Creating and deleting microblog messages

Creating microblog messages

You create new messages by typing your message into the text field at the top of the message listing (you may have to scroll to the top to have the text field shown). The labeling of the text field indicates whom you address with your message (“Share with …”).

•      Enter your message into the text field and click on post to post your message.

The group of users to whom you post your message by default depends on your current position in BSCW.

o  In your personal objects like your home folder, your private folders or your address book you always post to your microblogging network. Your network is either your entire social network or the member group of a workspace of your choice.

You define your microblogging network in your personal preferences.

•      Select  Options    Preferences  in the top menu and go to the ‘Microblog’ section of the action form. Check either ‘Social network’ or select a workspace whose mem­bers are to become your network. This setting can, of course, be changed later on.

Since the social network of a user may become very large, it is possible (and often advisable) to restrict top level posting to the more manageable member group of a workspace. Note that even in this case you may still receive messages from users outside your posting network.

Note: Your BSCW administrator may have disabled the possibility of posting micro­blog messages to your en­tire social network; in this case you have to choose a member group as your microblogging network.

o  In other folders you post by default to the members of the current workspace, i.e. the workspace from which the current folder inherits its members.

When you display the general microblog “Social Network” in­stead of the workspace microblog here (the button [Only Workspace] is grayed out), you can use the drop-down menu select microblog to post a message to your microblogging network.

Posting to a single user in the personal microblog on the info page of the user is treated below.

User names and hash tags in microblog messages

You can also use user names (e.g. @koch) or so-called hash tags (e.g. #bscw) in your mes­sages in order to address a certain user or to characterize your messages. Both appear as click­able links. Clicking on a user name shows the user pop-up, clicking on a hash tag starts a search for messages with that tag. You can have yourself notified of new microblog messages that mention your user name explicitly with a preceding @ (see 9.2.5 Notification of new microblog messages).

Note: You can use the @<user name> mechanism only to address users of your social net­work, i.e. users with whom you share a workspace or community. In other cases, the @ character is removed and no clickable link is generated.

Deleting microblog messages

You can delete only messages that you have created (and not e.g. events that appear in a micro­blog or messages of other users).

•      Click the [Delete] button below the message that you want to delete and confirm with [OK].

This will delete the content of the message, but not any replies. As long as there are any replies left, the empty message will continue to exist. Also, if it is a reply to a message which still has other, older replies, it will continue to exist. Otherwise, the message will altogether go away.

Note: Deleted messages may still occur with content in local microblog desktop widgets of other users as long as their cache has not expired. Also, deleted messages may appear in full in e-mail notifications (periodic reports, direct e-mail) that were sent before the deletion.