How do I send a PM in the New Daniweb?

[Reverend Jim]

I can't seem to find a way to send a PM. I tried going to the member's profile page but the PM area is gone.

[happygeek]

Click the messaging 'talk bubble' icon from the homepage to get to the member connect section, use the search box to find the user/conversation/send message. I also struggled a little with discovering this.

[Reverend Jim]

That is excessively complex IMO. I was in this thread and was disappointed, especially after rproffitt's great post, to see that vegaseat decided to reward lazy/bad behavior by just posting a complete solution to what is obviously a homework assignment. I wanted to send a rebuke via PM rather than publicly shaming. I should be able to

1. click on vegaseat
2. type in a message box and click "Send PM"

Instead I have to

1. go to the home page
2. click on messaging
3. type in vegaseat
4. click the search icon

and then get a page of names, none of which matches vegaseat. I think someone totally dropped the ball on this one.

[Reverend Jim]

While I am on the subject of PMs (as opposed to PMS), as a mod I tend to get a lot of "automated message" entries in my conversation list. I have a few conversations with other mods (and diafol) that I leave in the list but it is getting tiresome to have to archive/delete all of the auto-messages one at a time. How about an option to archive/delete all auto-generated conversations at once? Or perhaps separate the list into two lists, one for deliberate conversations and one for auto/junk?

[rproffitt]

I asked about this and from memory Dani wrote that messaging for most is a feature that you pay for. For moderators this means the easy way we had before is gone.

So we apparently get the same interface to message as a paying member. Which you described.

I too have to write that not only was the ball droped but there is no ball now. Don't get me writing about the Home page. I put my shortcut back to the Home page but it's such a pain to see and not useful at all.

[Dani]

I’ll respond to this thread more in the future, but for the time being, I just want to point out you can click the little speech bubble next to tour avatar from the top of any page. You don’t have to go to the homepage. Also, the reason it’s “excessively complicated” and requires an extra click is because the functionality only works this way for moderators. Everyone else hits a paywall midway through the process. Dazah integration :)

[Reverend Jim]

click the little speech bubble next to tour avatar from the top of any page

Clear as mud. What is a tour avatar? If I click on the speech bubble I get username search and if I then type in vegaseat I get nothing. And if there are several member-posts on a given page, how am I to sprcify the particular member I want to PM? It seems that my only clear option is to infract that particular user then wait until the auto-message appears in my conversation list. That's hardly fair to the user and highly inconvenient to me.

Also, the reason it’s “excessively complicated” and requires an extra click is because the functionality only works this way for moderators.

So... it was a deliberate decision to make it excessively complicated for moderators?????

[Dani]

Kinda, yeah.

We moved to members having to pay to send PMs via the Dazah user matches page, or when paying to submit a thread. However, I realized that I couldn’t charge moderators to send PMs as well, since mods sometimes need to communicate with members about infractions and post deletions. Therefore, the ability for mods to communicate with members they’ve infracted was made simple, but the ability for mods to communicate wirh arbitrary members is basically all but disallowed by the platform.

Unless you have a better model to make money outside of advertising ... ;)

[Reverend Jim]

I understand your position. In the end I just rebuked vegaseat publicly without an infraction. It served two purposes. It reinforced the point that rproffitt was making and (I hope) reminded the OP and vegaseat TANSTAAFL.

It's a good thing I didn't archive the conversations I have had with Davey, you, rproffitt, etc.

[Dani]

Sorry, I was typing yesterday from my phone, so my post was a bit brief.

To send anyone a message, type their username into the search bar at the top of any page. Click on their username. Or, click on their username next to their post. Whichever way you go about it, go into their member profile.

From any member profile, click the purple button that says "Connect with <Blah>", to connect with them on the Dazah platform.

Alternatively, you can click the little Chat icon to the left of your avatar, and then in the Username search field, type any username of someone you have a pre-existing conversation with, whether or not you have archived their conversation.

[Dani]

I should be able to

• click on vegaseat
• type in a message box and click "Send PM"

You should not have to go to the homepage, or anything like that. Instead, you can

• click on vegaseat
• click the purple button that says "Connect with vegaseat" (you'll be taken to their match profile page)
• click the button which will be one of the following:
  Pay to connect with vegaseat, if they are not a perfect match (red or yellow button)
  Connect with vegaseat for free, if they are a perfect match (green button)
  Continue chatting with vegaseat, if you're already connected to them (blue button)

[Reverend Jim]

OK. Not that I would have guessed that but now that I know I will (probably) not forget it fot the next time. Thanks.

[Dani]

May I ask what part of the process was confusing? Was it that you wouldn't have thought of clicking on the purple Connect button?

The reason is Dazah has essentially just been renamed DaniWeb Connect, and it's still a separate entity.

