Updated Running a public or community server (markdown)

Running-a-public-or-community-server.md

@@ -237,144 +237,214 @@ Impact to support requests - high, if you do it after the fact.  Probably low if
 -----
 
 *Geonames*
+
 Use Geonames service to resolve nearest populated location for given latitude, longitude. Geonames takes latitude and longitude of where you're at (if you turn on "use browser location" in your settings) and tries to find the nearest population center.
 
 Server impact - low. 
-Impact to support - nil?  Potentially higher when you start getting people clicking the use browser location box.
+
+Impact to support - probably nil.  Potentially higher when you start getting people clicking the use browser location box.
+
+-----
 
 *Gnot*
-This plugin allows notification emails from Friendica to be properly threaded for Gmail users. On the surface, it sounds harmless, but it screws up threading for other mail clients. If you enable this plugin, half your life will be spent telling people to turn it off after they activated it for no reason.
+
+This plugin allows notification emails from Friendica to be properly threaded for Gmail users. On the surface, it sounds harmless, but it corrupts threading for other mail clients. If you enable this plugin, half your life will be spent telling people to turn it off after they activated it for no reason.
 
 Server impact - negligible. 
-Impact to support requests - surprisingly high. (Note, maybe we should put it in big letters that this is for GMAIL only, not all mail).
+
+Impact to support requests - surprisingly high. 
+
+-----
 
 *Gravatar support*
+
 If there is no avatar image for a new user or contact this plugin will look for one at Gravatar.
 
 Server impact - low. 
-Impact to support requests - moderate. Lots of people get very angry when they discover WordPress gave them a gravatar without telling them. They blame you for it, and it takes some time to make them calm down, and understand whose fault it really is.
+
+Impact to support requests - moderate. Lots of people get very angry when they discover WordPress gave them a gravatar without telling them. They blame you for it, and it takes some time to make them calm down and understand whose fault it really is.
+
+-----
 
 *Insane Journal connector*
-Cross post to insane journal.
 
-Server impact - low. Potentially high if you get a lot of users posting to insane journal with lots of posts, but this rarely happens. 
+Cross post to Insane Journal.
+
+Server impact - low. Potentially high if you get a lot of users posting to Insane Journal with lots of posts, but this rarely happens. 
+
 Impact to support requests - low.
 
+-----
+
 *Impressum*
 
-Adds an impressum/info page. This is required by law for German admins, but also useful for most people to have an about page anyway.
+Adds an impressum/info page. This is required by law for German admins, but also useful for other people who want an "about" page.
 
 Server impact - negligible. 
-Impact to support requests - potentially high, as it means users know who their admin is, but if you don't make it easy for them to find that out anyway, you've got no business running a community server.
+
+Impact to support requests - potentially high, as it means users know who their admin is, but if you don't make it easy for them to find that out anyway, you've probably got no business running a public or community server.
+
+-----
 
 *IRC chat room*
+
 Adds an IRC chatroom to your apps menu.
 
 Server impact - negligible. 
-Impact to support requests - low, though you get a few people confused when they can't log in with jappix.
+
+Impact to support requests - low, though you get a few people confused when they can't log in with jappix (see below)
+
+-----
 
 *JappixMini*
-Add Facebook-like chat to your Friendica install, with the ability to automatically add your Friendica contacts, or connect to arbitrary jabber servers, including Facebook.
 
-Server impact - low/medium. Attaches to cronhooks when poller.php runs to grab the addresses of Friendica contacts. This has a low but noticable effect. But if you're already pushing things a bit, this could be a killer. 
-Impact on support requests - low/high depending on your users. Mostly, it just works, but it's a new plugin and still has a few bugs. On the other hand, most issues are caused by people running proxies, or using jappix and another client at the same time. Or geeks, in other words, who both deliver good bug reports, and understand that you can't fix everything, and are more forgiving if you can't help.
+Add Facebook-like chat to your Friendica install, with the ability to automatically add your Friendica contacts, or connect to arbitrary Jabber (XMPP) servers, including Facebook.
+
+Server impact - low/medium. Attaches to cronhooks when poller.php runs to grab the addresses of Friendica contacts. This has a low but noticeable effect. So if you're already pushing resources a bit, this could be a problem.
+ 
+Impact on support requests - low/high depending on your users. Mostly, it just works, but it's a new plugin and still has a few bugs. 
+
+-----
 
 *JS Uploader*
+
 This replaces the existing uploader with a javascript one. Don't use it, it breaks in many browsers.
 
