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*New feature suggestion*
Would it be possible to add a feature where you can see if the owner of a sentence is active or not?
Right now, if I want to leave a comment on a sentence (to point out a mistake or to ask for an explanation), I can't see if the owner is active or not, and, for this reason, I have to open his/her profile if I don't see any answer to check if he's active or not, so maybe a message next to the username above the sentence could be useful, so I can already see if the owner is active or not before leaving a comment, in order to be sure whether i can have an answer from him/her without having to open his/her profile.
My idea is to show a message only when the user is inactive
With mistakes, we could actually get rid of the two-week waiting period before modifying a sentence if the user has been completely inactive (no sentences, no comments, no activity whatsoever) for over three months, since that means they have most likely forgotten about Tatoeba or put it on a very long hold or something – either way, people who have been absent for so long aren't going to access it any time soon, most likely.
+1
Maybe an account could be considered "inactive" after an admin contact someone that hasn't contributed since a specific period (last log was 6 months ago, 1 year ago etc) and if s/he doesn't not answer after 1 week, for example, or if this person says that it won't be possible to contribute anymore, that account could be set as "inactive" or something like that.
I think we should have more mercy for our admins and not make them do such a boring job. :-) Instead a robot that sends e-mails to potentially inactive members and processes responds from them could be developed.
>>> "we could actually get rid of the two-week waiting period before modifying a sentence"
I don't think so. This procedure works without problems. How often someone contributes isn't relevant. During two weeks everybody has (and should have) a fair chance to react. You never know if and when someone reappears. The proof of the pudding is in waiting two weeks. :)))
And in addition there are advantages for the Corpus Maintainers (like me) too. I not only have learnt to be a bit more patient; I'm prevented to make too fast changes. Other Tatoebians can comment my proposals and tell me that I'm wrong. "Checks and balances."
A different question is, what should be done with sentences of contributors who definitely declared that they are leaving Tatoeba for ever, of them who have died already and of those who have been inactive during more than let's say 3 years. There are such cases. I think a sound solution would be to hand over their sentences to contributors with a good command of the concerning language (of course only, if they are willing to check them and to take care of them).
There are a lot of years-old misshaped sentences, and it's rare for someone who had been completely absent for so long to appear again. The waiting period is supposed to allow discussion, and if the original author doesn't appear on the page to start one, as is most likely in these cases, then it serves no purpose except to give other contributors an opportunity to discuss; that, too, is only important if you suggest something wrong so that others can correct you and offer a better suggestion. Are we that likely to make a wrong correction, though? Of course, sometimes it's hard to nail it right off the bat, in which case one can always post a comment asking for opinions / other suggestions.
+1
It has happened that people who had been inactive for a considerable time came back after a comment was posted. The waiting period of two weeks also allows other members to voice their opinion on the suggested change.
It just seems like a lot of tedious work to go through the whole process when checking the many old and unattended sentences, and then people don't do that much and we have a lot of misshaped relics. Dealing with those sentences outright when the original contributor is most likely not available for discussion would make it easier. You're the boss though, alright.
If a person has an email notification enabled, they often appear even after having been absend for a few month, if you comment their sentences. If the option is disabled,that's unlikely they will appear.
But the admins can contact them via email without using Tatoeba, can't them? Maybe a "special" email just for just purpose such as tatoeba@tatoeba.org or users@tatoeba.org, etc
What are your criteria to figure out if a user is active or inactive?
If you simply want to know if the status of a user is "inactive" (i.e. their profile is deactivated), then you can already know it by looking at the user icon.
If it's an "empty" icon, it means you can adopt the sentence, which means that the user is "inactive" or "suspended".
You will have to be an advanced contributor or higher though. If you are a regular contributor, you will see the "full" icon.
>What are your criteria to figure out if a user is active or inactive?
Maybe the last time he/she made some kind of action (posted a comment, added a sentence/translation, linked/tagged sentences...)
[not needed anymore- removed by CK]
this is exactly what I meant with my first post, and this is what I often think when I proofread sentences in Italian and leave a comment if I want to suggest a correction (and maybe also other users might have the same feeling sometimes when proofreading sentences in their own languages)