*%!s# filters and other stuff

I might just continue the practice of inserting images that have nothing to do with the entry – this one is a water flower from the garden at the Mystic Aquarium.

So, a bunch of stuff, so let’s make a list!

Note filtering

Thanks so much for all the input on my last entry, asking about how we should handle swearing in notes. The majority of diarists want to have control of it themselves, and not have the system censor notes (or, alternately, allow them to choose for themselves whether the system does). This is a departure from how OD used to be (where we did have such a filter) – but it is in line with how the rest of the internet world works these days. So, as of today I am going to remove the word filter for notes, and let the system accept notes with “bad” words.

There is an asterisk to that, because there may be certain hate speech words or terms that we block – but they would only be really (really) bad ones that nobody should use in polite or near-polite conversation. The words that you might normally use on the street (ha, my mom would say that) will be allowed.

We will definitely have a look in the future at adding the ability for a member to turn the filter on/off for their own diary – as I think that would be the best approach. However, for now it will be off.

So what tools do you have available to you to protect yourself if somebody leaves a note you don’t like? There are several:

1. You can delete the note – click the trash can icon on the right side of the note, and you can remove it from your entry.
2. You can make the note private – to the left of the trash can is a lock icon, if you click that so it shows “locked” you make that note private so only you and the person who left it can see it.
3. You can report it to our moderators – there is a flag icon that lets you report the note to our moderation team, who will review whether the note is a violation of OD Rules, and take further action if needed.
4. You can block the user – to the right of the name of the person who left the note, there is a circle-with-a-slash icon (don’t know what to call it, the “NO” icon?). If you click that, the person will be blocked from leaving further notes on your diary.
5. We are also working on a mute feature, which will let you mute notes from that person for a certain number of days, but that is not in place yet.

The important thing to remember is that it is YOUR diary, and nobody is allowed to come there and attack you – so be sure to let us know if you run into any problems

The OD Rules

I mentioned The Rules above, and this is something I think each of our testers (as previous members) is familiar with. Once the site goes live in a couple weeks, you will be asked to click a link (or something) to agree to the OD Terms of Service and the OD Rules. However, The Rules have been changed somewhat since the old days, so I would appreciate if as a tester you would give them a read, and let me know what you think.

The Rules are designed to make this a comfortable home for everybody, so I would really like to get some input from this group on how they are currently set up.

New Testers

There’s a rather large new group of testers starting today – welcome to all of you who are new here! I wanted to update on a few questions/features that we are working on, that everybody asks about 🙂

1. All Notes view – there is going to be an all-notes view added to the system, which will show all notes that you have received. It’s in progress, but we are waiting on a software update from one of our partners before we can implement it. Hopefully, it will be within the next few weeks
2. Members-only diaries and entries – this will allow you to set your diary or individual entries so they are visible only to logged-in members of OD. Today, there is only Public, Friends Only, and Private for settings – but we will be implementing the Members Only option in the next few days (it’s currently in QA/testing) and at that point you will be able to set your content this way as well.
3. Diary search – we had a search option when we first launched in beta, but testing revealed some problems with it, so we have taken it down for a rework. You should see it return sometime in the near future.
4. Sharing icons – many of you have noticed the Facebook/Twitter/etc. sharing icons on entries. Before the site goes public, we will be changing those so they are only active on public entries – i.e.; if an entry is private, friends-only, or members-only those icons won’t appear, and if somebody does try to share an entry like that it won’t link back to the entry (it will just show a “not found” instead). I want all of you to feel comfortable with your privacy here!
5. There’s a bunch of other smaller stuff that we are working on that has come up as a result of testing – remember, if you run into anything that needs to be changed/fixed, go to the “Contact Support” link at the bottom of any page (except the front page) and fill out the form to send us a message about it. Sending information this way is much better than leaving me a note or email, because the Support contact goes directly into our internal ticketing system so we can track it.

I think that’s it for now, I swear there was a fourth thing, but it seems to have slipped away 🙂

DM