Dolphin+Friends,+Sharing,+Presence

Profiling & Networking:Friends, Sharing, Presence
Goal: evaluate the process of adding friends in both Dolphin & Elgg Initial Instructions: o Find your profile page o Add friends to your profile o Once you have a network set up, look at friends' pages and report what you can see o Upload a file to your profile page and attempt to share it with individuals and with friends User Questions: How easy is it to add friends? Do friends need to accept your invitation? What in your profile, pages and files can friends see? What facilities are present to hide/reveal profile page items from your friends? from the whole community? Can you tell if your friends or other members are online or not?**
 * due date: Friday, 2/13/09, 4 pm
 * Dolphin: Log in to Dolphin at http://ccnmtl.lamp.columbia.edu/dolphin/
 * Elgg: Log in to Elgg at http://kodos.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/sb/common/elgg/elgg1.2/. Your username is the first letter of your first name followed by your last name (e.g. Rob Garfield is "rgarfield"). Your password is either the silver pair (for CCNMTLers) or your username for our TC folks.
 * Perform the following assignment in both Elgg and Dolphin
 * Assignment:
 * Answer the following questions for each environment by responding to this email:

"How easy is it to add friends?" Pretty easy. I clicked on the prominent "Members" button, which showed me users registered. I could have also searched for them using age/gender type criteria.

"Do friends need to accept your invitation?" Yes.

"What in your profile, pages and files can friends see?" I was unable to find a way to upload a file (except photo/video material). On my friends' profile, I saw: a picture; a nickname; gender; a description. I did NOT easily see: how to contact my friends; how to email them outside Dolphin. I easily found Jennifer's group and was able to join it right away, however.

"What facilities are present to hide/reveal profile page items from your friends? from the whole community?" I didn't see any kind of privacy settings. As far as I can tell, what I put on my profile is visible to everyone.

"Can you tell if your friends or other members are online or not?" Yes, I saw that right away (the little lightbulb next to usernames).

How easy is it to add friends?

Clicking on members and then choosing to befriend was easy. Only two clicks, which is all it should take.

Do friends need to accept your invitation?

It appears the friends do need to accept my invitation in order to be listed as my friend’s in the profile.

What in your profile, pages and files can friends see?

Photos, information you complete about yourself, description, rating in the community, friends and mutual friends, music taste, profile posts and comments people have made on the profile.

It appears that I may see pages titled: photo gallery, music gallery, video gallery, blog, guestbook, and member friends.

What facilities are present to hide/reveal profile page items from your friends? from the whole community?

I don’t see the ability to hide the profile page, or individual page items from friends or the community through the profile settings. However, when I set up my blog, it appears I can toggle access between public and or friends for both reading and commenting. Perhaps this is the case for all content modules that become part of my community presence.

Can you tell if your friends or other members are online or not?

You can tell if someone is online through the light bulb icon. If someone is online the light bulb is yellow (lit) and if they are not online it is grayed (out). This seems to only work for certain views. For instance, I don’t see any indication on an individual’s profile page, but I do see it detailed on the members view.