Voting on the AutoPM Plugin [Staff Approved]

Voting on the AutoPM Plugin​

What am I voting on?

• You are voting on whether you personally want to give the AutoPM plugin a trial-run on this website, or not.
• This poll is not decisive. Its purpose is to gauge member interest and support, not make a concrete decision.

What does AutoPM do?

• AutoPM is a plugin that will automatically send you a Private Message whenever one of your threads or posts is deleted, undeleted or edited by a staff member.
• To be more specific, you will be PMed when one of the following actions is performed on your posts:
• — Thread Ajax Delete (Inline Moderation)
• — Thread Delete (Inline Moderation)
• — Thread Un-Delete (Inline Moderation)
• — Post Ajax Edit (Inline Moderation)
• — Post Ajax Delete (Inline Moderation)
• — Post Delete (Inline Moderation)
• — Post Un-Delete (Inline Moderation)
• — Thread Delete (Standard)
• — Thread Un-Delete (Standard)
• — Post Un-Delete (Standard)

(Note: There is no ostensible difference between Ajax, Inline and Standard. They are included for the sake of being complete.)

What are the benefits to having this installed?

• You no longer lose track of your deleted messages, meaning you can't accidentally repost a deleted post.
• You can see what sort of posts are getting deleted, meaning you can take steps to improve your posting in future.
• If you believe you are being unfairly persecuted by a staff member, there will be decisive evidence, instead of your suspicions against their word.
• A greater appreciation for the work of staff will be created, as members will be able to see a fraction of the effort staff put into keeping the forum clean.

What are the downsides to AutoPM?

• It cannot be enabled or disabled on a user-by-user basis, so you cannot opt out.
• If many of your posts are deleted, then you will receive a lot of PMs, potentially overloading your inbox.
• It could lead to conflict between members and staff over the deleted works.
• Installing many plugins reduces stability of the forum.
• The strain on the server is unknown. (However, sending out PMs does not put noticeable strain on the server currently.)

What has happened so far?

• The plugin was installed briefly, enabled only for threads, but further discussion saw it put on hold, as member wishes were unclear.
• A request for users to be able to opt-out was placed over eight weeks ago, but the developer has been unresponsive.
• A previous poll was created in the past few weeks, but it was deleted in a hack. At the time of deletion, the results of that poll were 36 in support, 4 in opposition and 11 impartial.

What else do I need to know?

• Here is a tutorial on how to clear your Inbox and archive Private Messages.
• This is the initial suggestion thread.
• Here is the developer's page.

 

And we're off to a good start.

 

At least we would be able to see which staff member hates us?/totallyjustkiddingdon'thurtmeiloveyouall.

 

Taking this chance to drop this tutorial in here.

How to Clear Your Inbox and Archive Your Private Messages

What will this do?

• This tutorial will show you how to save your current private messages to your computer, and clear your Inbox and Sent Messages.

Why do I want to do this?

• So you can receive private messages without worrying about whether your Inbox will get full, or whether you can afford to erase your older PMs to get more space.
• Don't worry about the size of the downloaded messages; the saved messages are a couple of megabytes at most.

Getting to Your Inbox

• Click 'Private Messages' to go to your inbox.

Downloading Your Private Messages

• Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the area outlined in red.
• Click either 'XML', 'CSV' or 'Text' to start the download. (Feel free to experiment with each format.)

Saving the Private Messages to Your Computer

• Something along the lines of this will appear.
• You want to select 'Save', not 'Open', if you are given the choice. Save it to an area in your computer that you'll remember, and won't delete.

Selecting PMs for Deletion

• Return to the top of the page to find this area. You can click it to select all PMs from the last month. You can select all PMs from last week or yesterday in the same way.

Observing That They're Selected

• Like so.

Deleting the Selected PMs

• Now we are down here, click to get a drop-down menu.
• Select 'Delete' to delete all the selected messages. (In this case, all the messages from last month.)
• This will remove messages, which we backed up earlier, so that you can receive more PMs without your box getting crowded.
• This method means you can delete older PMs as you go. If you want to clear all of them, then the next method is for you.

Deleting All PMs

• Go to the bottom of the page.
• Click this to clear the entire folder of all PMs.
• Doing so will give you a completely cleared inbox. The downside to this is that if you have an old PM that you need quickly, you will be required to look through your downloaded messages to find it.

Confirming Deletion

• This screen will appear.
• Click 'Yes' in order to clear all the PMs in the Inbox.

Doing the Same to the Sent Items Folder

• You also have a Sent Items folder, as can be seen here, by scrolling back to the top of the page.
• Messages also get saved in the Sent Items folder whenever you send a message.
• Click on the Sent Items folder to navigate to it, then repeat tutorial for it.

You now have a clear PM box! You can now receive messages from people without worrying about whether your inbox will get filled up, because you can back up and clear it in less than five minutes.

 

Are you kidding me? We have to redo this again? C'mon! I mean Auto PM was winning before the hack <_<

 

It was, yes, and the general sentiment was ascertained. P wanted to do another poll, though.

i am using big words tonight

 

Now I can change my vote to Support. Woo.

 

I, Noctis Lucis Caelum, vote yes.

Now you may all bow and applaud.

 

Think of this as a way of postponing the decision, while keeping a degree of attention centred on it. If it were to be left alone now, then there's a good chance it would slip between the cracks of staff-business and staff-drama.

Now it'll come to a close in two weeks time, which should be plenty of warning.

/myfirsttumblrgifpost

 

Fair enough, well I naturally support.
I just hope this actually will count towards something this time. :/
I mean, people can clearly see the way it is going at least.

So far 17 supports
to 3 impartials
and 0 oppose.

Further more, judging from last times poll, it's pretty clear to see how things will go. :/

 

I am sad, because I spent many minutes composing my replies before ;-;

*Supports*

 

I guess I'm the only one who doesn't want this.

 

Again, it is indeed a trial run - a longer testing out on the field shall permit us to properly conclude whether the AutoPM system shall work effectively. Though of course, it is dependent upon how those with deleted posts may handle the entire debacle as a result - hopefully in a rather civilized manner.

I presume the entire issue about the potential server stress has been resolved, noting that it is not present within the "negatives" section of the original post?

 

You are so dramatic ;O

This whole process took much longer because waiting was involved. Or would anyone here rather the thing not be done at all? Doubt it. Not even me, as I am impartial to the whole ordeal, so I choose to stand with whatever decision wins.

If you've been waiting for months, as you say, then waiting another week or so will not kill you.

But just to make one thing perfectly clear. We are not slaves, and we do have lives that may or may not be used to do things outside of the site. So asking for patience is not unmerited, I would hope. Specially when we've just been hacked and are in the midst of asessing the situation and restoring things lost.

I realize this has taken some time, but we've not forgotten it. So I speak for all the staff when I say that your concerns are being addressed, but that we need a bit of time. So please look forward to that.

 

By the darkness vested in me, i am for this...uh..thingy. <.O

 

Pre-hack, we had fourteen more voters than now, meaning some people who voted before have not voted now.

Bumping to attempt to seize their attention, etc.

 

If you ignore me in the opposed (because of the personal reason I voted for it), 50% of the opposed is staff. :P Just sayin'.

 

Three votes until we have the same number as we did pre-hack, with five days to go.

 

I'm not sure what your actual point is, but I fixed this for you c:

You're welcome my lovelies <3

 

Mysteriously... I've lost another post or two...
and I have no idea which ones... and it's bugging me... REALLY bugging me.
*wants this even more!* TT^TT