Old dogs, new tricks and friends ...

[Tender Face]

I may not be so frequent around these parts (phew, some of you sigh) and personal circumstances have obviously changed a lot since my joining early 2006 .. so, too, has TP.

I’m afraid (being the old-dog-can’t-cope-with-new- tricks-even-though-I-try-my-hardest-sometimes) I have never really got into ‘blogs’ and groups and other all-singing and dancing stuff the software can now provide (and great if it provides for people who can and want to use them) ... I learnt how to switch Visitor Messages off (damned dangerous tool, IMHO) but have been embarrassed tonight to find someone had recently sent me a ‘friend request’. Now it’s not that I am not friendly ... but I have never got into this side of the forum and don’t want anyone who might send such a request to think I am rejecting them ... but from scouting around the User CP to see if I can disable requests it appears I can’t .....???

I use email alerts for PMs – so hopefully if I am not around on TP I don’t ‘ignore’ anyone too long if they have PM’d me ... but this hasn’t happened for a Friend request and I feel embarrassed that it looks like I have ignored someone and then I only seem to have a choice to ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ Yuk!!!! . (I have sent a PM to explain for now). But I now notice there have been a few others ‘lurking’ I have done nothing about so far. If I now hit ‘Reject’ will they get some notification? How awful would that be?

Maybe I should just feel flattered anyone wants to be my friend?????

Karen, x

 

[Vonny]

Hi Karen, couldn't agree more about Visitor Messages and I've got mine switched off too.

Interesting about the friendship request. I'm going to send you one, please reject it and we'll see if I get a notification telling me you have spurned me!

 

[Tender Face]

Dirty deed is done!

OK, Vonny, that's you officially off my Christmas card list!

Seriously, thanks for checking this out. Really is an area needs to be handled with some sensitivity methinks. Sorry I hadn't latched on before ....

Karen, x

 

[Winnie Kjaer]

Could you please let us have the answer Vonny.I think it may be of interest to other TPers. Thank you

 

[Vonny]

Well, there is no "push off you horrible woman" message from Karen and the "friendship request" box is still ticked in my contacts so that it looks like it has been ignored or not seen by Karen. So good news Karen, you won't be upsetting anyone if you "reject" them.

For anyone not wanting friends (and there are many who don't) I think it's nice to send a quick PM to the person explaining that you don't "do" friends on TP so they don't feel ignored.

Vx

 

[Sandy]

For anyone not wanting friends (and there are many who don't) I think it's nice to send a quick PM to the person explaining that you don't "do" friends on TP so they don't feel ignored.

I think that is excellent advice and just happens to be what I have done since the 'Friends' feature was added to TP

I think it's important to understand that the software that powers TP (called Vbulletin) also powers thousands of other Internet forums. Some features may be more or less popular on TP (as compared to a West Coast surfing site http://www.surfingsd.com/forum/ ) and it's up to individual members to decide how or if to use them.

Take care,

 

[Tender Face]

Thanks Vonny

Oh, so you got the edited – bleep-bleep version!

I think it's nice to send a quick PM to the person explaining that you don't "do" friends on TP so they don't feel ignored.

Agreed – what I did – but have fretted since I worded it correctly and did it seem like a’push-off’ to a relatively new member? One idea ... could there be some input on this ... if the software doesn’t allow anyone to switch off incoming requests, there could be some guidelines how to word such a PM? I’ll happily send my own to a mod or more for some input – what I should/shouldn’t have said ......

I think it's important to understand that the software that powers TP (called Vbulletin) also powers thousands of other Internet forums.

Exactly, Sandy – I hate off-the-shelf IT solutions, once size fits all ........ oh, for the days of an in-house requirements analyst and a COBOL programmer ..... (sigh!)

and it's up to individual members to decide how or if to use them.

That makes an assumption members can understand them .....

Most individual members are not IT or even PC experts (myself included!) Hence it’s taken me this long since the last release to realise what a minefield this ‘friends’ business can be – apart from the practicalities of ‘managing it’! TP supports a lot of vulnerable people and navigating around the main forums can take some getting used to, alone. I don’t like the fact this feature puts an ‘onus’ on users for something which is out of their control to start with and may be presented to them to deal with when they have far bigger fish to fry!!!! (So to speak!)

Does the Vbulletin 'licence' not allow for a few in-house tweaks to make features more sympathetic to its specific end users in a particular capacity?

Sorry if I sound like a grouch - I am just horrified suddenly at how something seemingly so positive could be seen as so insensitive!

Karen, x

 

[Vonny]

Ah, COBOL, my favourite Ten years a COBOL analyst programmer before I fancied a job talking to people instead of a computer!

I'm sure your PM was fine Karen so please don't worry. You have enough experience on TP and are quite articulate enough to get the message across sensitively. xx

 

[Sandy]

Hi Karen,

I can't speak for AS on this (that's Katherine's job ), but with many new features in software it can sometimes be a matter of letting people try it out and see how it works for them.

I suspect with a range of ages and IT experience in the membership it would be dangerous to make too many assumptions about what would or would not be popular.

Take blogs, most of us don't use them, but for some people it has been a helpful way of keeping an online record of their journey with dementia.

If there was a feature that the majority of TP users really objected to, I'm sure Katherine would at least see if it was possible technically to remove it from TP's configuration.

It would be nice if there was an option in the user control panel to turn off the Friends feature on a user-by-user basis - like people can turn off Visitor Messages (which I have). Perhaps this is something that can be investigated.

