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Re: Display Name, Profile Fields and Member Directory

 

Shal - not what I wanted to hear, but thank you for the thoughtful response.? ?My comments follow:

On Sat, Oct 13, 2018 at 5:27 PM Shal Farley <shals2nd@...> wrote:
Rob,

?> *2.? Profile Fields.*? The next thing I wanted was control over
?> profile fields.

Groups.io generally takes the view that the member's profile is his/hers
to control. Even the ability to edit their Display Name is relatively
recent.

?Darn - that is what I was most worried about.? ?The fact is though, that no one cares more about an online community than a community owner.? ?Most members will just throw up any crap as long as they can get it to work.? Community owners are also the ones who will pay when it is time to upgrade - I encourage them to reconsider this view.?

?Control over the display name is fantastic - not having that is what ruined Google.? I actually think your approach of letting both parties edit that field is rather interesting. ?

Members control their profile through their Account's Identity page.
There they can edit an Account Profile which provides default content
for all of their group subscriptions. While there they can also edit the
Profile shown in individual groups. Each profile has a Profile Privacy
control which allows the member to control who can see that profile.

?Again, I think it is the community owner who should decide if they should have that option - if all users did that the community itself would be mostly useless - or at least the directory.?

?
A member can also edit the profile for a given group through the Group
Profile tab of their Subscription page.

?> *3.? Member Directory. *

?> I originally hoped to be able to display any of the profile fields I
?> had added in any order

You can build a "directory" like that in the Database section, but as
you already noted there's no way to tie that to subscription or profile
information. So you or the members would have to populate the fields of
their row explicitly.

?Which seems to me to be kind of ridiculous - essentially making two different profiles in one system in a way that is far more labor intensive.

Once long ago I suggested providing a directory-like feature by being
able to tie a database table to the the Members list. That was kind of a
toss-off at the bottom of a message, but you could resurrect the idea
with a more fully-formed proposal as a fresh topic in the suggestion box:

?Well I could try I suppose - but a "fully formed" proposal might be difficult since I am not a software engineer and in fact am not that great at politics.? Seeing that database right there is frustrating though - I am surprised someone hasn't at least tried to link that up with the profile yet.


?> ... I know I can't be the only one who considers the directory to be
?> an integral part of the community.

You're not.

?I didn't think so - but I have also noticed that some members here seem to have accepted this "user calls all the shots" as dogma but those don't have to be all the rules.?
?
You could suggest that the Profile Privacy control be added to the
group's Default Sub Settings page, so that you could change the default
to "Other members of your group" (probably not "Public").

?That's an idea - but I have one business and on social group right now, and for business they don't care at all if the directory is public.? In general, they don't want "privacy" they want "promotion".?

?
And/Or suggest that an "All Subscribers Visible" option be added to the
Member Directory control (in the Privacy section of the group's Settings
page).

?As long as that was the default, yes. ?

Meanwhile you have the bully pulpit of being group moderator/owner to
encourage your group members to participate in the group's Directory,
such as it is.

?Bully pulpit?? More like begging - over and over again until we practically croak from frustration.? ?It is not a show stopper for my transfer - I mostly just wanted to add "Organization" and "Title / Profession" for my business group - but I would like to have the option to add whatever I want - even "phone number".?

Shal
??
I appreciate your help - still poking around. ??

Rob

#directory

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