Private Messaging System - Unclassified NewsBoard

Yves (Administrator) 2004-11-27, 15:24 #16

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In reply to post ID 1769

Hi folks,

I just got an idea how the concept of a message board could be further integrated into the bulletin board architecture. So listen: :-D

All private messages go in a special forum, called "private messages", that is located at the end of the overview page forums list for now.

The user can start a regular thread in this forum and additionally specify a number of recipients, maybe a single one for now.

This thread will be visible to the sender and the receiver(s) only. Others cannot access it.

Anyone who is allowed to access this thread can read all posts like in a normal thread and reply to any of them just as usual. Search operations, notifications etc. are the same as anywhere on the board.

The possibility of multiple recipients allows small groups to communicate with themselves without anyone else being able to read the conversation (a bit like a bulletin group chat...).

What do you think of this? It actually wouldn't be very much work to do since it's mostly based on present technologies (as so many things in this programme...).

And it's different, new and hopefully more intuitive to use. I'd like to hear your comments about this proposal!

♪ ...nanananah, all in all we’re just brilliant thieves, nanananah... ♪♬

Fuchsi 2004-11-27, 15:59 #17

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well, that sounds interesting....

Audacity-Forum

Stellaris 2004-11-27, 17:19 #18

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hi,

the idea is certainly unusual!

i wonder how that system would be maintained? would users have delete access to their own posts? what if a group exchanges messages and one user starts deleting his messages which might be integral to the conversation? does each user get a copy of the whole conversation? or am i getting it all wrong about the concept here?

- Stellaris [stellaris(at)jabber.ccc.de]

Yves (Administrator) 2004-11-27, 18:14 #19

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Well, the basic idea behind this was to let a user specify all users that have access to his new thread. Normally, the admin decides in a bulletin board, who has access to a forum. This is usually everyone or at least a big number of people. Whereas private messaging provides a way to exchange message to single persons and not to many at the same time.

I figured out it would be a useful thing if I could address my topic to a small number of people. This is some kind of group communication for small teams and can also be used for 1-to-1 communication. But it would still be a topic and a discussion as before. I'm not sure whether deleting posts from such a discussion would be advisable. With today's private messaging solutions, you have full control over your own mailbox, but not over the other one's. You can delete your own mail, but let's follow Google's example, drop the quota and provide good search and organisation features so that deleting old stuff manually will no longer be necessary.

♪ ...nanananah, all in all we’re just brilliant thieves, nanananah... ♪♬

løde 2004-11-27, 23:13 #20

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yes, this is indeed a very good new idea for this board (or how you would like to call it)

the whole part of 'post to people who need to know, and not to people who the admin thinks you need to post to' is a very good thought.
i see one problem, when you implent this in a business sphere (for which this would be more than very great

):
if you're in a workgroup and have to post something for the whole workgroup. when you are having problems with someone in that worgroup/not liking a person, you would not select his name as a recipients..
mods should be extra carefull who are the recipients, i see people being ignored here...

further, i don't see the use for that "All private messages go in a special forum". in this proposal there is no difference between priviate or public..

and i see no reason to delete topics/posts... in the indeed the same filosophy as gmail: why would you delete anything.

and to continue with gmail. mabye it would be usefull if a user can 'minimize' a post from the topic. so if some posts don't add anything to the discussion a mod don't need to correct these, but the users could delete (minimize) it themselfs.
from a minimized post you could for instance only see the poster and the first words (just as with gmail).

continuing from this it would be a dream if you could read a post from someone else, take the words and sentences out which for you make that post usefull to the topic, and only let those words and sentences be visible!
in those way's you could realy control the messages you see and (re-)read, and you have a perfect envirement for discussion because you can fast see what someone said that is important for you.

but this is much further from now i think. at first it would be awesome if this way of 'post only to people for who you think it is needed' will be this new board!

"Want walvissen kunnen immers ook niets, maar zijn toch"

Yves (Administrator) 2004-11-27, 23:34 #21

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Quote by løde:
mods should be extra carefull who are the recipients, i see people being ignored here...

Well, anyone will have to more or less carefully decide who he sends a message to, not only in this case, but also in present e-mail.

One 'limitation' of this concept is that once a thread is started, the recipients cannot be changed anymore. That means all replies go to the same persons as the first post of the thread. Changing the recipients of the entire thread would be technically possible but effectively stealing some 'mails' from a user's 'mailbox' which would not be a way to go.

further, i don't see the use for that "All private messages go in a special forum". in this proposal there is no difference between priviate or public..

I thought there should be a single forum that can be used for this purpose. This way, you'll immediately identify 'private' messages in your unread/new topics list. Of course, if a message is addressed to you but you're not regularly checking all new threads or only browsing through them at all, you might miss the message. There should be special notification and UI mechanisms for this forum.

We'll see how the usage of those multi-recipient threads will develop and maybe I can change the implementation later. I have no experience with such a behaviour yet. :rolleyes:

So we need to research it first...

from a minimized post you could for instance only see the poster and the first words (just as with gmail).

