Community
As some of you may have already figured out, I am a bit daft when it comes to computers,lol. I try not to spend to much time on them but anyway......
I am experiencing an UNDERSCORE problem. I need the EASY explanation how to do an @mention with a username that has an underscore in it. It never works for me and frankly I wish they were not even permitted for a username.
Anyone out there who can help me????
I would be forever grateful.
Missy_
I give up. I tried and it won't work for me boo-hoo, but thanks for trying to help
ATTENTION: If your username has an underscore in it, I won't be able to @mention you. sorry
I hover over the name and right click and then select copy address and paste it to where I want it. It IS an issue, some have been fixed but not all.
Im going to try that, thanks Ellen
Missy I can't do a @ mention either on pretty much anyone with the underscore if I try really hard with several tries I can mention Jennifer whom I agree you'd think after almost a year and a half that it would be fixed by now because it is frustrating! Mandolinrain
MarilynH I thought Jennifer's HAD been fixed cuz there are no underscores in it now...just hyphens. Jennifer-Quit I don't have an issue with that one.
You're right Ellen thank you, I believe I'm tried that's why I don't have an issue with mentioning Jennifer but hopefully the tech's Will be able to solve the problem with the underscores which would be wonderful. elvan, sleep well tonight and get lots of Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz's.
Well I am done trying. I just can't do it.
I think any active member that has an underscore in their username should have it removed and then be notified; Would that not be the easy solution?
I gave it a gallant shot. Thanks everyone for trying to help. I accept I am computer illiterate and Im fine with that.
Dear it has nothing to do with computer skills - a flaw in the system. Do you use Windows 10?
Thanks, I have a macbook air I do the freedom train from
Mandolinrain
I'm guessing you have Safari as your browser unless you have installed Firefox or Chrome browser. I'll find a Mac and test it out. I'd recommend installing Chrome. It's a better browser.
Mark
EX Community Manager
I do have chrome. I just never tried to do Ex from it, but will give it a go tomorrow, Thank you
If we had known that it was going to be an issue when we migrated, we wouldn't have allowed underscore to be an option. Unfortunately we found out after the fact. Then it was supposed to be fixed in a couple months by Jive. Unfortunately a series of perfect storms happened and it got pushed down the line. Coupled by other planned updates to the non-community portion of the site we chose to wait it out. I have offered as Jennifer-Quit mentioned to fix anyone's profile on a case by case scenario(It takes me 7 or so steps) for anyone who wanted their username to be updated. It's not unfortunately as simple as changing it and notifying everyone. There is a whole lot of work to make that simple change to ensure it works smoothly. Given that there are several workarounds that help it to work we're waiting til the fix comes from Jive.
Who is the person you're trying to mention? There are a couple people that have underscores that I have tried to mention and have been successful. Perhaps I can help you solve it directly or maybe they're willing to update their username.
Mark
EX Community Manager
Thanks Mark. It was on the freedom train the morning, I was trying to put Storms username on the train
I didn't realize all the steps it takes to do that. Sorry
Mandolinrain wrote:
Thanks Mark. It was on the freedom train the morning, I was trying to put Storms username on the train
I didn't realize all the steps it takes to do that. Sorry
Thanks. I'll check out Storm.3.1.14 . Please try copying and pasting https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/people/Storm_3.1.14 .
Mark
EX Community Manager
I still have a problem with some mentions but it's on me trying to type too fast I hope Storm saw my congrats to him last night on the Freedom Train Storm_3.1.14 since it'll only @ places and he has to be on site to see it at least I think that's right, I still have a problem copying and pasting here on this site but have finally figured out how to do it on FB I'm not very tech savvy but at least I'm here. thanks Jennifer-Quit
What if you Right Click on a person's username link and choose the option for Copy Link address (this if for Chrome... Firefox, Safari, Edge might have slightly different wording) and then paste it into your reply. Should work for mentioning anyone on the site.
Mark
EX Community Manager
I tried and tried and tried yesterday - with no luck. It seems to be working from my work computer today. Find their user name and highlight it - right click -then select "copy link address" Go to where you want to mention them and click control "v" to paste it.
It does work from my work computer but never from my home computer - not sure why. I use Windows 10 at home - but an earlier version at work. That might be the difference. This is a good question for Mark
You would think that after almost 1-1/2 years it would be fixed!
