On Members Only and some other things
(like most of my entries, the picture doesn’t really have anything to do with what the entry is about)
Seems like there’s always a lot to talk about these days ????
You don’t have access to this page
There’s some understandable confusion going around about how privacy on the new site works – especially for people who are here on a 30-day free membership who are having trouble accessing other members or their entries. If you have been trying to respond to notes from somebody, or click through to an entry from somebody, and getting the “you do not have access to this page” message – the below is probably why.
On new OD (as on old OD) there is a privacy setting for both diaries and entries that is Members Only. On new OD, Members Only means that that diary or entry is only visible to members with a paid subscription. For this reason, if you are on a free subscription and you try to access a Members Only diary or entry, you will not be given access.
The reasoning for this is to protect the privacy of our members. One of the main reasons I think the world needs a site like OD is that we all need a place where we can write about, talk about, and share the things that we can’t share out on the rest of the internet. We all feel the need for some privacy to write about our real lives, and our real feelings.
The way OD is set up now, any person can come and start a 30-day free subscription, just by giving us an email address. In the opinion of the OD team, this is not a high enough bar to protect the privacy of our members, who often really don’t want their entries available to the public. So, Members Only is intended to solve that problem, by making membership in the site a requirement to view the content.
For those who don’t mind having their diaries and entries available to anybody, there is of course the Public option (which many of our members use). I hope that helps to make sense of this!
Diary imports
I know there are still a lot of people waiting for their diaries to finish importing into the system – thanks for your patience! The good news is that (like other parts of the site) Engineering has been working overtime the last four days to speed up and optimize the parts of our system that were running slowly, and that includes the imports. We are now moving much faster through the queue than we were a couple days ago, and there are only a few dozen diaries still waiting to be imported. I expect that all of the imports will be done by this time tomorrow, so if you are still waiting it shouldn’t be much longer.
Also, something I forgot to explain earlier – for many diaries, we imported the first ten entries into the diary when we first started setting up the site months ago. This was so we could do some realistic testing with content, and also so when people came back they would see -some- of their entries instead of an empty diary.
However, because I failed to explain that, I’ve seen some people who think the import is broken, or that they have lost entries. It’s not that – it’s just that you have a few of your entries and when the import catches up, it will restore the rest.
Again, thanks everybody for your patience!
A few other tips
Just some things that may be useful if you haven’t tried them:
- You can (somewhat) change the fonts in your entries – if you click the dropdown that says “Paragraph” in the editing toolbar and then select one of the six Heading fonts, your text will appear in a different (sans serif) font. This is what I’m using up above where it says “A few other tips” – that’s Heading 3. The problem is, it doesn’t look like that font in the editor, which is something we are working on – but for now you can do this if you really, really want a different font.
- You can also change font colors if you want, it’s two buttons to the right of that dropdown.
- OD now supports backdating and future dating entries – in the Options dropdown when you’re writing an entry, look for the Publish On option – you can set that date for the future or the past, if you want!
- You can also set an expiration on an entry of twenty-four hours or one week – this is something we didn’t have before. If you set this, it means that the entry will just be like any other entry (visible to whoever you give access to it) until it “expires”. When it expires, the system automatically changes it to Private so only you can see it after that.
Things we are working on
In the software industry, the features that you are developing for the future are called a “roadmap”. We have a lot of things on the roadmap for OD in the coming months – some of the big ones that we are working on now and hoping to release soon include:
- user search, so you can search for and find other members by OD name
- autosaving entries as you are writing them, so if you have a connection problem you won’t lose your work
- a better Friends list, that will show people in order that they have updated since your last visit
- improving the interface and organization of the Profile and Settings – it’s a bit hard to understand the way it is so we want to make it easier to use
- there’s a lot more, but those are the top priorities at the moment
I think that’s all for now, I want to say a real thank you to everybody who has come back here in the last four days – it has been so exciting to see this place come alive again!
Thanks for the continued work. Im looking forward to the fine tuning as this all gets figured out. 🙂
Have the prices been fixed? When I look at my membership it is still showing $4.99 monthly.
@andshebegins I thought so, but let me check on that. Thanks!
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Hey!! I learned something new from this post!!! Cool!
@sillysillysandee awesome 🙂
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Hey. How do I buy a membership? Been trying to since I got the invite a month or so ago. Help! Take my money please!
@daylight Go to the symbol on the right side of the bell at the top of your toolbar. Click on that. It will give you a drop-down menu. Click “profile” and then it will give you the option of monthly or yearly subscription. 🙂
@fridayschild @daylight – when you go to the profile (thanks @fridayschild) then go to Membership and there is a place there to upgrade. Thanks!
@thediarymaster @friday’schild thanks! All done!
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Thanks for the heads up on Members Only (not just for jackets anymore) vs Public. Settings adjusted. I need my safe space.
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Thanks for clearing that up re: those error messages. I’d found it maddening in recent days.
@kingofi glad to help!
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Exciting for us, also.
