Small improvement regarding activity / "Show others your online status"

[theymos]

PowerGlove sent me a nice patch for this which I just added:

Previously, if you didn't check the "Show others your online status" option, it would still be pretty obvious when you were online because your "Last Active" time would still constantly update to be ~now. This has now been changed so that if you were last active within the last 72 hours and you have the show-online option disabled, then the exact time will not be displayed, and it will instead just say "(Recently)".

If you would like people to be able to more exactly tell when you were online, then you can of course just enable the "show others your online status" option in your profile settings.

[Zaguru12]

It seems when other members are probably going on with their life activities, PowerGlove is definitely busy making patches. Once again thank you PowerGlove for this addition.

I actually like the new feature it adds to more privacy’s feature of the forum, some can decide to be ghosting the forum without non staffs noticing.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Nice! Just went invisible.

I may be asking for much, but wouldn't it be more appropriate if the user had the option to choose not to display any activity at all? For example, if you were inactive for 73 hours, display "(Not recently)" instead of "June 09, 2024, 08:40:33 PM". Or just "(Hidden)" regardless.

Someone might want to take a break without letting anyone know about it.

[Adbitco]

This is nice one just as it's with telegram when you hide your visibility others will only be seeing recently seen even though you are online it's just same option as recently same way others would appear to you as well except you make yourself online then you can be able to see other people online.
Anyway this is cool option, thank you PowerGlove I know you much cares about privacy.

[Nwada001]

I may be asking for much, but wouldn't it be more appropriate if the user had the option to choose not to display any activity at all? For example, if you were inactive for 73 hours, display "(Not recently)" instead of "June 09, 2024, 08:40:33 PM". Or just "(Hidden)" regardless.

Someone might want to take a break without letting anyone know about it.

I was even about to ask the same question, because it will really make more sense if someone can just turn off their activity status and leave it offline until you decide to remove it from their account.
 
Even if you just make a post, people can only see the last time you made it, but your last active hour and time won't be visible even while you are online. It's a very common feature that is being used on some of the social media sites where it's active to enhance members privacy a little bit.

[ibminer]

This unfortunately broke BPIP's parsers, since (Recently) is not a valid datetime. We'll try to get it corrected as soon as possible.

[PowerGlove]

This unfortunately broke BPIP's parsers, since (Recently) is not a valid datetime. We'll try to get it corrected as soon as possible.

I'm sorry about that. Profile parsing did cross my mind, but what made me feel okay about it was that I noticed in the SMF code that non-datetime text was already possible for that field before this patch (the text "Never" can be displayed there, too), so I guessed that you must already have made your parser(s) robust against non-datetimes.

[Sandra_hakeem]

I may be asking for much, but wouldn't it be more appropriate if the user had the option to choose not to display any activity at all? For example, if you were inactive for 73 hours, display "(Not recently)" instead of "June 09, 2024, 08:40:33 PM". Or just "(Hidden)" regardless.

Someone might want to take a break without letting anyone know about it.

You see, i don't think the sole essence of the modification was to blur out the system entirely... I think it was more about blurring out the exact time a user is/has been online, thereby creating some level of pseudonymity - I may be wrong, but if it goes your own way, everyone knows you haven't been on - That doesn't really differ from what we had.

In this Case, Nobody knows precisely if you're online or not; The display word "recently" does a two-way job.. it could mean the user ain't active, it could mean they are...

[logfiles]

Previously, if you didn't check the "Show others your online status" option, it would still be pretty obvious when you were online because your "Last Active" time would still constantly update to be ~now. This has now been changed so that if you were last active within the last 72 hours and you have the show-online option disabled, then the exact time will not be displayed, and it will instead just say "(Recently)".

How about after 72 hours?
Does it get to display the exact time someone was last active, or it will still be like... Last active (a long time ago)?

This unfortunately broke BPIP's parsers, since (Recently) is not a valid datetime. We'll try to get it corrected as soon as possible.

It will also be a little harder to detect those cheating Alt accounts using the "Last active time" metric if they decided not to show others their online status.

[KingsDen]

In this Case, Nobody knows precisely if you're online or not; The display word "recently" does a two-way job.. it could mean the user ain't active, it could mean they are...

How about doing...
Last active: Hidden.
Hidden means it is not displayed at all, I don't know the purpose of recently. Are we trying to differentiate someone who is still coming online like BlackHatCoiner but don't want to display the last seen and someone who hasn't been active for like 355 days and above?

[PX-Z]

This unfortunately broke BPIP's parsers, since (Recently) is not a valid datetime. We'll try to get it corrected as soon as possible.

This is the first things i thought while reading the OP — the bots, surely it will be adjusted by you too.

