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| Blogs > Andrew > Comments from the CEO/Founder |
Added ability to set activity limits in Groups
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Added ability to set activity limits in Groups We found that many group moderators wanted their group members to participate or leave (they would manually have to delete members who joined if they didn't post/etc). We added a way for the moderator to set the activity limits automatically (we simply move people to "associate" members if they don't meet the activity requirements). Group moderators set these in the group settings. |
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This may even encourage more interaction in the groups on the site. I think I am in five groups but am only active in two.
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3/30/2006 11:49 pm |
I'm sure that the moderaters will love that one. Most of the groups that I have ever been involved with on this site have activity requirements. I think that this is fine cause I've seen way too many members just set idle and never participate. What's the point of being part of a group if you aren't going to participate?
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Excellent idea Andrew, I like it very much and it makes a serious moderator job easier!!! But there is one thing that is going on in groups that have several group members complaining, and that is the Time Stamping of threads to the recent posting in the Topic of discussion. The members prefered the way it was done by Date and not by Time. Thank You for all your hard work on improving the enjoyment in the Blog and Group sections and to the programmers of your staff too. Nick
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Banned posters... i am told i have 4 people i banned. now where this might be true i only recall banning two. how do i see whom i've banned? can i un-ban someone?
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3/31/2006 5:27 am |
Ok. this is a diff request, that the smileys be put on the main thread/post facility. As they are already available in the chat room and blogs, it should be available in all discusion formats. The written word is pretty hard to put emotions ect. across and anything that can help to avoid missunderstandings has to be a help.  Brian.
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3/31/2006 7:36 am |
yeah, i get an error message too, when i try to put in those settings about activity, it says one or more fields contains invalid characters. also people dont like the new 'updated' posts thingo. it is set to say what date the post was created instead of when it was last updated. now it is harder to tell when a post was last posted too. I think it is better to list by active posts rather than when it was created.
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I'm from LovelyLady's nightsift group. Are these updates the reason why my status on her group just went from ... well, from normal to "Pending" (in red letters)??? Though i have posted within the past 2 months. Actually I believe I posted a few times last week. Unless remaining active requires starting an original post.
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Nevermind my last post *blush* It's been explained to me 
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3/31/2006 4:32 pm |
another thing I wanted to mention is once a post has gone into the archives, if you post to it, it will only sometimes come back up to the groups front page. Its kind of a 'toss up' as to whether its going to come out of the archives if its already been in there. One suggestion for the 'updated' posts date thing....maybe you could give a 'sort by' with a drop down list with different options in the 'edit group settings' so that the moderators can choose how they want their groups posts to be listed, that will solve the problem of some moderators wanting them to be listed this or that way. The only complaint I would have is sometimes (and only about 50% of the time) the posts/replies still take hours or half a day at times to show up, alot of the times it will take around 6-8 hours to show up. why do they show up so quickly in the blogs and yet take so long in the groups? This does slow down activity in the groups, because there is no new replies to reply to, thats the only reason why alot of people complain about it. Thanks for all the work thats been done.
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3/31/2006 4:39 pm |
I can tell you how they get around it. all they have to do is unjoin and rejoin again and the ban is off of them until the moderator hits ban again. The problem with that actually is, for alot of mods with large groups (over 1000 members) is finding that member in their 'view all members' page to ban them, if you have a group kind of like mine..where there are 2,366 members then you have to go through 24 pages of members with 100 per page to find them first....
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3/31/2006 6:08 pm |
Sugestion:- the groups are run by the mods and its all down to there hard work, so i'm all in favour of giving them the tools to make there efforts as effective as possible. idea - give the mods a section of say 5 threads that they have control over where they can choose what threads they want on there front page. (joining, joke, information etc.) 
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I like the idea of "activity requirements." I don't like the idea of banning members from my group, although I did ban 3 or 4 who haven't even been on Affairlook since last year. FINE AS WINE IN 2009! SWSunset64
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3/31/2006 9:44 pm |
this isnt about the blogs or groups, but I keep hearing all over Affairlook several times a day that guys are getting tons of emails from women to join other sites. Is this problem being fixed for the guys?