Jennifer-Quit wrote:
You would think that after almost 1-1/2 years it would be fixed!
https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/thread/6182-mention?commentID=116219#comment-105323
My question is why can I copy the link to @mention someone on my work computer but not on my home computer that is running Windows 10 The same steps do not work on both computers Not sure off the top of my head which Windows version I am using at work. But I can use the workaround perfectly fine using earlier versions of Windows - does not seem to work the same for Windows 10.
Jennifer-Quit wrote:
My question is why can I copy the link to @mention someone on my work computer but not on my home computer that is running Windows 10 The same steps do not work on both computers Not sure off the top of my head which Windows version I am using at work. But I can use the workaround perfectly fine using earlier versions of Windows - does not seem to work the same for Windows 10.
I use Windows 10 and copying and pasting the profile link from my work computer works just fine. Any chance you can record a video from your phone of you on your home computer trying to copy and paste the link?
What browser are you using? Microsoft Edge, Chrome, Firefox?
When doing the link you can just paste the link inline and it should resolve to an @mention without doing anything.
Jennifer-Quit I just pasted the link to your profile without using the insert link button and it automatically resolved to your username as an @mention.
Mark
EX Community Manager
I use Edge
https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/people/Rick_M
@https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/people/Rick_M
This is what I get......
Using Edge when I paste the link I get:
https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/people/Rick_M
When I paste the Link and then left Click and Auto-Title:
Thank you Thank You Thank You! I have been struggling with this for a long time.
Jennifer-Quit-05-01-14 wrote:
Thank you Thank You Thank You! I have been struggling with this for a long time.
YW
Using Chrome when I paste the link I get:
No need to Auto-Title.
Jive doesn't officially support Edge, they prefer Chrome or Firefox. I think it's odd since Edge is pre-installed on every Windows computer however the web would be better if there wasn't any Microsoft Explorer or Edge on any computer.
Mark
EX Community Manager
I have to click on their username and then open a new browser window to open up their profile page. Then, I copy and paste the web address and it will link. I cannot get an underscore user name to link by typing @ and then the username in.
oh, well, some days it's hit and miss. I'm sure someone will be along during the thread and highlight whoever's name or @ them
"Any chance you can record a video from your phone of you on your home computer trying to copy and paste the link?" Are you kidding me, Mark??? Is this what we need to be doing to AT mention someone???? Is there no way to universally - what's the word?? Globally? just change all underscores to something else that can be recognized by the JIVE platform?? Don't answer. Obviously NOT. But then what's the work-around?'
When I can't @ mention someone because of the underscore in their on-line name, I search for them, find they're page and copy and paste from there directly from the direct link to their page. It takes an extra step or two. Or three or four. It's aggravating as hell. If you think that your "at mention" is important enough - you'll spend the time. Just saying.
" I think any active member that has an underscore in their username should have it removed, and then be notified" Well YEAH! But then our poor solo Company Manger would have to be up all night long, more than he already is... But why the underscore can't be modified across the board to something else... but then that's what keeps our company manger awake I night. I'm guessing. There just is no global way to do it on this platform. It has to be on an individual basis. And that SUCKS!
I'm telling you, just find the person any way you can (sometimes it just shows up as a blog they've created) but get to their actual page and copy and paste the link from there.
I'll shut up now. Because obviously I'm in "pissy mode!" lol
I wish it were that simple.
All usernames must be unique. If simply swapped out an underscore for a hyphen it could create duplicates. There are close to 800K members. A small number of people have underscores in their usernames and even smaller number of people on the community have underscores in their username. Few of which are active. This is why I'm fixing them on a case by case basis, but the person has to raise their hand and request it. Also changing something drastically requires drastic testing and could introduce a new issue that could be worse.
A little history...
We came from Ning and then went to elgg and then went to Jive. You probably didn't noticed (Cause we worked really hard) to ensure that all the old links didn't break and redirected to the right thing. I'm sure there were some we missed but we had some of our nerdiest developers work tirelessly to make sure all of our bases were covered. There are millions of redirects. Though you see one fairly seamless system there is a lot of things behind the scenes that make the magic work. Your login logs you into multiple different places, one of them is the community. So if you update the username for the community, because it is a unique identifier, it has to be updated in all other places within our systems. Plus all links for that given person need to be updated as well so you don't get broken links for that person.
For example kristen-9.7.15 updated her username. On Elgg the link to her profile was https://community.becomeanex.org/pg/profile/bex_user_465057. Then on Jive it was https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/people/kristen_9.7.15 and now it is https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/people/kristen-9.7.15. No matter what link you click on it should go to her profile. And if you click on any of those links it should go to her profile. This all compounds exponentially if you have lots of content on the site. I've found some steps that work but it takes me quite a few steps and I have to be methodical about it to fix it.
