Group Notice Expiration

[Scythe Elfenbeim]

I have been pondering the problem of full IM queues.

Part of the problem: Notices are time dependent. A music club or a group hold an event on a particular day and time. They post details of the event to members of the group as usual. The event passes, but those that have not logged in still have the notice in their IM queue, and because of the limits on IM queues their IM's are capped.

Part of the suggested solution: Have a date/time stamp for when a notice expires, and remove notices from queues that have this date/time stamp set when the date is greater than the date of the notice.

It does mean that behind the scenes the IM database will have to have a field added, an ExpiresDate field, but once this is added a single query run once a day will empty out old messages in a flash. In pseudo sql code, DELETE FROM IMdatabase WHERE ((ExpiresDate IS NOT NULL) AND NOW() > ExpiresDate). It could be run at any low usage time, e.g. 4am SL.

Just having a queue that doesn't fill with out of date stuff would be nice.

This partially addresses the database size of the IM queue, which I assume is the reason for the cap on the number of messages, and it means that if users are reasonably active the chances of missing events is lessened. Even non time critical notices could be expired after say a month or two. If a person does not log in within that time frame they might be losing interest anyway, but since expiry date setting could be optional then thoughtful group posters could ensure that their posts do not linger longer than is relevant.

Yay or nay?

Thoughts?

[Amethyst Jetaime]

I like this idea but would add a time stamp too for all the club events that are over.  You should post this on  the suggestion page.

https://support.secondlife.com/suggestions/

[Sayrah Parx]

This is a great idea.  It sounds like someone would have the option of setting an expiration date when they send a notice, so that the notice would get removed from someone's offline messages after that date instead of taking space in their offline quota.  It would be a lot better for the servers, and also not cap someone with useless outdated notices.  It would also be great to have the option of keeping them out of offline messages in the first place, so that if someone is offline then it would only be sent to their e-mail if they have "offline IMs sent to e-mail" enabled.

[MBeatrix]

Yay, definitely. :matte-motes-smile:

[Scythe Elfenbeim]

Ironically, the post button doesn't work. Perhaps Linden Labs don't want suggestions

[SaraCarena]

You can file feature requests in Jira, try there and good luck :smileyhappy:

[Scythe Elfenbeim]

I'm afraid Jira ignores me too. I tried to report the suggestions page not operating. I guess it's the latest browser update messing with posting. Strange that this works ok.

[Nalates Urriah]

This would be a good topic to bring up at the Tuesday or Thursday user group meetings. 

For serious consideration, file a feature request in the JIRA.

[Scythe Elfenbeim]

Perhaps you would be kind enough to do this on my behalf. I am unable to post to JIRA or other parts of the site, (reasons still unknown but suspected to be related to a recent browser security update).

[Nalates Urriah]

So, go to a meeting... email a Linden... argue for your idea in person.