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Andrew, I believe FALLMOON9 concern is to members that join groups to only using the Group Chat Room but do not have the intentions to being an active posting member in the discussion threads. Many members are "invading" the Group Chat Rooms in thinking that they are the same as the Open Chat Rooms on the Chat Home Page and this is where we moderators and members of groups are having a problem since many of those members are not following the guide lines of the group descriptions the moderator created. This is a suggestion that can maybe be of help in several aspects of concerns to groups. When a new member clicks on "Join this Group" have it directly link to "Post Message" for new member to post an introduction of themselves to the Group. If a new member fails to submit the "Post Message" they are denied access to joining the Group, posting in the Group or using the Group Chat Room designated to only members of a Group. This idea I came up with to solve three problems, ideas and request of Moderators (such as one of FALLMOON9 and others in concern to Group Chat Rooms). It will cut down on abusive members from joining and leaving a Group to cause disturbances with members of Groups , it will avoid members that join a Group to only using the Chat Rooms that can and does interfere with the Group members that use the Chat Rooms designated to only being for Group members , and will help Moderators from having to spend time banning members from Groups for lack of even posting once in a Group and help produce more serious activity by members that join Groups; in addition you may consider maybe even allow a small pop-up window after a new member post their introduction (first topic posting) with an optional welcome message by the Moderator welcoming the new member to their Group. I love the idea of time limiting the members of groups with the postings that can/will produce more activity by members joining them; however, why only solve one issue that is of concerns to the Moderators and Members of groups, when you can solve 3 or more issues and concerns in basically one simplified scripting of codes. From my experience in programming, the more you add separately, the more chances of there being bugs in the codes and causing more difficulty in finding (debugging) them.
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1 more thing... Alphabetizing that banned list would be wonderful.. I have 700 banned members right now... when they come and join again 2 months later.. Its hard for me to go through my notes and be sure if they are there.. WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED KISSES
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To all the 'team' members that are working to improve the group section of this site a BIG THANK YOU! As Moderator of two very active groups I have to say the change to the groups posting the threads by time/date vs. most active is very frustrating to my members. In my group Younger Women for Older Men ((which is #1 on this site))I state in the rules "we are not the local Affairlook bulletin board'. So this 'new' features has made my job imposable. It has made our group page all ads. and I spend enough time deleting em as it is to keep the active threads on the front page. Therefore it would greatly be appreciated by the members if we could go back to the threads being sorted by activity. I do have a suggestion I have past on to customer service..... It would make it so much easier for the Moderators to have access to the ban button under the members picture in all postings. To go though 700 some pages of members to ban one abusive one is not possible in large groups due to the number of members. the only other suggestion is it would be a great help if the site could 'clean house' of all the inactive/old/non-existing profiles in the groups. We in the active groups thank you and your team for taking the time to listen to the members of your site and working to continue making the groups a wonderful place to escape to. Sparkly Kisses for a great site that so many of us enjoy and for the wonderful friends we all have made though it! Splashes ~~mer
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4/1/2006 9:30 am |
Forget the bells and buzzers for a moment. I for one am quite unwelcomed all over this site for many reasons. And just to avoid a bunch of crap lets just say there are many people that see this site as being completely different things. I see it as entertainment nothing more and nothing less. Where as some see it as a place to spill all their emotional baggage. The name itself implies it's aplace to meet likeminded individuals for various levels of friendships. One can already do various activities here such as post nude photos, cam, talk dirty, ect. But all to often people that don't perfer certain activities themselves verbally attack others that do these things, say like nude photos, there is groups here that don't want them. Which in it self is fine, but you have a link here where these folks can shut them off. Yet these mods or members still take it upon theirselves to hostilely attack the folks that do have them. Another example is multiple profiles which many although they have them theirselves say that their not allowed. I have to many times to list, gotten into it with fellow members here over these basic differences in opinions. Which don't really bother me none I enjoy a good ol' fashion argument just as much as sexy chat or fun banter. But what I'm getting at is what exactly from the horses mouth is A.F.F about? I've read the Affairlook story and everything else you have posted about this site. I feel that these "suggestions" are helpful, but I also feel they will only keep coming til everyone knows exactly what this site is meant to be about, told by it's founder. After all we're merely members here. This site is your vision and only you know what it's purpose is. Coming from you it can not be disputed. Personally I feel the mod tools available are fine except for periodical glitches and misuse by the mods. Now two main issues I see wrong with this site is free members and folks that start groups for a free private chat room. My suggestion would be offer a 7 day free membership then charge like 10 bucks for standard membership. And then charge to start ones own group Like 10 bucks. Think about it the ones here complaining about other members wouldn't be complaining as much because most problem members are free members and in the groups there are so many that are dead because their simple to start and more simple to forget about and leave clogging your servers. By doing this people have an investment in both these issues and that makes people behave more responsibly. I've also noticed that like on yahoo groups folks that want to jion a group have to apply to the moderator before joining. If this were to be put into place then the mods have no one to blame but themselves when problem members show up. It's simple, got a problem ban it, it comes back delete it's writings and report it. This isn't rocket science and the staff seems to have their hands full just getting this site to run right with out over burdening them with whiny ass complaints that their not good enough. Lets not forget the issue here is MODERATION not GLUTTONY. Thanks for your time.