Believe me, I've gotten in pissy, snarky mode about why it hasn't been fixed yet. Yeah even I can get that way on occasion. I know it is annoying but I've considered the alternatives and the approach I'm taking is the best, all things considered.
Mark
EX Community Manager
PS - the suggestion to put in underscores (to begin with) when the transfer to the new platform was made, was not a good one! MOO!
Giulia wrote:
PS - the suggestion to put in underscores (to begin with) when the transfer to the new platform was made, was not a good one! MOO!
The bug was discovered in late December 2016, after the username updates were complete (Mid December 2016). Technically(according to documentation) it should have worked without issue. Had we updated the usernames to remove the underscores we would not have had the community live by late January 2017. Sadly it was unavoidable.
Mark
EX Community Manager
would it be possible to just change the ACTIVE ones on this site and perhaps set up registration so the new members cannot use an underscore in their username?
Mandolinrain wrote:
would it be possible to just change the ACTIVE ones on this site and perhaps set up registration so the new members cannot use an underscore in their username?
Yes but only a one by one basis. I can't blanket change them. Furthermore, I won't change anyone's username without their permission unless it is inappropriate, according to our community guidelines. Defining who is active, locating them and then changing them one by one would take a considerable amount of time. If there were X number of users x 9-10 mins each this would pile up quite quickly. If there is anyone who you're struggling with. Point them to me. I'll work with them to get it updated.
Because we have over 800K members registered with EX and because usernames have to be unique, we need the underscore to ensure that there are enough available options for usernames to be created with ease. Not all symbols are easy to search with. In fact some help with search but would hinder locating people if used in usernames. This is why we eliminated some symbols prior to moving over as the profiles would have been extremely hard to locate. Like A-Z and 0-9, period, underscore and hyphen do not affect search results so they are considered acceptable characters for usernames.
Mark
EX Community Manager
I appreciate all you do , thanks Mark
If you get anything from what I've said, it's that I understand that you are doing and have done the best that you can with changes in platform, bugs, and given the limitations of such... I "get" that it's not simple and that you have so busted your butt (which thankfully you never smoked) to help us. We just sit here thinking, well everything should work fine, the way it always has. We don't grasp the enormity of platform changes, code writing, links that connect our past with our future on sites... Differences in browsers, etc. We just sit here thinking "well, it just should be easy." And that's actually rather understandable since it's always been made easy for us most of the time with the myriad changes that occur with all our internet connections and those connections with each other. We expect our email to react the same on Chrome as on Firefox as on IE. The fact that when one browser changes it's "way," others have to adapt and also change theirs. But then, I don't really know what I'm talking about. I'm just guessing.
But for those of us who actually don't just take it for granted, who have a weeeeeeeee bit understanding as to the amount of code that has to be generated across each platform, browser.... it's stunning that there can be any compatibility at all. I think.
"Millions of redirects" We haven't a clue as to what the coding involved with that is. I certainly don't. But I do have a simple understanding of the difficulty of bridging different platforms, browsers, and attempting to make EVERYBODY HAPPY all the time. Not possible. You know what? I'm just really grateful that the blogs I wrote back in May of 2008 have been pulled forward here from that beautiful Ning platform and are still a part of my history on this site. Because without the history of each of us here - well - it just makes a richer brew for our support offerings.
Ouch! My head hurts now! Hahaha!
Reason #6 why I'm not a fan of JIVE.
Anyway, if my underscore is keeping people from mentioning me (thus keeping me from getting notified), then it's gotta go. I'll be sending Mark a message shortly.
I now greatly admire the folks here who go the extra steps to mention people. My hat's off to you!
Storm.3.1.14 wrote:
Ouch! My head hurts now! Hahaha!
Reason #6 why I'm not a fan of JIVE.
All community platforms have bugs. Elgg had a lot of them! I've worked with quite a few community platforms in my day and always seem to discover things. It will be fixed so it will become a non-issue in the next couple months.
Mark
EX Community Manager
Awesome thank you. I would have taken the steps Storm.3.1.14, but am not real good on computers, sorry! Glad you got rid of the underscore
That's what I do when I can't @ mention someone by typing in their username. I copy and paste it.
I was having trouble too... Maybe this will help.
Why am I not able to @mention certain people?