Notes to Self: A Useful Forum Feature?

[Stephen Tashi]

I'm not a sophisticated user of the internet and when I want to write myself a reminder or transfer information from one computer to another, I often resort to emailing it to myself. It occurs to me that a notes-to-self function would be a useful feature for a forum. Maybe this forum already has one?

 

[berkeman]

You can leave yourself Profile Notes on your Profile page, but then they are visible to everybody until you delete them... Do you have an app on your cellphone for taking such notes, or just send yourself a text?

 

[Stephen Tashi]

You can leave yourself Profile Notes on your Profile page, but then they are visible to everybody until you delete them... Do you have an app on your cellphone for taking such notes, or just send yourself a text?

Some day I'll figure out my cell phone. In the meantime, it would be handy to write myself private notes on a public forum. I'm not suggesting this concept because of a great need on my part. I'm suggesting it as a feature that could increase visits to the forum.

 

[anorlunda]

I send myself emails for note taking purposes. Because I use gmail, I have all the power of the Google search engine to find them later.

IMO, the weakness in most note taking apps, is the burden of organizing or indexing the notes to be able to find them later. Same with old email clients. But I have been converted; much better to search than to organize.

 

[Stephen Tashi]

But I have been converted; much better to search than to organize.

A good observation! - for files.

Applying it to things kept in my garage has its drawbacks.

 

[Borek]

https://www.google.com/docs/about/?

 

[Stephen Tashi]

https://www.google.com/docs/about/?

I have friends who urge me to access things from google docs. They always end up emailing them to me. The gist of your message is that a notes-to-self function would not be a useful feature on the forum because it is so widely available elsewhere.

 

[Anthony Beckwith]

Microsoft one note I find very good.

 

[berkeman]

In the meantime, it would be handy to write myself private notes on a public forum.

One option would be for me to start a Private Message conversation with you, and then I could leave the conversation. That would leave the conversation thread open for only you to post in and read.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

What about Google Keep? I use it to store all my notes, and it's synced across my devices. Just log into keep.google.com whenever you need to access your notes. In that way, you don't need to email yourself either.

In addition, Google keep has tags that will help you organise notes. The search option allows you to find your notes easily. It has a reminder option as well.

 

[Stephen Tashi]

What about Google Keep?

There are probably lots of ways that would work for me, personally. The question before the house is whether a forum feature of notes-to-self would be useful/popular. Or would the existence of alternatives make it unpopular/ not-much-used?

I, myself, don't like to depend so much on Google. I also don't like learning new passwords, interfaces etc. So if this forum (or any other forum I frequently visit) had a notes-to-self feature, I'd used it in preference to starting up yet-another account on something.

 

[Ibix]

Berkeman's suggestion sounds like it would work by creatively applying existing forum functionality, although I don't think you can delete posts in a conversation (I just seem to have Report and Reply). Also I'm not sure how impressed he'd be if we all PM'd him saying "Hi berkeman - I don't actually want to talk to you but...".

 

[Wrichik Basu]

There are probably lots of ways that would work for me, personally. The question before the house is whether a forum feature of notes-to-self would be useful/popular. Or would the existence of alternatives make it unpopular/ not-much-used?

It would certainly not make the forum less popular, but there are chances that it won't be used much. Forums are meant for public use, and private note-taking abilities are absent in almost all forums that I have seen. I don't think XenForo software supports that either, but perhaps @Greg Bernhardt can elaborate. I am personally not opposing the proposal, but if many members don't use it, I don't think it would be implemented.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Berkeman's suggestion sounds like it would work by creatively applying existing forum functionality, although I don't think you can delete posts in a conversation (I just seem to have Report and Reply). Also I'm not sure how impressed he'd be if we all PM'd him saying "Hi berkeman - I don't actually want to talk to you but...".

One option is that, someone has to design a bot such that whenever someone sends it a PM, it immediately leaves the conversation. Is that possible? I don't have much idea on bot designing.

 

[Ibix]

One option is that, someone has to design a bot such that whenever someone sends it a PM, it immediately leaves the conversation. Is that possible? I don't have much idea on bot designing.

Kind of the opposite of a chatbot. Clever idea.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I don't think XenForo software supports that either, but perhaps @Greg Bernhardt can elaborate.

Not out of the box, but it wouldn't take much to implement a personal note/scratch pad if the demand is high enough.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Not out of the box, but it wouldn't take much to implement a personal note/scratch pad if the demand is high enough.

Well, then add a poll to this thread, and perhaps send a notification to every member? That will help in making it clear whether there is a demand or not.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Well, then add a poll to this thread, and perhaps send a notification to every member? That will help in making it clear whether there is a demand or not.

After the big update that is coming in the next couple months

 

[mfb]

If that option is so urgent we could create a dummy user that just exists to receive conversations. It doesn't have to leave them, no one logs in there. Password could be maintained by Greg.

 

[Stephen Tashi]

If that option is so urgent we could create a dummy user that just exists to receive conversations.

I'd have to begin all notes to myself as "Dear Dummy,..."

 

[anorlunda]

If you use the PM conversation to take notes, how will you find the note you need later?

For less than 100 notes, you could just scroll up/down in a linear list of notes.

For more than that, you need some kind of tree structure, or search feature in the note app.

It reminds me of an old function that I liked but lost. If I remember right, it came from Google Labs. It create indexes of the content of all the files on my disk thus permitting fast full-text search. Then I could make searches and specify if I want local- files/cloud-files/emails/web-pages to be included in the same search. If I had been active on PF at that time, I could have included a custom search of my own posts on PF in the same search. It even included comments in program source code, and static text data in executable files. It could also index offline storage like floppy disks or backup tapes to be included in the search; only the index was required to be online, not the actual files.

The results were presented in rank order, and all the options and qualifiers of the Google search engine could be used.

That had the advantage of searching without the need know which app I used, or which location I stored it to create and store the information. But alas, like many other things, that Google feature disappeared.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Using PM conversation's are not a good long term solution. Just hold out a couple months and I'll get a scratch pad.

 

[anorlunda]

There are also browser extensions that allow you to select text on any page and store it as a note. One called "sticky note" is a chrome extension. I creates a yellow sticky note on your desktop that you can read without opening anything.

 

[Borg]

I'm not a sophisticated user of the internet and when I want to write myself a reminder or transfer information from one computer to another, I often resort to emailing it to myself. It occurs to me that a notes-to-self function would be a useful feature for a forum. Maybe this forum already has one?

I just create draft emails and don't bother to even send them. The benefit of that is that I can also add attachments that are too large to email but, I can still access from a different location. I have one draft gmail that ranges from 2 to 30 Meg at times. It's really convenient for transferring files between computers.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

I just create draft emails and don't bother to even send them. The benefit of that is that I can also add attachments that are too large to email but, I can still access from a different location. I have one draft gmail that ranges from 2 to 30 Meg at times. It's really convenient for transferring files between computers.

I would rather do that with Google drive. Upload, download, delete, done.

 

[Borg]

I would rather do that with Google drive. Upload, download, delete, done.

Yet another account to maintain plus it's blocked at some of the places where I work.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Yet another account to maintain plus it's blocked at some of the places where I work.

If it's blocked, then you've got no choice, but if you have a gmail account, you can sign up for Gdrive from the same account.

 

[Stephen Tashi]

I just create draft emails and don't bother to even send them.

That's feasible if one uses a web interface to email. I prefer to use Thunderbird, so the "Drafts" folder is specific to which computer I'm using.