Take care,

 

[Brucie]

Does the Vbulletin 'licence' not allow for a few in-house tweaks to make features more sympathetic to its specific end users in a particular capacity?

There is a huge library of amendments and additions - 'tweaks' - available for the vBulletin software, written by its users.

AS can give the full and correct response, but my understanding is that the problem is one of effort required to test changes, and to retain changes through upgrades both to the forum and underlying infrastructural software. Quality Assurance problems, software support problems, etc etc

The less one deviates from a bog-standard implementation of the software, the easier and safer is the installation.

Where there are critical issues that require addressing, then it is worth complicating the software implementation. Where things are inconvenient or in some cases unhelpful, it may not be judged worthy of the trouble.

Cobol

oh good grief, THAT monolith? Worst language I ever used,albeit briefly] Mind you it must have been great to be a Cobol programmer at Millennium time.......

 

[Sandy]

I think Bruce has a good point. Some changes can be done by simply setting certain configuration 'switches'.

Anything more involved than that risks creating a potential maintenance nightmare for the future.

 

[Tender Face]

Crumbs,this only started out raising a point about being aware and sensitive, particularly to new members, not asking for a complete re-write and up-grade of TP software!!!!!

Sandy sums it up perfectly:

It would be nice if there was an option in the user control panel to turn off the Friends feature on a user-by-user basis - like people can turn off Visitor Messages (which I have).

I too well remember the ‘nice to haves’ – years of listening to ‘end users’ giving me their wish lists and marketing folks screaming at me about ‘customer requirements’ ... trot off a zillion page report to be translated into systems gobbledygook to then be passed to the clever guy who had recognised it was wise to gen up on FoxPro because LINC had had its day .... guess who had to report back to the end users that the FoxPro guy could only give them this with the time and budget and software constraints allowed – and that’s your lot????? Kissinger should have been my middle name!!!!!

Point was, when the software couldn’t deliver. .. the challenge was in a workaround (the old 80/20 fix)

Fact is this vBulletin stuff is based on social networking, non? Which is a great thing for those who want it ... and are happy to post and tell the minutiae of their lives on Facebook or similar ..... but for vulnerable people accessing forums (not just this one, of course) I don’t think some features are always appropriate .....

But, hey, that’s IMHO – and why I have no friends!!!!

Sorry, didn’t mean to start a storm in a tea-cup!

Bless you all ... and everyone who sailed in COBOL!

Karen, x

 

[ChristineR62]

Oh lord, I cut my IT teeth on programming in COBOL!

 

[Skye]

So did I! And that was in the days of punch cards and a mainframe computer that needed a whole building to itself!

We had one test run a night if we were lucky. If not, we had a day twiddling our thumbs. I was so bored I went back to teaching!

 

[Brucie]

punch cards

grief, they were NEW technology.

We used 5 hole teleprinter and later 7 hole and 8 hole paper tape!



I retrained on punch cards as they came into the technology.

computer that needed a whole building to itself!

ours took 2 floors of a Georgian building in Bloomsbury and had a spiral staircase connecting the floors



No disk drives in those days - just 1" magnetic tape.



However..... the system above was the world's fastest at the time and it was British! It also featured virtual storage and multitasking.

Though the most powerful computer in the world at that time, it had far less power than today's netbooks [let alone laptops or desktop computers].

Brings it all back - here is Jan as she was then in 1965 - the year I first met her

 

[Vonny]

Mag tape...now you're talking Brucie

I do sometimes think of re-training in new computer languages, but I'll stick with my memories of If...Then...Else

 

[Brucie]

I'll stick with my memories of If...Then...Else

I always reckoned the only worthwhile computer game was programming!

I get my programming fix regularly, using SAS, the language I used for the last 20 years of my programming career. For the use I make of it, it is like driving a Maserati to the local supermarket and back.

[SAS - no, not Scandinavian Airlines, or Special Air Squadron, or Surfers Against Sewage...]

 

[Sandy]

[SAS - no, not Scandinavian Airlines, or Special Air Squadron, or Surfers Against Sewage...]

I remember when their logo looked like this:

http://pic.51windows.net/logos/S/SAS_Institute_logo.gif

I just used it for report writing - extracting info from the production management system when I worked in Silicon Valley.

Programming was FORTRAN or BASIC. When I first started at uni, I did have to drop off decks of cards, but by the time I left, snazzy machines like these were the norm:

http://www.electronixandmore.com/misc/computers/tek.html

 

[Brucie]

Programming was FORTRAN or BASIC.

Ah the MacCracken Fortran manual was one of the Bibles of documentation. Fortran was my staple language until SAS happened along.

I wrote a financial forecasting system using Basic that kept our household accounts on the straight and narrow during the tighter early years of our marriage. [Jan weaned me off using my Access card to pay my Barclaycard....]

Algol was fun because one could use really long and gruesome variable and label names.

 

[Skye]

Fortran was used for production systems, cobol for commercial -- I worked for British Steel.

I love your pic of the machine room Bruce. We rarely saw ours, and were never allowed in, in case we contaminated something. The room was treated as an operating theatre! There was even a double door, like a decompression chamber.

Securicor picked up our card boxes every evening and brought them back, hopefully with a printout, the following morning.

If a system was becoming urgent, we'd stay the night and press our noses to the glass trying to persuade the operatives to give us an extra run! Test runs never happened during the day, that was for production runs.