@mark- was the "somewhere else" option just added to search cuddles or am I going crazy???
You're not going crazy. I actually mentioned it in this thread last Thursday.
https://www.cuddlecomfort.com/forum/discussion/comment/17647/#Comment_17647
Thank you!!! Huge improvement!
Glad you like it. It was definitely needed.
(Credit to @Gary for this and upcoming features - very talented dev and it's great to have access to his time while it lasts.)
@Mark, @respectful has just put an amazing effort into a post called Cuddling discussions and resources. It's going to be so helpful to new people as well as those who have been here a while. I think it deserves to become a sticky post.
@BlueIris Yeah absolutely. I've stickied the topic now.
@respectful Thanks for helping the community. Great job!
@BlueIris, @Mark Thank you!
This is an amazing bunch of people. I am so impressed.
@Mark - The topic of Auto-Deactivation for Inactive Accounts has been brought up on a few occasions. In this forum's posts, you mentioned (on 02/13) that you would give this some thought. Later (on 04/01) you said that there was no system in place for deactivating old profiles. Later still (on 10/07) you had a link to a different post you'd made (on 10/03) which discusses how accounts for Pros would eventually undergo Auto-Deactivation after a certain time, but that you were reluctant to treat the accounts of Enthusiasts the same way; you'd stated a couple thoughts on the impact it could have, one of which was mainly that Cuddlers whose accounts have been Deactivated no longer receive e-mails.
I know that there are at least a few different status possibilities for those who have accounts here; "Active", "Deactivated", "Deleted", and "Banned".
In order to resolve the dilemma that it sounds like you might be having I would propose the creation of a fifth status type: Inactive.
The meaning, and difference: Users who have chosen to Deactivate their profiles have willfully chosen to no longer have anything to do with the website (i.e. they don't want to receive e-mails, and they don't want anyone seeing their profile). Users who are Inactive are those who may have temporarily lost interest, or who may have IRL (In Real Life) concerns that are taking a long time to address. Whether they come back or not, once a certain amount of time has passed with no activity from their account (i.e. "Logging in") then their account should be set to the Inactive status.
So what would happen? The account won't be deleted. As this will be different than having been deactivated they can still receive e-mail notifications from anyone who chooses to message them (which might bring them back to the site!). Their profile could still show up in the search results (but you should add a new search filter for whether you wish to include Inactive profiles when a Cuddler chooses to search; the default should probably be "No" but we should have "Yes" and "Don't Mind" as other possible options, and it should save our answer).
What could be done to forewarn a User that their Profile might become Inactive? It should automatically be set up in such a way so that after 30 days of inactivity, an e-mail could be sent to the User. This would happen again after 60 days of continued Inactivity. After 90 days of inactivity, a final e-mail would be sent out which would simply state that the User had not logged into their account for 90 days and their Account would now be Inactivated until the next time the User logged in. In each of these e-mails there should be an advisory notice stating that these e-mails are part of the Site's attempts to promote Community Activity by reminding their users to stay active (yes, it could say something else, but I thought that this sounded nice and I could not come up with anything that sounded better). Each of these e-mails should also state that when an Account reaches 90-days with no use, then the Account would be set to Inactive, and would potentially no longer be appearing in any search results. It should also state in the e-mail that even if the User's account is set to an Inactive status, as long as the User's settings allow for it then they would still get e-mail notifications if someone messages them, and that the User can reclaim their Active status simply by logging in once more.
I feel like this would resolve your stated concerns (as I understand them), as well as alleviating the Community's interest in a reduction in the number of visible search results which mostly belong to people that aren't a part of the community anymore.
To illustrate why this is a concern for many... I won't post stats for all of my search results, but I've included a small list which shows how many Cuddlers in my region have actually logged on within a time period of less than three months - and how many haven't.
Within 5 miles, the ONLY search result was someone whose last logon was just over 6 months ago. Within 20 miles, out of 8 results - only 1 person had logged on about 2 weeks ago. The next most recent was just over 4 months. (12.5%) Within 50 miles, out of 36 results - only 9 people had logged in within less than 3 months. (25%) Within 80 miles, out of 211 results - only 41 people had logged in within less than 3 months. (19%) Within 100 miles, out of 275 results - only 57 people had logged in within less than 3 months. (20.7%)
I don't see much of a point in listing details for the 200 or the 300 mile radius search. The numbers in each category will only keep going up, and I would be very surprised if there was a dramatic change to the percentile result.
On a humorous note, when I searched using the 100 mile radius method, I found a result that stated that their last logon was 47 years ago, despite their actual join date as being December 2011.
@LonelyMedicProf Thank you for your thoughts.
There's no dilemma really. I have already decided there will be an auto-deactivation for Pros after X amount of time. But currently I do not plan to introduce auto-deactivation for standard accounts. This has been debated on this forum on a few occasions. I currently lean on the side of the debate that says it's more valuable to have those accounts there than not. One reason being that email notifications are on my default and there have been many cases mentioned here of inactivate accounts returning after receiving a notification email.