Hm, interesting point. My first thought about that is it needs a big database table storing the states (or at least the minimised ones) for all users × all posts. Could be quite a lot. Then, you may feel a post is irrelevant now but oversee it later when browsing through the thread. And it requires you to maintain all the post states... Can you imagine you'd want to do that so accurately all the time?

(...) and only let those words and sentences be visible!

Oh no, definitely not. This further extends the amount of maintenance work for every user if they really wanted to use that feature. And moreover this would require advanced BBCode parsing methods I don't feel pleased to implement.

♪ ...nanananah, all in all we’re just brilliant thieves, nanananah... ♪♬

løde 2004-11-28, 00:01 #22

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Quote by Yves:
Well, anyone will have to more or less carefully decide who he sends a message to, not only in this case, but also in present e-mail.

correct yes. it is not your bussiness if people are ignoring others.

Quote by Yves:
One 'limitation' of this concept is that once a thread is started, the recipients cannot be changed anymore. That means all replies go to the same persons as the first post of the thread. Changing the recipients of the entire thread would be technically possible but effectively stealing some 'mails' from a user's 'mailbox' which would not be a way to go.

i think it should be a well overthought decission from a mod to change those people. it would be a sin to not make this feature, there will always be situations where you want someone extra to know about the thing writer there.
in email this is the situation right now too. if i want someone else to know about the things said as well, i can forward (or reply + new person) the email and the new person can discuss with the original recipients and also read old things said.
so: it should possible, but for mods (and maybe topics starters), and should be a very overthought decission.

Quote by Yves:
I thought there should be a single forum that can be used for this purpose. This way, you'll immediately identify 'private' messages in your unread/new topics list. Of course, if a message is addressed to you but you're not regularly checking all new threads or only browsing through them at all, you might miss the message. There should be special notification and UI mechanisms for this forum.

yes, therefore it is indeed a good one!
however i would place it on top then

on that place it is more seen.
i also want forums that applie more to me then others, to be higher on the frontpage then those others.
in this case it would also be usefull if a user can set it's own order for the forum index!

Quote by Yves:
We'll see how the usage of those multi-recipient threads will develop and maybe I can change the implementation later. I have no experience with such a behaviour yet. So we need to research it first...

thats what you can start here! the research, i think that it is very good that this is done! (or will be done).

Quote by Yves:
Hm, interesting point. My first thought about that is it needs a big database table storing the states (or at least the minimised ones) for all users × all posts. Could be quite a lot. Then, you may feel a post is irrelevant now but oversee it later when browsing through the thread. And it requires you to maintain all the post states... Can you imagine you'd want to do that so accurately all the time?

interesting awnser too

there are, i think, two situations:
[list][*]the responsibility is with the user
users have to mod posts (by minimizing them) that do not add anything to the topic themselfs.
[*]the responsibility is with the mods
mods have to check every post to see if it add something to the topic and delete (or edit only a part) the posts.[/list]
in a situation where you have less mods the first option would be nice. maybe it should be an install option, with or without minimizing posts. so the admin can think if he has enough mods, or if his users are more from the 'do-it-myself' and want to mod others for themself.
and indeed, a bigger database comes with the first option.. but maybe an admin would want it, me for instance!! *hint*

Quote by Yves:
Oh no, definitely not. This further extends the amount of maintenance work for every user if they really wanted to use that feature.

yes, i agree on that. plus that a big group won't use it.

"Want walvissen kunnen immers ook niets, maar zijn toch"

Yves (Administrator) 2004-11-28, 00:25 #23

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Quote by løde:
so: it should possible, but for mods (and maybe topics starters), and should be a very overthought decission.

You think mods should be able to read 'private' messages? I think they shouldn't. Only admins can, because they could look into the database anyway.

however i would place it on top then on that place it is more seen.
i also want forums that applie more to me then others, to be higher on the frontpage then those others.
in this case it would also be usefull if a user can set it's own order for the forum index!

The position of this forum is flexible. Top is OK. And if a board gets that big that you want to switch out some forums, it should be organised into categories which you can collapse already.

in a situation where you have less mods the first option would be nice. maybe it should be an install option, with or without minimizing posts. so the admin can think if he has enough mods, or if his users are more from the 'do-it-myself' and want to mod others for themself.

Hm, I haven't seen the board that stays on topic until the last post. There will always be sidenotes and users will feel [it's too late to find that word] when their posts are modified or deleted because they were off-topic...

♪ ...nanananah, all in all we’re just brilliant thieves, nanananah... ♪♬

Philipp Gérard 2004-11-28, 11:58 #24

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Sounds good, give it a try but make sure maintanance is ensured. Should Mods/Admins be able to read all that? I don't like the idea.

Yves (Administrator) 2004-11-28, 12:16 #25

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Moderators definitely cannot, because it's not their task to moderate private conversations. But for Admins I'm not sure because they can access the database directly anyway. And then again, of course there may be several admins but only one webmaster who has access to the DB, or even none at all for hosted forums. Maybe Admins should also be locked out. Maybe there could be an option for that, could be interesting for some situations like business use... And you can always use the old e-mail function for that. It will be extended to multiple recipients, too, to allow things like sending mails to all users in the future.

