XF 1.2 Conversation Management Improvements

While the conversation concept in XenForo works well, there have been some challenges managing your conversations, particularly if you have a lot. XenForo 1.2 makes some changes to improve this.

Most of the changes can be seen in this one screen shot:

So the first thing to note is that conversations now have their own tab, which allows us to give a few additional navigation links to specific lists.

From there, you'll note that conversations can be starred. You can see the conversation listed there is starred. Starring works like you're probably used to in emails; it's mostly to allow filtering.

You can also bulk manage your conversations (over multiple pages) using the inline moderation-style check box. You can star/unstar conversations, mark conversations as read/unread, or leave conversations with this.

Finally, you'll note that all participants are listed on the conversation list. They are also listed on the conversation popup. (Note that to enable this for existing conversations, you will need to use the conversation cache rebuild option after upgrading.)

Oh, and it's been there for a long time, but did you know that you can filter conversations by starter or participant? Click the "conversation display options" button. Go ahead, try it here now.

This is by no means the end of the line for conversations and we still have plenty of ideas to look into for future versions.

 

[Hoffi]

Great! Now we can deinstall one more AddOn.

 

[Luxus]

Patiently waiting for little things like mass-select of watched threads.

Great! Now we can deinstall one more AddOn.

If you mean Conversation Essentials, I don't think so.

 

[Adam Howard]

I'd like the default options where (super) administrators can read personal conversations. We can debate the ethics, but its good to confirm if someone is spamming on the down-low.

Now if only there was an "auto welcome" conversation option. So that the system could send a nice standard welcome message to new people.

I usually don't send personal conversation, but I do notice I get more than my fair share.

 

[sonnb]

I'd like the default options where (super) administrators can read personal conversations. We can debate the ethics, but its good to confirm if someone is spamming on the down-low.

Now if only there was an "auto welcome" conversation option. So that the system could send a nice standard welcome message to new people.

I usually don't send personal conversation, but I do notice I get more than my fair share.

I do not think so. It is a kind of privacy violation and would never to be available in Core.

 

[rdn]

Thank you soo much Mike!

 

[Adam Howard]

I do not think so. It is a kind of privacy violated and would never to be available in Core.

Provided its in your tos (terms of service), its doable. But again, I didn't want to debate the ethics.

We need it. We've had trolls in the past claim people where doing things, when they were not.

And we've had people spam on the "down-low"... ie... example would be a trust member turn evil and slowly tell people to e-mail them (and off site tell them to go else where). Sounds harmless except when that person slowly does it to 50 - 100 people in a course of a month (slowly), its not a good thing.

Being able to view all of them at once to see that pattern is kind of important.

There is an add-on for this, but I'm always mildly worried that an update will make it useless.

 

[rdn]

I'd like the default options where (super) administrators can read personal conversations. We can debate the ethics, but its good to confirm if someone is spamming on the down-low.

Now if only there was an "auto welcome" conversation option. So that the system could send a nice standard welcome message to new people.

I usually don't send personal conversation, but I do notice I get more than my fair share.

I like this idea also.

 

[Alluidh]

If you mean Conversation Essentials, I don't think so.

It is enough to deinstall the free version of Conversation Essentials and so it is OK for the first (of many) step(s)

 

[erich37]

I do not think so. It is a kind of privacy violation and would never to be available in Core.

there is another thread for this topic:
http://xenforo.com/community/thread...tions-accessible-to-admins.46390/#post-499381

 

[Luxus]

I'd like the default options where (super) administrators can read personal conversations. We can debate the ethics, but its good to confirm if someone is spamming on the down-low.

Absolutely not. Admins have no business sticking their nose in other people's conversations. If people are spamming you with conversations you can report them anyway. And please don't argue that admins can already read private conversations using the database. This has nothing to do with XenForo and a forum software should never give you the option to violate other people's privacy.

 

[SchmitzIT]

BRING IT ON!

 

[Nudaii]

Absolutely not. Admins have no business sticking their nose in other people's conversations. If people are spamming you with conversations you can report them anyway. And please don't argue that admins can already read private conversations using the database. This has nothing to do with XenForo and a forum software should never give you the option to violate other people's privacy.

