Connecting with Members

[Reverend Jim]

I just got a PM from a user who said "Hello! I'm <username>. Nice to meet you! Let's connect." What I know about this user is precisely zero. Before I respond to a "let's connect" request I'd like to know a little bit about this user. In the old Daniweb I would just go o that user's profile page and read whatever he/she had decided to share. How do I do that now? And if I can't do that, what incentive do I have to respond?

[Dani]

You should be able to click on their avatar to get to their DaniWeb Connect Profile. Their avatar is next to all of their chat messages and also at the top of the page. This Connect Profile shows where they're geographically located, what (if anything) you have in common with them, what their goals for meeting someone are (e.g. are they looking for mentorship, etc.), and a little bio about their needs and goals (if they've filled this part out). The point of this page is precisely to answer the question you have ... You get a message from someone, and you want to see at a glance who they are and why they might be messaging you. You can then click on the purple button that says Member Stats to be taken to the DaniWeb profile page you're already familiar with that shows their member stats within the forum (posts count, etc.)

[Reverend Jim]

I tried that. All that does is redisplay the conversations page.

[Dani]

The link that you sent me to is the conversation page you have with them, but I can’t access your conversation with them. I’m saying click the avatar from that conversation page.

[Reverend Jim]

I do that and all it does is redisplay the page I am currently on. Here's thee screencaps.

1. The conversation page
2. Just before clicking on the avatar (mouse not captured)
3. After clicking the avatar

[Dani]

Their avatar is next to all of their chat messages and also at the top of the page.

Sorry for the confusion. The avatar in the list of conversations takes you to your conversation with them.

I was referring to the avatar next to each of their messages or the one at the top of the page (next to where it says Conversation with ...

[Reverend Jim]

Ah. Yes indeed. That does take me to the profile page. And naturally there is no information whatsoever on the profile page, therefore, absolutely no reason for me to respond.

[Dani]

Other than they’ve been a DaniWeb member for 7 years and are also from Ontario. ;)

It’s your choice to choose to respond or not. The system was designed to try to foster more personal one-on-one relationships among members, so I’m always on the look out in how I could try to improve that aspect of it.

[rproffitt]

I've received unsolicited messages too. Some were spam and you covered that by banning them.

Just like Jim, I will just ignore folk that try to connect and there is no details about them. If their profile is that sparse and they do nothing to start the relationship I'm going to ignore this as spam or an attempt at some phishing or other bad behavior.

In other words, the system as it stands does not foster what your wrote about as there is no way to find out what this person is about. We can speculate if this is a system flaw or the person that sent the message but to me, it's just a system I don't understand since you can't ban a spammer. To me this is something that once the spammers figure out they can't be banned then they may weaponise it.

[Reverend Jim]

Other than they’ve been a DaniWeb member for 7 years and are also from Ontario. ;)

I don't know how you got that. This particular user slientcoder, joined 18 hours ago and there is no indication as to where the user is from. Where are you getting your information?

[Dani]

Oh I see. I saw the username in your screenshot but apparently there is a separate user called Silent Coder (with a space) who has been a member for 7 years and lives in Ontario.

[Dani]

Also, you can Mute the user. We crowd source data about who and how many people mute a user to factor into our matching algorithm. If a large portion of people they reach out to mute them, the price to connect to other people just goes up and up.

On another note, this entire matching algorithm just got patented yesterday. Just got the approval letter. I’m officially an inventor.