How about after 72 hours?
Does it get to display the exact time someone was last active, or it will still be like... Last active (a long time ago)?

I guess this is just when someone is just "online", last active will remain as is with datetime.

[Vod]

It seems when other members are probably going on with their life activities, PowerGlove is definitely busy making patches. Once again thank you PowerGlove for this addition.

Too bad he only gets merits, and not tens of thousands of bitcoins.  :/

[Apocollapse]

This could cause a drama about questioning specific user "has logged in this forum, but refused to answer" or "hasn't logged in this forum".

Usually when there's a problem about specific user, people would like to wait till the user logged in and let him to defend himself before tagging him. Now, if someone tagged the user when he didn't receive the reply for few days or weeks, people might disagree and say you're tagged too fast.

It will also be a little harder to detect those cheating Alt accounts using the "Last active time" metric if they decided not to show others their online status.

Using last active time metric to detect alt accounts is really pointless, no one gonna believe it.

Most people will ask "solid evidence" if you fail to bring that even though you're sure they're alts, people will say it's just your own assumption/suspect without any proof.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

I like the update. Good work Theymos and PowerGlove.

Too bad he only gets merits, and not tens of thousands of bitcoins.  :/

Tens of thousands of bitcoins is a lot but we don't know what price we are paying. Obviously it looks like there are some selfless contribution so far from PowerGlove.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I think it was more about blurring out the exact time a user is/has been online, thereby creating some level of pseudonymity - I may be wrong, but if it goes your own way, everyone knows you haven't been on - That doesn't really differ from what we had.

That is entirely different from what we had. Having your last time active "hidden" indefinitely is the exact opposite of having it displayed.

Hidden means it is not displayed at all, I don't know the purpose of recently.

"(Recently)" obfuscates when you're online. "(Hidden)" obfuscates when you were active. Your own posts would only then betray that.

Too bad he only gets merits, and not tens of thousands of bitcoins.  :/

Tens of thousands of bitcoins is a lot but we don't know what price we are paying. Obviously it looks like there are some selfless contribution so far from PowerGlove.

Voluntary contribution is very respectable, but it wouldn't hurt if theymos opened up that dusty cold storage for the most dedicated contributor. 

[LoyceV]

So if I monitor a profile that was last active more than 3 days ago, and it's status switches to "(Recently)", I know it became active right at that moment.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Voluntary contribution is very respectable, but it wouldn't hurt if theymos opened up that dusty cold storage for the most dedicated contributor. 

The new forum software is in the line for a decade, we actually do not know how it's going, how much funds we are spending, what is the progress, will it even become a thing in the near future or it was just a failed project. We know nothing.

I do not think PowerGlove is the only one who is doing the Voluntary job [if it is], there are many with us who are able to form a team and give us a new software if they receive the honer, respect they deserve with the financial benefit to feed their family.

We do not know what interest PowerGlove has right now but most probably it's to gain a good forum rank, have a spot it DT and be a respectable member. Today or tomorrow he will achieve it and then he will have no motive to move further. It's the reality.

[Mr.right85]

So if I monitor a profile that was last active more than 3 days ago, and it's status switches to "(Recently)", I know it's became active right at that moment.

I hope the threads created and comments on posts do come up as just recently too else,

That would be one means to note how active someone has been or when last was this user online without stating the status in a more present time. I’ll be a guest!

[tranthidung]

We do not know what interest PowerGlove has right now but most probably it's to gain a good forum rank, have a spot it DT and be a respectable member. Today or tomorrow he will achieve it and then he will have no motive to move further. It's the reality.

He has skills to do SMF patches and he seems to do it comfortably with his understandings on SMF forum software but I really can not go far to say his efforts for forum security and SMF patches to improve community experience is to gain rank, reputation and what's more like a moderator, global moderator position.

Staff position is possible but a global moderator position will need much time for PowerGlove to achieve. Being a technical member with good contribution for the forum is big advantage but theymos will need more time to actually trust PowerGlove and appoint global moderator position to the coder.

[NotATether]

So if I monitor a profile that was last active more than 3 days ago, and it's status switches to "(Recently)", I know it's became active right at that moment.

Yes but you see, now it requires more resources to monitor each user's activity status, since the web server is no longer giving handouts.

For example, if BPIP were to now scrape all ~4 million profiles and filter the ones with a (Recently) date, then it can only assume the login came from the last 72 hours, unless it has previously scraped an actual date which it can use as a reference point. The independently-calculated "last active" time becomes fuzzy as a result.

Staff position is possible but a global moderator position will need much time for PowerGlove to achieve. Being a technical member with good contribution for the forum is big advantage but theymos will need more time to actually trust PowerGlove and appoint global moderator position to the coder.

Being a good programmer doesn't make you a good moderator. Let's not get carried away here.