[Reverend Jim]

It was confusing because "send a PM" was a simple process. with a clear verb-noun command that was done from the obvious place - the member page of the user I want to contact. The new process starts with a less specific, and therefore less obvious verb, "connect with". Combine that with a multi-step process that requires me to connect twice before getting to "continue chatting" (which is also confusing because I can't "continue" something that I haven't yet initiated) and I think you get the picture.

[Dani]

If your button says “Continue Chatting” it’s because a conversation between you and that person already exists.

[Reverend Jim]

I just tried this with two random members with whom I have never chatted. Both times I got "Continue chatting". Also, both names ended up in my conversation list even though I did not click on "continue chatting".

[Dani]

When you click the continue chatting button to enter the supposed existing conversation you have with them, are there any previous messages shown? Perhaps automated messages?

[Reverend Jim]

No messages. Just an user placeholder with no conversation. I manually typed both usernames prior to testing to see if anything came up. Nothing did. Any username for which there was an existing conversation would show up.

[Dani]

That’s really strange, and a bug. I will investigate this in the database later today.

[Dani]

Can you let me know the username of a member you have the “continue chat” button for but no messsges? Thanks!

[Reverend Jim]

Try lil_bot

[Dani]

I am seeing that you sent lil_bot a message that says: Noli mentula. The message is recorded as having been sent from the same IP address you used in your above post.

[Dani]

Is it possible that you clicked on the button to Meet them? If you did, they would have automatically gotten your default Introductory Message (as set in your profile), and a new conversation with them would have begun. Is Noli mentula your default message? It's pre-set to something like "Nice to meet you!" unless you manually overwrote it once upon a time.

[Dani]

Either way, that wouldn't explain why your conversation with them is showing up as empty. It should have shown that message in the conversation window.

[Reverend Jim]

I was under the impression (based on the clear-as-mud procedure) that I would actually get to enter some text before sending a message. I don't care about what happens with typical members. As a mod I should easily be able to send a PM to any member. A common scenario would be to send a more detailed caution to a member who is close to crossing a line. I would want to do this

1. where an action by that uses does not necessarily warrant an infraction
2. where an in-thread chastising might cause undue embarrassment

So what we have now is a bunch of members who got "noli mentula" (latin for "don't be a dick") out of the blue from a mod (me) totally out of the blue and totally out of context with no reasonable way for me to assume that this had been done.

This is unacceptble.

[Dani]

I’ll form a longer reply tomorrow (I’m currently about to go to sleep, and on my phone) but why oh why did you change your introductory message to “don’t be a dick”??

[Reverend Jim]

Because in latin it likely won't be recognized as that, and it is the simplest form I have come across of the golden rule. I also believe that it could easily replace all of the 10 commandments. Politically speaking it seems to me that for years when the GOP has made any policy decision it seems to be with the deciding principle of "what would a dick do?"

1. environmental protection
2. gun control
3. consumer protection
4. tax reform
5. health care

It's a philosophy as well as a personal in joke. It's like any idiom in that doesn't translate exactly so if you don't get the reference you won't understand it. Like illigitimae non carborundum.

In hindsight, I'd like to soften "unacceptable" to "inconvenient".

[Dani]

OK, so the purpose of an Introductory Message, is just that ... where you introduce yourself when you would like to initiate a conversation with someone. Upon them seeing your introductory message, they can then choose to reply to you, or block you. For example, my introductory message is currently set to:

Hi there! I'm Dani, the founder of DaniWeb.com. Nice to see you here!

I hope that you're enjoying our community and please let me know if there is anything that I can do to make the experience better.

You can send a PM to any member. By clicking the Meet <Username> button, your introductory message is sent to them to begin a conversation. They'll receive an alert notifying them of your message. You can then follow up with anything else you'd like to say.

This is basically the Dazah platform that's existed for nearly 3 years, only rebranded with the DaniWeb logo and color scheme. I guess a little bit of frustration on my end comes from the fact that I've been asking moderators to use and become acquainted with and familiar with Dazah for 3 years now, and the functionality has not changed outside of a logo and color scheme change. Because now we're in the pickle where a bunch of users got a message from a mod that says "don't be a dick", which, as you pointed out, is unacceptable.

May I suggest you follow up with them saying, "Sorry, that message was sent accidentally." or something along those lines? And please, please, change your Introductory Message back to the default or something else that makes more sense.

[Reverend Jim]

please, change your Introductory Message back to the default or something else that makes more sense.

Done, but again, in the interest of clarity, changing the header for that field from HeadLine to Introductory message might have avoided this problem entirely. You have to consider what the header will mean to someone going to the profile page for the first time. It may be clear to you, but you didn't design Daniweb/Dazah for you. You already know how everything works.

[Dani]

Headline is just that, your member headline that appers in your member profile.

Your Introductory Message is something different. You can find it in the Business Networking section of your profile settings. It has always had a subheading that has said, "Introductory Message: This message will automatically be sent to users you would like to meet."