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Searching for members will be great, how about searching my own entries?
@sheetmusic that will be coming too, thanks!
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Please get rid of the Remove Friend buttons on our Friends list or move them to a different location. On my phone these links are immediately under the Latest Entry hyperlink and way too easy to accidentally swipe away a Friend when trying to visit their latest entry.
@cyndication yes, we have that on the list to move that will be done soon. Thanks!
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If I may comment (non bitchily) about a couple things I’ve noticed on the new version:
I have to SERIOUSLY hoop jump to get a pic to show, now that my confusion on the option/paid membership is resolved. I go to upload, wait a LONG time (one 100/20mb connection…), then have to toggle back and forth, x-out and try again before that photo is available in the gallery to select. I got the job done (despite the failing laptop/phone upload combo I have to use) but wonder again if this is a browser or connection issue on my end or a site issue.
Also non-bitchily- I love the feature that shows that there is a new note (yes, note. not notes. I’m just not famous like that) and mentions notifications. I think it would be pretty cool if clicking that notification would link to to the note/mention. As of now, it doesn’t seem to. At least for me.
Anyhow, I am feeling back at home, corny quilted backgrounds or not. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
@e3 you’re welcome, and glad you’re enjoying it! We’ve noticed the slowness in the image upload too – we are working on that. The mentions for notes I haven’t seen that – but I will put that in for some testing. Thanks!
@thediarymaster – I am often guilty of turning a sentence into word salad. What I meant was, the little bell icon, and those notifications. If they linked to the note, mention, etc they indicate, that’d be cool.
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All sounds good to me 🙂
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Re the Members Only stuff. In order to better reflect your intention you should probably change it to “Subscribed Members Only” or “Subscription Only” because by saying “Members Only” you infer that also means those on the free 30 days. While you’ve explained it here, not everyone is going to read this entry so should probably change the wording surrounding these things.
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Thank you so much for all you’ve done and plan to do in future. It’s awesome. You’re awesome. Keep on keepin on.
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Thanks for explaining.!
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These explanation entries are a big help. Thank you.
I’m struggling a bit with privacy settings (trying to make all old content private, until I have a chance to re-read my old entries!) but I will persevere, with the help of the FAQ.
Is there going to be the option to have different privacy settings for different chapters. I seem to remember this was an option on the old site? I’d quite like to set specific chapters to a privacy setting that is different from the default, and avoid needing to remember for each entry (hope that makes sense!)
@kimmythingy we are going to have a bulk editing option that will include entries and chapters at some point – it is on the list of things to build.
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Hello DiaryMaster, I’d like to revive my old diary Trilliumzen but can’t remember the password nor email. Is there any chance you could help with that? Thank you
@purpleboots if you could click on the Reclaim button on the front page and go all the way to the bottom there is a form to fill out where you can send the support team information about your diary. Include anything you know like password, email, title, etc. and they can try to help – but it will be difficult without knowing the password, sorry.
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Hmmmm. I’ve been here a while, mid time beta testing, and I haven’t gotten around to thanking you yet. Thanks. OD was part of my life for more than a decade, there’s always been a lot of kvetching, but, on my part, not enough gratitude. Thank you.
@haredawg thanks and you’re welcome!
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Great news!
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Thank you for continuing to work and iron out some of the kinks.
So my diary has been restoring for approximately 130 hours, started around noon on Friday and it’s now 10:44pm the following Wednesday. I read that the queue was getting smaller, but I though I’d for sure be done, by the following week.
@bittersweet_5 the queue is done now, so if you still don’t have your entries please send a message to the Support team through the link at the bottom of the page – they can re-run the import for you.
I can’t get to the bottom of the page because I have the purple banner still on the bottom of the page
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I can’t figure out how to pay for my membership. I’m sure it’s easy but could you point me in the right direction. Thanks😀
@nanaampherangels if you go to your Profile on the dropdown menu, there is a place there where you click Membership and then you can upgrade your plan there. Thanks!
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I like the pictures, DM, are they ones you’ve borrowed or are they some of your own?
@msnosign they’re all ones that I have taken!
@thediarymaster — Excellent. I know you may not always be able to post them, but they’re sure nice when you do!
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I hate to be a bother! But I’m stuck on mobile for the next day or two…my diary is still importing (about 7 days later). I know we were told not to worry that it’s stuck, but I cannot contact OD support because the link is covered up by the “restoring diary” bar.
Any updates? How many of us are still left?
@wewereinfinite you can close that bar with the x, if your entries aren’t back we need to re-run the import. Please let Support know that through the link. Thanks!
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I don’t see the paragraph dropdown and hence nothing two buttons to the right of it. Hmm.
@meexplorer there’s a button all the way on the right on the editor toolbar that opens a second row of buttons – you have to click that first. It is confusing!
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Thanks for the continuing changes and improvements. I find the site so user friendly. A job well done! Again, I’m glad to be back and seeing so many old friends.
@oswego I’m glad that you’re liking it!
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