 Server impact - negligible. 
+
 Impact to support requests - very high.
 
+-----
+
 *LDAP Authenticate*
+
 Authenticates a user against an LDAP directory.
 
-Server impact - dunno. 
-Impact to support requests - dunno.
+-----
 
 *Live Journal connector*
+
 Allows cross posting to Live Journal.
 
-Server impact - low. Potentially high if you get a lot of users posting to LiveJournal with lots of posts, but this rarely happens. 
+Server impact - low. Potentially high if you get a lot of users posting to Live Journal with lots of posts, but this rarely happens.
+
 Impact to support requests - low.
 
+-----
+
 *MathJax*
+
 This allows users to include mathjax in posts.
 
-Server impact - negligible/high. The impact on your server is next to nothing, however, it connects to an external service to provide the service, and this can impact network performance negatively. 
-Impact on support requests - low. Anyone playing with it is intelligent enough to fix things themselves (unless you screwed up the install).
+Server impact - negligible to high. The impact on your server is next to nothing, however, it connects to an external service to provide the service, and this can impact network performance negatively. 
+
+Impact to support requests - low. Anyone playing with it is expert enough to fix things themselves.
+
+-----
 
 *Membersince*
-Displays the date joined in profile pages.  There is potentially a privacy issue with this.  Some people might not want other people to know what date they joined on.
+
+Displays the date on which a user joined in profile pages.  There is potentially a privacy issue with this.  Some people might not want other people to know what date they joined on.
 
 Server impact - negligible. 
+
 Impact to support requests - negligible.
 
+-----
+
 *NameThing*
+
 Adds a random name generator to your apps menu.
 
 Server impact - negligible. 
+
 Impact to support requests - nil. 
 
-*NSFW*
-This adds a general purpose content filter, which collapses posts containing key words/phrases set by the user, rather like the ignore function on most forum software, but by scanning the content of posts, instead of by looking for usernames.
+-----
 
-Server impact - negligible. 
-Impact to support requests - low, but the regex doesn't always work for more complex terms, so it causes a few.
+*NSFW*
+
+This adds a general purpose content filter, which collapses posts containing key words/phrases set by the user - this is rather like the ignore function on most forum software, but by scanning the content of posts, instead of by looking for usernames.
+
+Server impact - negligible.
+ 
+Impact to support requests - low, but the regex doesn't always work for more complex terms, so it sparks a few questions at times.
+
+-----
 
 *NumFriends*
-This allow users to set the number of friends shown in their profile side bar. With an increasing number of themes, this is essential, as it will be fugly in some themes with the default values.
+
+This allow users to set the number of friends shown in their profile side bar. For some themes, this is essential as the default values make things look ugly.
 
 Server impact - negligible. 
-Impact to support requests - no effect, but makes dealing with "my contacts list is fugly" easier.
+
+Impact to support requests - no effect, except to make complaints about design easier to solve.
+
+-----
 
 *OpenStreetMap*
-This links the post location used for a particular map to an external OpenStreetMap site, which attempts to display it on a map.  An essential plugin.  Without this, post locations will redirect to google maps.  We really shouldn't be sending any traffic to Google.
+
+This links the post location used for a particular position to an external OpenStreetMap site, which attempts to display it on the map.  An essential plugin for users who specify location.  Without this, post locations will redirect to Google Maps.  For privacy reasons, we really shouldn't be sending any traffic to Google.
 
 Server impact - negligible. 
-Impact to support requests - low, though you'll get some people who don't understand why non-locations set by some users don't link to a place (eg, my location is $BB5A, and lots of people just don't get the joke).
+
+Impact to support requests - low.
+
+-----
 
 *Page*
+
 This links all pages/groups/forums a user is a member of in their profile sidebar.
 