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Hi SSL, what if there was a way to having a post in a group that can be tagged that would be linked to the "Join this Group" button. Example, some groups have a thread for all new members to post their introduction in. When a new member clicks on "Join this Group" the group introduction thread would be first to come up, and then the new member would not be posting a "new topic", but yet in the group new member Topic thread instead. Maybe even a pre-formated intro thread could be added by the programmers and locked as the #1 thread without expiring and falling off the group description home page of current topic of discussions. It is possible to being done if the discussion topics in groups where to have the Link to a posting as done in the Blogs. How can it be done? 1- Allowing Topics in groups to being linked as done in the Blog postings. 2- Adding 2 option radio buttons (Radio buttons only allow one options to being chosen, check boxes tend to allow multiple choices being selected) 3- A little script writing for directing or redirecting the "Join this Group" button to the designated URL for posting based upon the Moderators choosing. Moderator Group Settings could have the option added to it as below. Default= When new member clicks on "Join this Group", bring up "New Topic Posting" (gr=Group) Moderator Option= When new member joins this group, redirect "New Topic Posting" to [Grpost 00000] New Member Introduction for Group (Gr=Group) "Where there is a will, there is a way to making things work for all to be satisfied" Nick
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4/1/2006 10:04 am |
Hello there, I think it's a great idea. I have a group here of my own. I allow a member to sit for 2wks if they don't post I email them. Then if still nothing I ban them. I'm glad to see that you are willing to work with the group moderators here and try to make things easier. I appreciate being allowed this feature it will make things alot easier. I also think that a moderator of a group should be able to accept members in their groups. I have noticed after 25members that not all the members show on the members list. I have new members that join and unless they post I have no idea who they are. I can't even ban them without being able to see them. I wish there was some way that the moderator was notified of new members joining or other members leaving the group. I also wish there was some way of being notified of members that have viewed your group. That way I can send an email of open invitation for them to join. I personally think that allthough this site has many clitches in the system it can be a great place. I have many other suggestions for this site but I don't feel that they are appropriate to mention in this blog post. I think alot of moderators have the wrong view of what this site should be used for. I think that they undermine this sites rules to make their own. Please feel free to email me if you would like to hear more of what I am speaking about. Thanks! ~Queen~
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To all the 'team' members that are working to improve the group section of this site a BIG THANK YOU! As Moderator of two very active groups I have to say the change to the groups posting the threads by time/date vs. most active is very frustrating to my members. In my group Younger Women for Older Men ((which is #1 on this site))I state in the rules "we are not the local Affairlook bulletin board'. So this 'new' features has made my job imposable. It has made our group page all ads. and I spend enough time deleting em as it is to keep the active threads on the front page. Therefore it would greatly be appreciated by the members if we could go back to the threads being sorted by activity. I do have a suggestion I have past on to customer service..... It would make it so much easier for the Moderators to have access to the ban button under the members picture in all postings. To go though 700 some pages of members to ban one abusive one is not possible in large groups due to the number of members. the only other suggestion is it would be a great help if the site could 'clean house' of all the inactive/old/non-existing profiles in the groups. We in the active groups thank you and your team for taking the time to listen to the members of your site and working to continue making the groups a wonderful place to escape to. Sparkly Kisses for a great site that so many of us enjoy and for the wonderful friends we all have made though it! Splashes ~~mer To go though 700 some pages of members to ban one abusive one is not possible in large groups due to the number of members." I agree that would make a Moderator job a lot easier when finding a posting in a group that may cause a moderator to choose to ban a member from a group instead of searching for the member in the group member listing pages. A member handle search would be so beneficial to having for the Group members Listing pages and Banned member Listing pages. "the only other suggestion is it would be a great help if the site could 'clean house' of all the inactive/old/non-existing profiles in the groups." This one I question for two reasons. "Inactive" and "Old" One- Who decides on whether a member is "Inactive" enough to delete their accounts? Reason I ask is that I have and had several members not being active in my group or even active at all with logging in to the site for several months. None of us know what actually transpires in another person\persons life that can prevent them from being active on the site. They could have had an accident and been hospitalized, a death in the family, a relationship that they thought was going to work out and didn't or anything. Two- "Old" profiles??? I been a member of this site for close to 7 years now, does that mean that my profile should be deleted because I have an "Old" profile and I am an "Old" member of this site? There are many "Old" members on this site that have contributed to this site in many ways (many ideas on improving this site came from "Old" experienced members over the years, and to arbitrarily start deleting their accounts for having an "Old" profile does not make one bit of sense to me and would consequently show the "Old" members that their contributions to this sight meant nothing. Nick
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4/1/2006 7:51 pm |
One thing I also wanted to say is....alot of moderators and people do what is called 'spamming' their threads (posting one or two words per line). They do this to get their groups to the top of 'most active groups' list and/or also to get their picture to the top of the 'most active posters' list too. This is really a bunch of nonsense to me, because it makes it look like your most active groups and posters are not exactly the most active. I mean anyone including kindergardeners could do that. Is there a way to stop that? Right now, in order to post you have to post at least 10 characters per post, otherwise it will give you an error message, maybe it should be more like 50 characters per post, or similar to your new change to the blogs most active.....to be ranked by unique responses.
