Problems with Conversations

MGSteve

Well-known member
I have a bit of a problem with conversations in XF :(

I've imported my VB3.x forum and as you know it converts PMs to conversations. The problem is, its left me very confused about Conversations, coming from a vb3 perspective and if I'm confused, so will be my members.

In addition, there is no way to limit the number of conversations. Currently we limit PMs to just 5 for basic members and 100 for subscribers. There is no way to do this in XF.

In addition there is no way to delete conversations. Yes you can leave them, but that just confuses the whole thing even more, especially with the choice of leaving it open for replies etc..

I'm sure in the pure XF way of thinking, its not a problem at all, but when coming over from vB its confusing as a confusing question, asked during "confuse a forum admin" day. ;)

Especially when you're dealing with a vb migration, you need a way to mass delete conversations. If nothing else for the sake of database space, as keeping a limit on conversations keeps the database under control. Currently there is no limit and god, I'd hate to think what the conversations table would look like after 10 years use.

So, in my opinion, you need to be able to delete conversations, en mass. The number of simulatanous conversations needs to be able to be limited in the same way that PMs were in vB.

The options given when selecting to leave a Conversation also need to be made clearer. If the user simply wants to delete the conversation (as far as they're concerned), there should be a quick 'delete conversion' option which simply leaves the conversation and automatically ignores future messages.

Otherwise you'll just end up with users with hidden conversations and the conversations will never be removed from the DB... i.e. What happens if all participants select 'Accept future messages' for a conversation? None of them will see it, but will it still be in the DB?

The mass deletion is an urgent requirement though. As it stands I've got 112 unread conversations going back around 6 months, probably over 700 messages and at the moment, the only way to remove them is to view each one, click leave, click 'Ignore future messages' for every single one.

I know I could tidy up the PMs in vB before I migrate, but not everyone is going to do this and some users could end up anything up to a hundred of conversations to sort through.

I accept this is partly an issue raised because of the imported nature of the forum, but its going to happen alot, due to the nature of the Conversation system vs PM in vB or any other forum software.
 
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