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settings for sending other members a direct message
Is there a setting that allows all members to send each other messages? It appears only the admin can send everyone a message, and you can only send messages to your friends.
I’m usure
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The best answer from the company
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Hi Jan!
I'm sorry, there's not really a work around for this — except for the suggestion I noted of simply leaving a comment on the Comment Wall.
There are a couple reasons for this. First is that, from the launch of Ning's social networking platform until just a few days, you could invite your friends from one network to join another network. If you instantly became friends with everyone on a network, not only would that be an odd experience (as you don't actually know the people yet), but you could then invite all these people to join another network, which would encourage spam and upset the person who created the original Ning Network. However, as we just removed this ability to invite friends across Ning to a network, we'll definitely be revisiting this policy in the coming months to see if it still makes sense.
Additionally, when you send someone a private message, the email contains the text of the message. If you could send a message to anyone on the network without them first having to accept your friendship, that could also increase potential spam.
I will mention, though, that we're looking at project to allow Network Creators to automatically leave a comment on every new member's Comment Wall. This won't be available for regular members to use (for spam reasons, among others), but it should be a great tool for Network Creators to be visible and inform members with helpful guidelines and tips. This is a long way off, but it's being studied.
I totally understand that this might not fight the exact needs of your Ning Network. We try to do our best to allow Network Creators to customize their Ning Network to fit their desired functionality and target membership, but there will be some things that will be outside your control. We'll do our best to continue balancing the need for granularity with a robust, easy-to-use platform!
So my best suggestion would be to encourage members to use the Comment Wall feature if they want to greet others.
Thanks,
Evan Goldin
Ning Product Manager
The company says
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?1. As an admin I can't send a message to everyone from my mailbox, only to my friends.
I believe I can use the function Broadcast Message for this (under manage)?
2. When members create an event they can't invite all members, very annoying, because there's now 2 options. Or everyone should become friends or I have to invite everyone every time someone else organizes an event.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?Jim, Does this remain an issue? Have you found any work-arounds? I also need to abolish the Friends concept from my network and allow everyone to send messages to everyone else. This is so critical for users who are not very computer savvy.
I’m exceedingly frustrated!
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Inappropriate?Hi all!
As it stands, you have to be friends with someone to send them a private message. Administrators, however, can send a private message to anyone on the network or to all members (by sending a Broadcast Message on the Manage page). If you want to contact someone without being friends, you can leave them a comment by adding a comment to their Comment Wall.
Cheers!
Evan -
Inappropriate?Evan, This really doesn't answer the question.
We understand that the current functionality is that you can only send private messages to "friends". However, we need a way around that in some cases.
In my network, the "friend" concept is useless and causes members great confusion. And it is too much work. Say there are 100 members and somebody new joins. They currently have to send a "friend" request to all 100 other members, one-by-one. And I have to somehow train them to do that. Most will not do it. But they ALL want to send private messages to everyone.
The NC should be able to determine whether this restriction applies to their network or not via some network setting.
I know that isn't how it works today, and that you can't just fix it over night. But is there a work-around?
For example, could I write some code that would make every person who joins the network to automatically be "friends" with everyone else in the network. I'm sure there are other possibilities as well.
I would appreciate some brainstorming thoughts on this by Ning.
Thank you!
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?Hi Jan!
I'm sorry, there's not really a work around for this — except for the suggestion I noted of simply leaving a comment on the Comment Wall.
There are a couple reasons for this. First is that, from the launch of Ning's social networking platform until just a few days, you could invite your friends from one network to join another network. If you instantly became friends with everyone on a network, not only would that be an odd experience (as you don't actually know the people yet), but you could then invite all these people to join another network, which would encourage spam and upset the person who created the original Ning Network. However, as we just removed this ability to invite friends across Ning to a network, we'll definitely be revisiting this policy in the coming months to see if it still makes sense.
Additionally, when you send someone a private message, the email contains the text of the message. If you could send a message to anyone on the network without them first having to accept your friendship, that could also increase potential spam.
I will mention, though, that we're looking at project to allow Network Creators to automatically leave a comment on every new member's Comment Wall. This won't be available for regular members to use (for spam reasons, among others), but it should be a great tool for Network Creators to be visible and inform members with helpful guidelines and tips. This is a long way off, but it's being studied.
I totally understand that this might not fight the exact needs of your Ning Network. We try to do our best to allow Network Creators to customize their Ning Network to fit their desired functionality and target membership, but there will be some things that will be outside your control. We'll do our best to continue balancing the need for granularity with a robust, easy-to-use platform!
So my best suggestion would be to encourage members to use the Comment Wall feature if they want to greet others.
Thanks,
Evan Goldin
Ning Product Manager
The company says
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Why such a big push for the comment wall? First its forced to the top of the profile and now its the end all answer to people wanting private messaging.
Confused.
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Inappropriate?GEEZE! We just got to where others aren't spamming our networks with invites, now you're going to revisit that? WTF???? Please tell me I'm misunderstanding something!
1 Comment Add a comment
This answers the question
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Hey Fed up,
That's not exactly what I was saying :) I was saying that with the removal of the ability to invite friends across Ning to your Ning Network, we'll be looking to see if we want to add easier or faster ways for members to become friends, since one of Network Creators' main concerns about friendships has been alleviated. Hope that clarifies!
Nothing is in the works yet, but we'll look at ideas and feedback over the next few months to see if there's anything we can or should do here. -
Inappropriate?Evan,
I understand the rationale. However, in some private networks, everyone already knows everyone else, and it is appropriate to allow all members to send private messages to each other. The Comment Wall is not a place for private messages.
I'd still like Ning to consider a way for the NC to decide whether private messages to everyone makes sense and enable it without requiring "friends".
Thanks.
I’m kinda bummed
1 Comment Add a comment
This answers the question
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Ditto Jan everyone on my network either knows each other from other places or they WANT to know each other.
The forcing of the friends thing I understand but if we as admins had a choice when we create our network on which to allow I think that would solve most of the problem with this. Choice - its time for Choice and Change. :-P -
Inappropriate?Hi all,
Just to follow up, one change we are going to try to make in the future is to change the behavior of the "Send a Message" links that appear below profile photos on members' profile pages. Right now, those links don't appear if you're not friends with the member whose page you're viewing. Instead, those links *should* appear, but if you click "Send a Message" while viewing the page of someone you're not friends with, we'll show an informational warning telling you to add this person as a friend first.
Hopefully this will make it clearer to new members how to contact people privately.
Thanks for your feedback!
- Evan
Ning Product Manager
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