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One thing I also wanted to say is....alot of moderators and people do what is called 'spamming' their threads (posting one or two words per line). They do this to get their groups to the top of 'most active groups' list and/or also to get their picture to the top of the 'most active posters' list too. This is really a bunch of nonsense to me, because it makes it look like your most active groups and posters are not exactly the most active. I mean anyone including kindergardeners could do that. Is there a way to stop that? Right now, in order to post you have to post at least 10 characters per post, otherwise it will give you an error message, maybe it should be more like 50 characters per post, or similar to your new change to the blogs most active.....to be ranked by unique responses. In my and many other Moderators and Members of Groups opinions the "Spam Postings" in several groups are starting to devaluate and are undermining the group intentions of what they where designed for of members having "Discussions" and not for members to being in "Competition" or a "Race" to the top. Consequently, there are many members that are not happy with the way the mathematical system is designed and used for the "Most Active last 30 days, with photos" posting members or used to calculate the "Most Active Groups" in the listing. In the opinion of many members and Moderators of Groups, this mathematical system is being abused by some members and Groups with "Spam Postings". I can even point you to at least 4 groups in the Active Group Listings that Moderators and Members are and have been "Spam posting" ( even titled with "Spam" ) their ways to being listed in the Active Group Listings in threads in order to only increase their posting counts to push themselves into the Most Active posting member slots or push their Group up the Most active Group listings; furthermore, although this type of spam posting may be fun for some members it is and has become a competition that can, will and has caused group to group conflicts or member to member conflicts, also many members believe that this type of postings is devaluating the purpose of groups and has become selfishness of some members being on the front page as "Most Active last 30 days, with photo" member. Out of the 6 "Most Active last 30 days, with photo" members shown on the Groups Home Page 4 to 5 members have been on the front page of groups under that listing for several months, and it is from the example below of spam postings done in group threads. Example of spam posting done in Groups in topic threads (some are titled as a spam thread and spam posting is done consecutively with either one word posting and broken sentences). Post1- Hi Andrew Post2- My name is. Post3- Nick. I am from Post4- The state of Georgia Post5- [b]and[/b] (use of font tag commands in order to work around the one word posting that are not allowed to being done) Post6- I hope that us Group Post7- Members and Moderators of Groups ideas, opinions, and suggestions are of help to... (to continue with next consecutive post) Use total "Discussion" (Topic) postings for calculating the active Groups. This is what is on the Groups home page currently Groups= 71,924, Members= 928,882, "Discussions"= 2,290,943 Groups are described and promoted by how many Groups, how many Members belong to Groups and how many "Discussions" (Topics) have been posted in Groups , not by how many Total Postings done by members of Groups. Maybe consider a randomized display of the top 40 posting members every 30 seconds to 1 minute ( same as done on the site Home Page of "Who's Online Now" ) or rate them on the number of "Discussion" topic postings instead of the total posting counts. This may help in reducing the posting lags and allow other members to being noticed on the front page of Groups by other members. I believe and many others believe that is one of the main objectives of the site is for members to notice other members or to be noticed by other members; not for being in competition or in a race with being #1 with postings in groups.
