Members in alphabetical order

[Wheatland Garden]

I want the list of members to be in alphabetical order by member name, and haven't figured out how to achieve this.  The reason is that Members can see the list of Members, and can use it to send individual email if necessary.  The default order seems to be the order in which I originally entered members (alphabetical by real name, with some strays at the end), but now that people have registered and chosen user names, this order doesn’t make sense, and over time there will be more people tacked onto the end of the list in whatever order they happen to arrive.  I want the list to make sense to Members.  Alphabetical order would not seem to be an esoteric expectation.  

[GregChapman]

Wheatland Garden wrote

I want the list of members to be in alphabetical order by member name, and haven't figured out how to achieve this.  The reason is that Members can see the list of Members, and can use it to send individual email if necessary.

First can we clarify if you are talking about those you have placed in the "Members" group or simply users who have registered but may have done so in error or have no continuing interest in your forum.
Second why would any one want to email anyone on the basis of a name in a list. Surely the only valid reason to email someone is to respond privately to a post on the forum and they can do that by clicking on the author's username.

The default order seems to be the order in which I originally entered members (alphabetical by real name, with some strays at the end),

Users are listed in order of volume of posts.

but now that people have registered and chosen user names, this order doesn’t make sense, and over time there will be more people tacked onto the end of the list in whatever order they happen to arrive.

They move up the list as they post more.

I want the list to make sense to Members.  Alphabetical order would not seem to be an esoteric expectation.

It seems to me - and I now suspect to Nabble - that encouraging the emailing of users of a forum is to be discouraged. It simply encourages spam.

Take a look through the support forum and you'll see it is far more common for administrators to request an internal PM system and to remove any ability to email users. This, after all, is the conventional approach on a forum.

[Wheatland Garden]

Perhaps I should explain further how this forum is being used so that you aren’t imagining a different, and perhaps more common, scenario.  

This is a community garden that consists of a few dozen people.  Each year, a bunch of people leave, and a bunch of people arrive, typically in March-May but sporadically at other times too.  In previous years, we were using a different forum that we can no longer use, so I set up a forum on Nabble because it has various desired features: free or nearly so, option to view and post online, option to receive posts by email, option to receive notification of new topics only (without bombardment by all subsequent comments) by email, ability to access individuals by email.  The general idea is that one person (currently me) can be administrator, modifying the list of members as needed, and that everyone else can simply post to the forum, or email another gardener.   Otherwise it becomes a bureaucratic nightmare to not only keep track of volatile membership, but also to get everybody up to speed.    

The forum is set up so that only explicitly approved Members can use it; randomly registered people cannot.  I added email addresses of current gardeners to the list of Members, in alphabetical order by lastname-firstname because that’s how it was in my spreadsheet.  Then I asked people to transfer over from the old forum.  As people registered, they chose usernames.  So now the list of Members appears haphazard, though it is in the order that I entered the names.  Gardening is done for the year, we’re not yet using the forum, just preparing for next spring, so nobody has posted.  There are only a few dozen people, so the list order is not a huge practical issue, but it is aesthetically displeasing and a source of confusion.  I would prefer alphabetical order.  

Another issue, which I put in another post for a clean separation, is the ability to email all members.  This is a group of actual people who actually know each other to some extent in real life.  There are a few people, let’s call them Organizers, who deal with issues beyond their own personal plots, e.g. maintenance or events.  Most people would rather garden, tend to be rather oblivious to the wider world, prefer not to subscribe, and don’t check online often.  Generally this is fine.  Every so often though, crucial information needs to be conveyed.  Currently, this is done by maintaining a separate list of email addresses and giving it to the few Organizers.  Keeping two lists in sync is obviously awkward and prone to error, and in the modern world one hopes for a more efficient solution.  I too would rather garden, and not have my time eaten up with bureaucracy.  It would be simpler if I could designate a group of Organizers who had the ability to directly email all Members.  I understand that I could add people as Administrators and they’d have access to email addresses in the Members list, but this is a low tech group and I would prefer not to have them bumbling around behind the scenes.  

[GregChapman]

Hi,

Thanks for background information and  full explanation.

As I said earlier, there is no mechanism within the standard Nabble product to sort names of users in any group alphabetically. As your forum begins to be used you will find that the default order makes sense - first by number of posts then by date of joining.

Perhaps you have not fully realised that as your users register and they choose a username this will overwrite the name you used when you set things up. So you will never manage to retain your initial neat alphabetical list.

Nabble, as with any other forum software I have encountered works with "usernames", not real names. Some users will pick nicknames as usernames. Some might choose something related to their address or include their partner's name. Some may use a surname. Others a forename. I am unconvinced that a list sorted by username will help a user identify the person they wish to email any more than a list in random order.

If you wish to give your users access to a list of members of your gardeners group then you must place that information in a post to your forum. I would recommend that the post be pinned and beside each member's real name you add their username and make that a link their user profile screen.

At any point you can edit that post to show the current list of members. Doing it that way also means that any member's email address remains totally hidden and cloaked by Nabble's security system and would only be revealed should anyone choose to email another member, when naturally, it would show in the "From:" line of their message, so their is never a question of breaking data protection legislation (I'm assuming UK legislation here. You may operate under other laws).

It is NOT possible, using Nabble's interface, to email all members, only all subscribers. Nabble is essentially forum software. Only those who choose to subscribe will receive any forum post via email. The email facility built into Nabble will only email an individual - via the form accessed from the User's profile screen.

