Please help! I have some questions!

[Gloria I]

I have a few things to ask about. 

 

1. Facebook and many other social networks have Notifications. I don't see any feature like this with Ning. I used to have Grou.ps & they had a nice Notification tab in the bottom right corner. Can I have something like this on Ning? Usually notifications are sent via email which gets annoying.

 

2. Is there a Poke feature? If so, how can I enable it. 

 

3. Can I enable so members can have a relationship status? Such as; Single, Married, Engaged, In a Relationship. If they choose married, for example, they could have a link to the person they are married to. For example, "Jennifer is married with John" & have it displayed on their profiles? There's something like this with Facebook.

 

4. Can I add something like Activity Points? For example, when members post a blog, they get 1 activity point. Or, when they post a forum discussion, they get 2 activity points. When they reach certain amount of activity points, they get a cool prize.

 

5. Also, I have the feature where members can edit their profile pages and customize the appearance. Could I possibly make it so only members in a certain group (In my case, Donators) can edit their profiles? So, 'Donators' would be able to edit their profiles, while other people can't.

 

6. Can specific groups have badges on their profile pic or somewhere on their profile? For example, Admins would have a little badge on their profile that says Admin and some icon. Donators and other groups could have this to.

 

7. Is there a 1-on-1 chat feature instead of a big group chatbox? On Facebook, you can select a friend to chat with privately. Is there a feature like this with Ning?

 

8. Can I get rid of the Friends feature? How members can add other members as friends? My community is for my school so I don't really want the friends feature, but have everybody already be "friends," if that makes sense.

 

9. Can members block other members so they can't contact them, comment on their posts, etc.?

[Gloria I]

Thanks for the help

[Jen]

No one has helped, because so many questions at one time is a bit overwhelming. I'll start by trying to answer a few.

1. You and your members can receive email notifications automatically by "following" a discussion, etc... You will find a "follow" link under the modules, below the comment box.

Then, there are a ton of email notifications you can select from: Settings/Email

Here are the details on how it all works:

Control Your Email Settings and Messages

2. No there is no poke feature.

3. No. Keep in mind, this is not Facebook. You can however create a Profile Question that will capture their martial status. Here are some details on Profile Questions. It would serve you well to look over the Ning Help Pages: http://help.ning.com

4. No. If you see "points", that app is no longer available. You can however use a 3rd party app that will award points and prizes: http://www.punchtab.com/

And you have a built-in Leaderboard: http://yournetwork.ning.com/leaderboards/

See example here: http://creators.ning.com/leaderboards/

 

That's all I have time to answer today, running.

Best Regards,

Jen

[Gloria I]

Thanks, Jen!

 

I also need help on 5-9 if you have the time. 

But for Question 7, I figured out how to do 1-1 chat. :-)

[Writer Chick {Diane}]

5.  No, either everyone can edit their profile pages or no one can.  There's no way to allow some, but not others.

6. We alter our profile/group avatars or badges as you call them using Photoshop or Gimp or some other image software like that.  Put some sort of easily recognizable symbol on them or something. There's no feature in Ning's platform for doing that onsite.

7. The Ning chat room has a private message feature. If you click on a member's name in the room, some choices will show below their name.  "Private chat" is one of those choices. 

8.  No, you can't get rid of the friend feature, and you can't automatically make everyone friends with one click of a mouse.  People have to actually request friendship from others themselves.

9. Yes, you can make your profile page private using the "settings" link in the upper right hand corner of your page. This prevents people from leaving comments on their page.  You can also "Block Messages" from any person whom you don't wish to correspond via inbox.  On their profile page, look below their profile pic.  You'll see the link there. However, you canNOT stop another member from commenting on content that is posted in a public discussion on the site.

 

[Gloria I]

Thanks so much! Can the private profile feature be disabled?

[Writer Chick {Diane}]

I don't think so. That's an option given to members for privacy reasons.