.
Initially moderators and members will get notifications, for those we have received over 100 returned old emails.
It is left up to each local moderator how to handle these complaints especially if they are many months in the past.

Recent ones with more than two in one month or five in a year will also be sent an automatic email.

The new program will in the future allow us to provide local mods a quick list of all the complaints received from emails who are members of their group. This will be any complaint for any group and not just for their group. If interested please mail him at Support@ilovefreegle.org

Mapping

There have been a few questions on the mapping of posts lately, from being led to the wrong house number to saying a poster was 0 miles away when it was over 50.
Mapping uses Google maps. It will firstly use the members location as entered in their Settings, next it looks on the subject line for a location and then at the Group location used on Perch.
If a member has their full postcode in the settings then it will direct to that postcode. Like Google maps, or Navigation, it may give you to a random house number. The member should send interested parties their full address and this is not intended to be used instead.
If neither member has filled in any details it will show 0 miles, Likewise if they have both put in Ely, or Walsall. Occasionally it will show a post as a long way from where it is. This is a mistake on Googles side often, like picking up a motorway when an part postcode is put in like M6. These are usually the sort which moderators are asked to amend, when the post is made. All groups have a distance set of where posts can be expected to come from in their group settings, and if a post seems to be outside this area it triggers a mapping request. Moderators can map any posts on the FD tab if wrong though.

Yahoo.

Andrew discovered that a lot of groups pending members emails have stopped going out. TrashNothing uses these for groups which approve members to confirm their membership.
It may depend on how they are set up. Check under Control Panel and notifications. See if it is there and if the notify members box is ticked. I know this is working for some groups, so it may be a change in placement is needed or it could be group specific.
Email me at jean.quinn1@gmail.com if you find a solution.

Questions and Answers.

Q. I've just signed in using the google mail button and I'm showing as someone else not on my group.
A.She was still signed into Google with a shared email account.
Q. I've had a moany email saying 'There are mistakes in this system (of maps)' and pointing out a town 50 miles away is noted as 0 miles away.
A.Both members have to have their locations set on their settings tab, or it maps from the groups centre, to and from maybe the same if not filled in and location on post is absent or not found.. .
Q Hi. I tried to access Modtools from my Samsung phone, but I couldn't get it to work properly. I could only see a small part of each page and I was unable to scroll.
A.Try and install the Chrome toolbar, although older models do tend to suffer with this problem.
Q. This member is being taken to Facebook when they log in and don’t have an FB account
A.Often it is because someone using their computer has logged into their Facebook account, but occasionally FD can be confused about how a member joined.
Q.We have a member who has asked us about the maps on the Freegle Direct page, as his shows him as Dartford and he lives in Medway, how do we fix this?
A.Tell him to put in his postcode in on the settings tab and click save at the bottom.

Jean
Freegle Tech.

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