It is true that as an Administrator you can harvest users email addresses and then copy them to an external email program. In other circumstances I would be saying that is dangerous practice that could be illegal. However, I assume you cover yourself in other ways against such data protection issues.

I fear you may have made been misled by some of the things you have read with regard to the email facilities built into Nabble's software. It is certainly not intended that you harvest email addresses from the database that you have access to as an administrator.

[Wheatland Garden]

> Perhaps you have not fully realised that as your users register and they choose a username this will overwrite the name you used when you set things up. So you will never manage to retain your initial neat alphabetical list.

Yes, I completely realize this.  What I hadn’t realized was that alphabetical order would be considered an exotic request.  :-)  

> I am unconvinced that a list sorted by username will help a user identify the person they wish to email any more than a list in random order.

The usernames typically start with either first or last name, so are sensible to the people who know them.  In general, scanning a list in coherent order is easier than scanning a list in unclear order.  

> As your forum begins to be used you will find that the default order makes sense - first by number of posts then by date of joining.

Most people won’t post; they may simply check to see whether anything of interest has been posted by someone else.  So the order of all the 0-post members will appear haphazard.  

> If you wish to give your users access to a list of members of your gardeners group then you must place that information in a post to your forum. I would recommend that the post be pinned and beside each member's real name you add their username and make that a link their user profile screen.

Yeah, there are all sorts of ways to pass along a list of contact info, I’m just not wild about any of them.  Membership is not stable.  So if someone imports the email addresses into their own system, that’s what proliferates, even if things change later (this is not a hypothetical; it is actually what’s been happening).  It would be simpler to have a feature where a few designated people could shoot an email to all current members via the forum.  This is not spam; this is normal operation for a local association of people who know each other in real life.  

> Only those who choose to subscribe will receive any forum post via email.

Yes, exactly.  This was a feature we wanted, because some people adamantly don’t want to be bombarded by email from a listserv.  (Other people far prefer email because they’ll forget to check the forum.)

> The email facility built into Nabble will only email an individual

Yes, and typically that’s both useful and sufficient.  

> It is certainly not intended that you harvest email addresses from the database that you have access to as an administrator.

That’s not what I’m doing, and I’m a bit disturbed that you’ve gotten this impression.  The garden requests contact information (email and phone number) from people who rent plots, so that communication can occur.  I entered the email addresses of gardeners in the Member list, and set forum permissions so only these people could view and post.  I have no interest whatsoever in the email addresses of anyone else.  My interest is in the efficiency of entering email addresses a single time in a single place.  

> I fear you may have made been misled by some of the things you have read with regard to the email facilities built into Nabble's software.

I’m not clear where you’re getting this idea?  

In setting up a forum, I had a list of desired features.  Some were available out of the box.  Some were available by tinkering with macros; I’ve found support threads to be extremely helpful here.  So when I encountered a desired feature (alphabetical order) that didn’t seem to be achievable by tinkering with macros, and a desired feature (directly emailing all members) that a support thread said would be available in the future, I thought it worthwhile to ask.  Neither feature is a dealbreaker.  I’ve experimented with various other forums, and Nabble comes closest to doing the necessary job as it stands now.    

[GregChapman]

Hi,

Wheatland Garden wrote

What I hadn’t realized was that alphabetical order would be considered an exotic request.  :-)

In spite of my earlier comments, I do see that could be a feature that could be useful to a good proportion of Nabble users.

It would be simpler to have a feature where a few designated people could shoot an email to all current members via the forum.

As Nabble stands only those with Administrator rights are provided with the menu option:

Options > Users > Manage user & groups.

and switching that feature on is not provided through the "User Permissions" screen.

> It is certainly not intended that you harvest email addresses from the database that you have access to as an administrator.

That’s not what I’m doing, and I’m a bit disturbed that you’ve gotten this impression.

I only use the term "harvest" in a technical sense to indicate that you would need to extract data not intended by Nabble to be used outside of Nabble's services. I fully understand that what you doing is only using a work-around for the limitations of Nabble's product to achieve a legitimate aim for your organisation. I don't think you are doing anything wrong. You shouldn't be disturbed.

 I fear you may have made been misled by some of the things you have read with regard to the email facilities built into Nabble's software.

I’m not clear where you’re getting this idea?

It was, perhaps, too strongly put. I was just worried that you might be becoming frustrated with what Nabble offers. I have found Nabble staff very accommodating of ideas for their product that they foresee would have wide appeal. I think the ability to sort usernames in alphabetical order might have wide appeal or be a trivial fix for them. I also have been frustrated that some permissions are part and parcel of Administrator rights and cannot be assigned to other groups. The "Manage Users and Groups" is one permission that I would like to grant to the "Moderator" group that I have added to the default set on a number of my forums.

To avoid Pedro having to wade through our long correspondence I would recommend that you make two brief posts under new topics in which you quote the URL of your forum and, if you are, indicate that you are prepared to make edits yourself to the macros required if the code is supplied. In one, request the ability to be able to sort alphabetically the names listed under the "People" link, perhaps making sort order a user option on that screen. In the other request that the User Permission screen have a further option added that would control the appearance of the "Manage Users & Groups" on users menus. I will certain add a "Me too" reply to that request. I recall that others have also requested that facility in the past. If you want to more certainty of a speedy response and delivery of those proposals consider paying to join "Premium Support".