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Hello...Glad I found this blog area to air my concerns. I am the moderator of Asian Inspiration for Couples group in the Pacific NW. Problem #1. I know the moderator of Bellingham Meet and Greet group brought up the problem of the cross postings from my group to his group. I have been lucky in the sense that my group has not received any cross postings..however..it is a bit embarrassing that some party plans in my group are heavily read in the Bellingham M/G group. I know Gary tried to delete the thread but was unable to. I did post in my group about the problem, just to alert them..and that post also cross posted to Gary's group (which I am a member of also). I have deleted a post, and that deleted the entire post from both groups..and I had to email the author about the problem. Since so many people have posted to the other cross posting, I have left it alone for now. Problem #2. Another strange thing is that under some threads it will have "19" replies, yet there are only 12. The numbers change, however there are always the say replies as the day before, unless I added a reply, then it's there a day later. Can you tell me why this is? Are people outside of my group posting and it just isn't showing? I can't figure it out. Regarding the new moderator time adjustment controls? Well I have not used them yet..I didn't even know about them until I went into the For Serious Minded Moderators group I belong to also (which by the way, you should visit to see all the practical information that gets around!). I guess I should be prepared to have a smaller group than I already have. I have 17 members at the moment...and only half of them ever post a thing...but they are all such cute members, I didn't have the heart to ban quite yet. lol Regarding old threads...I don't actually see the point in keeping threads around that don't get responses, are not pertinent anymore (hey I'm new...but was back in 2004), old party information...I actually don't understand why the mods don't delete them instead of argue why they need to stay on such and such a page. Maybe because my group is so small I don't understand the mass threads created by huge numbers of members...but if the thread is legitimately old...let it go. Anyways, thanks so much for hearing my problems...I really hope you can address them. BTW, I am a gold member and have been since early in my membership..and advocate for paid membership for entertainment purposes. I actually think that the free members should have more restrictions on them than they do. At this time they mainly can't view profiles at will, but they can join groups and chat rooms...I think it may be a valuable thing to limit the # of groups that they can join (like #1 only) and that they may only be in the chat room for 30 min a pop every 24 hours. This would help clean up the site in ways that may make the paid members feel like they are actually getting thier money's worth. Marlene
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All group have there own unique way their group runs. Members join that group based on it. How can some other mods. of a different group say HOW and WHAT another group should do or not do. If you don't like how another group or it members are enjoying them selves in their own group...so fucking what. Don't read it! To each there own... last time I looked freedom of speech way still on the Constitution. In closing to all those Mods. that like to bitch and moan about what the OTHER groups and the members in them are doing .........Maybe if you spent more time on your own group you would have LESS to bitch about others....grow up! Sorry To the CEO and the 'team' that is working on the groups we really appreciate you...but Lots of us paying members are so sick and tired of the 'serious moderators' group thinking they run this site and are the Affairlook cops. Gezzzzz one would think they where on your payroll or something LMAO
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"It would make it so much easier for the Moderators to have access to the ban button under the members picture in all postings. To go though 700 some pages of members to ban one abusive one is not possible in large groups due to the number of members." I agree that would make a Moderator job a lot easier when finding a posting in a group that may cause a moderator to choose to ban a member from a group instead of searching for the member in the group member listing pages. A member handle search would be so beneficial to having for the Group members Listing pages and Banned member Listing pages. "the only other suggestion is it would be a great help if the site could 'clean house' of all the inactive/old/non-existing profiles in the groups." This one I question for two reasons. "Inactive" and "Old" One- Who decides on whether a member is "Inactive" enough to delete their accounts? Reason I ask is that I have and had several members not being active in my group or even active at all with logging in to the site for several months. None of us know what actually transpires in another person\persons life that can prevent them from being active on the site. They could have had an accident and been hospitalized, a death in the family, a relationship that they thought was going to work out and didn't or anything. Two- "Old" profiles??? I been a member of this site for close to 7 years now, does that mean that my profile should be deleted because I have an "Old" profile and I am an "Old" member of this site? There are many "Old" members on this site that have contributed to this site in many ways (many ideas on improving this site came from "Old" experienced members over the years, and to arbitrarily start deleting their accounts for having an "Old" profile does not make one bit of sense to me and would consequently show the "Old" members that their contributions to this sight meant nothing. Nick Please let Andrew answer the suggestions.....there is no debate here. Step off your Affairlook cop box and just sit back and let the CEO use this Blog for what it was intended for. Unless..... you think you are and can do a BETTER JOB.
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