Tech Group Report 2013-02-28

Freegle Tech Report February 2013
Messages 11391-11524
Members 94

If anyone is interested in this stuff you are welcome to join us, even if you only want to dip in and out. Mods who are willing to try out new stuff and make comments are always welcome, as are those who look at stuff purely from an end user angle.

1.General
A very quiet month, overall. A few days extra activity caused by Martin Lewis giving us a mention in his blog and on ITV.

2 Server
We were pretty busy a couple of times because of the publicity on money saving.com which combined with Yahoo membership issues meant some members having to wait to be accepted. Edward’s new system of mailing them, when the FB memberships caught up worked ok.

3.Main Website.
Chris did some tweaks to the main site layout so that it is easier to use from a smartphone.
On the home page if you are viewing from a mobile smartphone, it used
to be that the chair was loaded even though it wasn't displayed. Now it isn't loaded.
The Find a Group page was a little crowded for mobile and tablet.
It has been improved by removing the left column with the main Freegle icon.
You can still get Home - and all the other links are there.

4. Events.
MODERATE: has now been put on the subject line for posts which need a moderator to verify, as some were being missed.

5. Direct and Facebook
It was not handling cases where a member changed the email address attached to his Yahoo ID account very well. It should now be working, please let us know if you have any problems in future with this.
The Freegle Graffiti problem was resolved on the1st Feb and posts went on again. Unfortunately a new ruling that now every single post has to be consented to before it can be published on someones account or page, stopped them again on the 11th. This at present means that  none of your group posts are going onto your Facebook page.
Groups which have consented to have their posts republished and have filled in their Twitter details on the settings tab continue to get them posted there, as Edward has been able to send them direct. If your posts aren’t coming through to your group’s Twitter account and you need help, contact Jean at dorothyjeanquinn@yahoo.co.uk.

There is now a group setting in Advanced that allows you to prevent people hiding their name on your group should you wish to use it.
Edward continues to try to find volunteers to develop a mobile app. We have a promising lead in Manchester, though we have been here before.

6.Google.
Thanks to a change in Google’s free ads for charities, Edward increased Freegle's free ads bid to $2. This should make our Google ads more prominent. If anyone has experience of running a Google ads campaign and would like to do this for Freegle, please speak up.

7. Points raised and sorted.
There was a problem with photos not appearing when sent again via the reminder email which should now be sorted...

A moderator couldn’t edit the event she wanted to as it was only possible to do the first 10 or so events, and some mods have a lot more. It is now possible to moderate all of them.

8 . Questions raised and answered.
Q. Do we have to categorise the standard admins each month?
A. Yes I thought I had fixed it, I will have another look.
Q. Is it possible to change/add a shortlink after the group is created?
A. Yes to both, just say what you want on Central or Tech and it will be picked up and done.
Q. When I change my password on Direct it seems to say that the site cannot be used until the password is changed. does it prevent the previous password being used?
A. Not until you have replied to the link in the email to verify you want it changing.
Q. There seems to be a problem with A.O.L members and we are getting our mails to them bounced back.
A. Yahoo is looking into this.
Q. Does anyone have a list of the Birthdays of all the groups.
A. Chris supplied what he has.
Jean
Freegle Tech
Tech Report Feb 2013

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