Yet i have seen it needed many times on forums, one forum installing such a add-on found a child grooming ring involving 10+ kids/young teens
sometimes its very much required, as for if it should be core that's an entirely different matter.

Personally I would like it in core.

 

[sonnb]

Provided its in your tos (terms of service), its doable. But again, I didn't want to debate the ethics.

We need it. We've had trolls in the past claim people where doing things, when they were not.

And we've had people spam on the "down-low"... ie... example would be a trust member turn evil and slowly tell people to e-mail them (and off site tell them to go else where). Sounds harmless except when that person slowly does it to 50 - 100 people in a course of a month (slowly), its not a good thing.

Being able to view all of them at once to see that pattern is kind of important.

There is an add-on for this, but I'm always mildly worried that an update will make it useless.

there is another thread for this topic:
http://xenforo.com/community/thread...tions-accessible-to-admins.46390/#post-499381

I think it should be an addon wherever Admin want to use it. For spamming issue, that's why 1.2 include Akismet checking to prevent message spamming.

 

[Adam Howard]

I think it should be an addon wherever Admin want to use it. For spamming issue, that's why 1.2 include Akismet checking to prevent message spamming.

I'm not exactly talking about bot spam or even newbie human spam. I'm talking about the "long con"... ie ... the guy who joins you site, post like 5,000 post in a month, gets to know everyone, and then does his dirty deed on the down-low. Those people don't show up in Akismet or any spam list, usually.

 

[sonnb]

I'm not exactly talking about bot spam or even newbie human spam. I'm talking about the "long con"... ie ... the guy who joins you site, post like 5,000 post in a month, gets to know everyone, and then does his dirty deed on the down-low. Those people don't show up in Akismet or any spam list, usually.

I see your concern. Yes, we might want to stop them but I think that no one want others (even admin) to see their Personal messages. If XenForo includes this in core, as you might know in Europe, XF might be complained by users or officers (My guess )

 

[AlexT]

I'm not exactly talking about bot spam or even newbie human spam. I'm talking about the "long con"... ie ... the guy who joins you site, post like 5,000 post in a month, gets to know everyone, and then does his dirty deed on the down-low.

You don't think at least some of those he contacts would be loyal to your site and report his mischievousness/messages? In which you could act and pull the ban trigger.

 

[Adam Howard]

You don't think at least some of those he contacts would be loyal to your site and report his mischievousness/messages? In which you could act and pull the ban trigger.

Results vary. Some people don't bother to report things and other do.

For example, I could post a spam link right now...

"Come visit http://www.SociallyUncensored.eu an uncensored community where everyone has a voice, including YOU"

Some people will report that and others just ignore it and move along. Personal messages are about the same thing. And most of our members are "non involved" on such matters.

We know.... we checked.... (we were curious & fishing for new staff)..... we left 2 spam post once just to see if anyone would say anything. Took a while before someone spoke up for one and the other, people ignored and its likely still on our site some place.

And in the case of the pm spam... Yes, someone did report it, but only after a few dozen or more people had received it. As said, people are "non involved" on such matters.

 

[Chris D]

I think this thread should remain on the topic of the improvements that have been made in 1.2, not those that you wish to see.

 

[Jeffin]

Mike, I'm starting to think you are doing all this for the 'Likes' right? I mean you could have waited and put all previously posted developments in one post.
Just kidding. Thank you again for the hard work.

 

[ibnesayeed]

Mike, test, April 9, 2013

Feels like we need different look and feel or separator to identify participants and the date.
I am wandering, what will happen when there are too many participants in a conversation... will the date be hidden or wrapped in the next line? Won't it be good to have date in the beginning as its size is going to be fixed? Or float it to the far end of the cell?
I remember another nice thing from "Conversation Essentials" add-on that instead of using names of participants use small size avatar thumbnails. It makes the look-up of the participants easy and width used per participant will be fixed as opposed to the text names where names may vary in size.

Above suggestions aside, it has got fantastic improvements from what we had so far.