Re: Members in alphabetical order

Posted by GregChapman on Oct 20, 2014; 10:47pm
URL: https://support.nabble.com/Members-in-alphabetical-order-tp7592053p7592077.html

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.