♪ ...nanananah, all in all we’re just brilliant thieves, nanananah... ♪♬

løde 2004-11-28, 16:18 #26

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there should be difference between:

the perfect situation where people do not get offtopic and stuff, and

the situation where mods are realy needed

in the last one, there should be mods, even if there are not the recipients.

on the forum index you could show who are the mods for that forum, so topics starters (and also repliers, so, everyone

) knows who can see all the discussions in there.
it is not the bussiness of the admins to read all the posts, they should be working on maintaining the forum, not reading the posts. it would be stupid (in a company) if the computer guys (who maintain also the website and forum of the company) also have to check the messages, it is not their job.
it is the job of the mods in a company, for example the head of a department, to check those messages.

so their should certainly be mods, and they should be able to see all the posts (except the realy private messages of cource). only the users should know that mods are reading their posts, thats all.

"Want walvissen kunnen immers ook niets, maar zijn toch"

Stellaris 2004-11-28, 17:14 #27

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i strongly disagree with the suggestion of having any admin/moderator read any posts in private messages.

people should be responsible for what they post in their own private messaging forums (if you want to call it that) and maybe you shouldn't be able to delete posts from such small group "chats" at all? what do you need a moderator for?

- Stellaris [stellaris(at)jabber.ccc.de]

Philipp Gérard 2004-11-28, 18:00 #28

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true say. Lock Mods out and allow the Superadmin to give admins access to private convs...

Yves (Administrator) 2004-11-28, 18:41 #29

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Quote by løde:
it is not the bussiness of the admins to read all the posts, they should be working on maintaining the forum, not reading the posts. it would be stupid (in a company) if the computer guys (who maintain also the website and forum of the company) also have to check the messages, it is not their job.

It's not about who's job it is to verify messages. It's not the admins' job for sure. I only thought about access for admins because they might be able to physically access the database anyway, but I don't think I'm gonna do that.

it is the job of the mods in a company, for example the head of a department, to check those messages.

Neither is it something's head's job to verify messages. They have other management tasks, too...

(except the realy private messages of cource)

What is "really private" then? Every topic with less than 5 recipients? So all posts in this special forum must be considered private.

Yeah, I'm also still more sharing the opinion to not grant access to anyone on those forums. As a consequence, no-one can delete those posts. And for now, there will only be a single private chat forum, so there are no dedicated moderators for it. (Furthermore, there is no such thing as "moderators dedicated to forums" here. Everyone can have different access anywhere.)

But what is a "Superadmin"? The highest privilege level the board supports is "admin access" and it is usually auto-granted by the membership in the Administrators user group. I can imagine mid-size+ boards to have around 2...5 admins, all with the same privileges and tasks, for redundancy and load-balancing reasons. But only one of them might hold the physical database access, so only he could read anything that is stored in the system, even if not via the web interface.

Now basically, any user (and moreover any admin) has read access to all forums. This must be changed then anyway, so it needs some hard-coded access rules over the configurable ones. I'm not sure how it will be possible to allow an admin access to such private topics. It definitely must work in some way, maybe as a special access right that is not preset for admins.

♪ ...nanananah, all in all we’re just brilliant thieves, nanananah... ♪♬

løde 2004-11-28, 21:36 #30

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i see two different kind of topics for me, and in that way also two different kind of forums for those topics.

- topics for a group, that can be a big group from about 50 users, and also a small group, lets say 3-5 users.
- and topics for only 1 other person, these i call the private topics.
the first kind of topic is just called 'a topic' (and not a private topic) however it may be for a small group, it still is the biggest form of topic.

private topics (just as pm's on other boards) are not visible for anyone besides the persons from and for the discussion is, so, two persons.
even the admin can't see them via the user interface of the board. of cource he can take a dive in the mysql, but thats posibility is always there. even for the pm's on phpbb, the mails on gmail, and so on. but that doesn't mean that the admin which has the mysql password also need to have access to those messages via the board!!

for the other topics i think there should be a mod (who ever should be that mod doesn't matter, just the function 'mod' should be there).
because: as i pointed before, the group can be 3 persons, but also 50 persons. and of cource people shóuld be responsible for what they type, but they simple aren't!
if a mod can read posts, that shoudn't mean that he delete's everything that is bugger. it is also if someone complains about content someone wrote, that a mod (and also that isn't the job of the admin!!) should be able to delete or edit that post. a mod isn't always burgling on someone's privacy!
admins also choose a mod for his discretion, he should be able to threat privacy content in a good way. a good mod can read beyond that and just do his job!

and then back to the board side of this. you could also (if the discussion is abouts mods, or about a person who is mods) ask the admin for a temp forum without a mod.

"Want walvissen kunnen immers ook niets, maar zijn toch"

This post was edited on 2004-11-28, 21:37 by løde.