 Server impact - low. 
-Impact to support requests - negligible, directly.  It does make your pages more popular though, so if you've got a lot of them, you might feel this a tad.
+
+Impact to support requests - usually negligible.
+
+-----
 
 *Page Header*
+
 This allows you to set some text in the page header for important site announcements.
 
 Server impact - low. 
+
 Impact to support requests - beneficial; allows you to answer them pre-emptively.
 
-*Piwik Analytics*
-Allows you to use Piwiki across Friendica. Either install this on day one, or don't install it at all. People don't take kindly to having any kind of analytics added after they're started using a service.
+-----
 
-Server impact - dunno. 
-Impact to support requests - dunno.
+*Piwik Analytics*
+
+Allows you to use Piwik across Friendica. Either install this on day one, or don't install it at all. People don't take kindly to having any kind of analytics added after they're started using a service. You need a Piwik site to connect to if you wish to use this.
+
+-----
 
 *Public Server*
-As the name suggests, this is a plugin for public servers, and it's a vital one.  There is no admin interface for this plugin.  To use it, add any or all of these lines to your .htconfig.php file:
 
-When an account is created on the site, it is given a hard expiration date of 
+As the name suggests, this is a plugin for public servers, and it's a vital one in terms of resource management.  There is no admin interface for this plugin.  To use it, add any or all of these lines to your .htconfig.php file, depending on the options you want to use:
+
+1) When an account is created on the site, it is given a hard expiration date of 
+
 `$a->config['public_server']['expiredays'] = 30;`
 
-meaning accounts are deleted after this many days.  Do not use this for a public/community server.
+... meaning accounts are deleted after this many days.  Do not use this for a public/community server. It can be used to set up demo servers.
+
+2) To set the default number of days for post expiry use:
 
-To set the default number of days for post expiry use:
 `$a->config['public_server']['expireposts'] = 30;`
 
-This is essential.  Once your item table gets up to half a million entries, even the best sites grind to a halt.  Hardly any users expire their posts, despite both the massive privacy and performance this offers.  Set a standard expiration time, or you'll regret it.  Users can override this value.
+This is essential.  Once your item table gets up to half a million entries, even the best sites grind to a halt.  Hardly any users expire their posts via their personal settings, despite both the massive privacy and performance this offers.  Set a standard expiration time, or you'll regret it.  Users can override this value.
+
+3) Remove NEW users who have registered, but then never logged in after nologin days:
 
-Remove users who have never logged in after nologin days:
 `$a->config['public_server']['nologin'] = 30;`
 
-Before using this remember what happened when you joined Facebook.  You signed up to look at a photograph, then never looked at your account again for years...until suddenly all your friends turned up, and you got a million friend requests in one day.  It might be best to let old accounts live, if you can afford the space...but this option removes users who have not logged in for the number of days specified here.
+Before using this remember what happened when you joined Facebook.  You signed up to look at a photograph, then never looked at your account again for years... until suddenly all your friends turned up, and you got a million friend requests in one day.  It might be best to let never-used accounts live, if you can afford the space. But if you are short of resources, this option removes users who have not logged in for the number of days specified here.
+
+4) Remove users who last logged in over flagusers days ago.  
 
-Remove users who last logged in over flagusers days ago.  
 `$a->config['public_server']['flagusers'] = 146;`
 
-This is not useful for new public/community servers, rather it is intended for sites created _before_ the public server plugin was enabled.  It will flag users for deletion when they haven't logged in for the number of days specified here:
-
-If you use this, make sure you give it a large value.  If somebody goes on holiday to find their account is gone when they come back, they'll be very cross indeed.
+This is not useful for new public/community servers - it is intended for sites created _before_ the public server plugin was enabled.  It will flag users for deletion when they haven't logged in for the number of days specified here. If you do use this, make sure you give it a large value.  If somebody goes on holiday to find their account is gone when they come back, they'll be very cross indeed.
 
 For users who last logged in over flagposts days ago set post expiry days to flagpostsexpire `$a->config['public_server']['flagposts'] = 90;`
 `$a->config['public_server']['flagpostsexpire'] = 146;`