One thing that will help ease the usability downside of that position is introduction of Last Online search filters. These are in the roadmap along with de-activation for Pros.
Thank you This sounds really helpful, and I'm looking forward to it!
When someone deactivates their account, but logs on occasonally, and asks someone a question in a PM, there should be a way to respond to them without having to be online at the same time as them in order to do so. Jim
One of the features of deactivating is preventing people messaging you. The scenario you are describing suggests that person doesn't understand what they're doing or they don't expect a reply from you. It's a strange one.
I was wondering if we can have a way to Preview the messages we send to each other, the same way we do on the forums? This would include the pictures that we send, just to make sure our messages and photos are how we want them to be.
December 6 by @Scarlette: "I would LOVE to be able to organize my messages into folders like I do my E-mail. "Current Cuddlers", "Perspective Cuddlers", "Friends", "Philly", "Alexandria", etc. My Inbox is a big jumbled mess!"
I second Scarlette's request. Also, I note since turning pro that I no longer have the option to delete conversations. If we can't have that option any more, then a way of archiving conversations with people who you are never going to hear from again (account deleted, member banned, they contacted you once only and didn't follow up) would be helpful. It's a pain having to go through pages of chaff to get to what you need. Thanks, Mark.
I'd like to suggest a feature in the filter tab that allows the user to choose persons who can host vs be guest. Thanks.
@LonelyMedicProf Hmm, maybe but balance of functions vs simplicity/minimalism is a consideration too. 'Preview' makes a lot of sense for a forum but messages are intended for flowing conversations rather than mini-essays. You don't find a Preview button on Facebook messages or OkCupid or actually any comparable website from the top of my head. Automatic drafts though is something that is planned.
@CoffeeNCarbs Yeah, this is actually planned already.
@BlueIris I'm glad you reminded me about this. The message system was changed a while back which means there's no reason to prevent Pros from deleting messages anymore. So that's now enabled.
Unrelated minor updates:
Thank you, Mark. I am currently deleting a lot of unwanted messages in my inbox. lol
I apologise if this has been raised before, but one thing that may be nice is if when you read a profile and can see the karma left for them you could also see the karma they have left for others - similar to how eBay lets you see feedback left and received.
I agree, there should be a feature to indicate more karma if u visit the pro more than one time:)
Has the site been under attack again or is it just extra clunky? Last 24 hours I've had trouble signing in (error message) and when I do sign in, routinely get booted off. Site navigation becomes impossible because pages won't load. Getting timed out a lot. Trying to post a serialized story to the Cuddle Fiction thread has been a nightmare.
I've just logged into the server and looked at monitoring. Everything seems healthy.
Perhaps there was a temporary datacenter issue. Let me know if it persists.
I would like to suggest adding a link to click that displays a list of ALL your posts on the forum. I try to bookmark each forum thread I comment on but sometimes I forget to do that and then I can't find some of the threads I commented on. Even if I Google my handle with search limiter site:cuddlecomfort.com it doesn't find them all.
@apvalerius do you want to see the threads you have created? Your comments regardless of whether or not you created the thread? Or all of the above?
Enter in your url
https://www.cuddlecomfort.com/forum/discussions/mine
Should show you all threads you have started. I’m pretty sure there is a way to find all of your comments as well.
Here it is actually, enter this into your url
https://www.cuddlecomfort.com/forum/profile/comments/
Add your user name after the last forward slash and then press enter. PM me if you have any issues and I’ll help you out.
If this has been mentioned before, sorry. If this idea won't work on this site for some reason, let me know as well.
Would it make sense to upgrade the "Karma" to a rating system where members who have connected were subsequently rated according to predefined specifics (say 0-5, Safety, keeps appointments, respects boundaries, etc.), and where both customers/enthusiasts and professionals were "reminded" to leave a "karma" for the other party? After hiring a professional through this site myself, I could see the value not only in her having a Karma (assuming that it is positive), but I also see the value for customers have the Karma so that professionals can see that they have already proven themselves as an ideal customer. I can see where with such a type of rating system a new customer/professional or enthusiast/enthusiast relationship could be more easily fulfilled because they know that they have a record that speaks well for them.
Any thoughts? Let me know if this isn't clear.
@calineur see this thread
https://www.cuddlecomfort.com/forum/discussion/3021/the-problem-with-karma#latest
I would like to see this topic as a sticky. I'm constantly having to hunt for it when I want to post.
If possible, it would be nice to have a button to Mark All as Read in each of the forums.
@BlueIris You can bookmark topics by clicking the star at the top right. Then you can find it easily by clicking My Bookmarks (on right on desktop or bottom for mobile).
There are so many off topic posts now, they should have their own forum. As this is a cuddling site, I consider any other topics to be off topic. There's hardly anything about cuddling on the General forum first page.