PM notifications are now handled by Dazah. This means the notifications themselves will be originating from Dazah instead of from DaniWeb. The benefit of this is that you can go into your Dazah settings and configure whether you would like to receive instant notifications, a daily digest, or suppress notifications.

Dazah has more robust notification handling and so, even with the Instant notifications setting enabled, you will no longer receive a notification for every message received while you're engaged in a long back-and-forth chat.

Additionally, you can disable message notifications in Dazah while still receiving the DaniWeb monthly newsletter and other DaniWeb-related community mail.

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Member Avatar for diafol

Why do I need to go into Dazah to change settings in Daniweb? I will never (probably) use Dazah - just that annoying "Continue as ..." when I somehow have to log into DW/DZ again.

Why do I need to go into Dazah to change settings in Daniweb?

Because DaniWeb's private messages are actually Dazah messages in disguise. You're using Dazah everytime you send/receive a PM.

Basically here's what it boils down to ...

I've run out of ideas on how to turn DaniWeb around. I've tried everything and anything I could think of, but all of my friends who used to run tech forums (DreamInCode.net, DevShed, JustLinux, etc. etc.) are all in the same predicament I am. Google just doesn't like forums anymore.

I came out with Dazah and got really positive feedback initially, and then decided to merge it with DaniWeb as a means of helping to turn DaniWeb around. Pretty much as a last ditch effort because I don't know what else to try.

Member Avatar for diafol

I think we all appreciate your efforts to keep DW going, but this wasn't the thrust of my point. My point is that as a DW user, I'd expect all the options regarding DW to be accessible from DW - I do not see the point of having to go to DZ to change something pertaining specifically to DW messages.

I don't envy the task ahead of you Dani. There just isn't the enthusiasm there once was.

Tech support has largely been supplanted by stackoverflow, the social/discussion aspect by Reddit, Facebook, etc.

Maybe putting DW on ice and concentrating on Dazah making inroads into its intended market is best. The idea sounds like it could work and things that grease the wheels of commerce tend to, but without a solid example of a market where it's actually connecting people I think it's going to be an uphill struggle.

I get the impression (and would bet you agree) that the current users of Daniweb, the fifteen or twenty regular posters and the people needing homework help aren't the cohort you need to be targetting.

commented: Clear thinking +0

I do not see the point of having to go to DZ to change something pertaining specifically to DW messages.

The idea was that you have to go to Dazah because DaniWeb was no longer handling its own messaging and was essentially outsourcing notifications to the Dazah service. Moot point because it all ended up not working out and I ended up rolling it back.

Tech support has largely been supplanted by stackoverflow, the social/discussion aspect by Reddit, Facebook, etc.

Very, very true. Which is why I need a different angle that no one else is doing. The angle I ultimately chose is connecting people across groups and communities one-on-one because I found there was synergy there, not just with DaniWeb, but also with my meetup group (largest tech meetup group in all of Queens and Long Island) and my coworking space (only tech coworking space in Queens, NY) and all of the industry networking events I tend to go to.

When things first started to go south a few years ago, I added the little checkbox on the new thread page asking, "Would you like to donate to be matched with 5 members likely to be able to answer your question?" and I found the majority of people did this. That proved to me that there was a market for members of tech support communities to spend money out of their own pocket to be connected with other community members. Couple that with how I'm constantly asked to be a connector across my tech meetup group, and how I'm constantly going on and on around here about how I think of DaniWeb as a virtual equivalent of my tech meetup group, and you can see the connection. Meetup, Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, Reddit, etc. ... no one offers an easy way to search and find people that you need to talk to but don't currently know.

The purpose of integrating Dazah with DaniWeb is so that it will help Dazah get off the ground by leveraging the DaniWeb audience, while it will hopefully help DaniWeb by bringing functionality to DaniWeb members that doesn't currently exist across Reddit, StackOverflow, etc.

TL;DR: StackOverflow, Reddit, etc. are already firmly planted as the go-to places for tech support help, and we need a different angle. The different angle I chose is instead of thinking of DaniWeb as a failing tech support forum, instead to think of it as a collection of a million IT people and devs, and try to come up with something else that they may have a need/use for that doesn't already exist and that no one else is doing. What I came up with was connecting people one-on-one based on their behaviors.

without a solid example of a market where it's actually connecting people I think it's going to be an uphill struggle.

When people post their questions on DaniWeb and choose to be matched with people likely to be able to answer their question, and it sends those people a PM, that's all Dazah. The PM'ing itself, again, all Dazah. I've also just retooled https://www.dazah.com to be a good example of a UI of how it's connecting people. I urge you to please check it out.

I get the impression (and would bet you agree) that the current users of Daniweb, the fifteen or twenty regular posters and the people needing homework help aren't the cohort you need to be targetting.

As you said, and I agreed, I think that Reddit, SO, Gitter, etc. have already met people's tech support needs. I'm trying to give them something else. I'm branding it Dazah (as opposed to branding it as a DaniWeb feature) so that I can start with DaniWeb in the tech vertical but ultimately expand to other verticals and industries.

Member Avatar for diafol

I hope my posts have not been construed as an attack on DZ. DW is indeed on the endangered list, but I fail to see how being forced to interact with DZ for messaging is adding to the DW experience from the point of view of the average DW user (or the 20-odd die-hards of us, as we're to be called). I just don't see the attraction (for me). I would imagine that it is an inconvenience / hinderance more than anything. If I'm using an app, I don't then want to enter a different app, regardless of the relationship between them (parent - child; powered-by; whatever) to change settings for the first app.

I realise that DZ is your future and that DW is probably not going to last the course, but that's not the point I was making. If I develop an app using DZ to take care of one aspect of my comms (or whatever), I don't want my members to have to go to Dazah to change settings for my specific app. I'd rather them be able to change all aspects of my app through my app.

I promise you I do not take anything as an attack on DaniWeb or Dazah. If anything, I appreciate your passion.

What it comes down to though is that I think you are looking at DaniWeb as a tech forum and you're not quite seeing how Dazah fits into that or why it's necessary or useful. However, that's because you're looking at DaniWeb for what it always has been, which has been a tech forum.

We established a few posts up that there is currently no need or market for a tech forum such as DaniWeb. Between Stack Overflow, Reddit, Quora, etc., everyone's support needs are already met there.

Therefore, I needed to pivot DaniWeb into something else entirely. That "something else" is more along the lines of Dazah's functionality.

Not to mention ... Dazah and DaniWeb aren't really two separate apps. There's only one login system involved with one single user account. Not any different than going to Google Accounts to manage your Youtube profile. Or going to Stack Exchange to manage your Stack Overflow email settings. Or going to Microsoft Accounts to manage your OneDrive. etc.

We've broken away from being a one product shop. That one product is failing and we needed to pivot. We might have multiple apps and products now, but there's still one user account and your conversations and settings follow you across both apps.

Think of Dazah as just another feature in the DaniWeb umbrella. Right now, people only come to DaniWeb when they have an immediate tech support problem they need to solve, and then they leave immediately after. My hope is that people will start coming to Dazah just to meet people and chat on a more regular basis, and not just when they have a problem.

I think nowadays you can't be a one trick pony. Stack Overflow has their Careers and their Chatrooms, etc. Just being a product that people come to when they have a problem and stumble upon from a Google search isn't going to cut it anymore.

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