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Transferring Link Owner

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Transferring Link Owner
I'm building a link database where I collect all of the links I want to be listed myself. Eventually I will be emailing all of the actual web site owners to let them know that their site has been listed on my links site.

The problem is, since I'm adding the links myself as the administrator, I am also the Link Owner. What I would like to do is invite the web site owners to become the true Link Owner of their own link listing so that they can edit the description themselves.

I could do this manually, with some kind of email exchange but I was wondering if there was a way to automate the process. Similar to how the 'Validate Links' option is implemented where I can approve or deny a batch of links from a single form, sending out all the appropriate emails and so forth.

Also, it seems cumbersome for a person to have to register, get the validation code, paste that into the validation field, then send me an email asking to become the link owner, wait for me to make the changes and finally they have access to their link info. Even simplifying this into a single step would be a big help.

There's probably a more logical way to do this that's completely escaping me at the moment.

Thanks for your help,

Bryan

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Re: Transferring Link Owner In reply to
Here are some suggestions:

1) Add another field called AltLinkOwner. This would allow multiple people to take ownership of the record.

2) Hack the modify.cgi script that checks both the LinkOwner and AltLinkOwner fields...and then when the person taking ownership of the link modifies it, then their USERID will be inserted into the AltLinkOwner field.

This is the only automated solution I can think of...the only other solution is doing the email exchange and then manually updating LINK records as you have posted.

Regards,

Eliot Lee
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Re: Transferring Link Owner In reply to
Thanks, that's a clever idea I hadn't thought of.

It does help simplify the process, but the only problem I see is that I would have to create passwords for the AltLinkOwners' myself. It's not hard to do that, but I would imagine that most people would remember their own password easier than one I have assigned to them.

Right now, I think my best bet is to have them register on-line, with an option to become a LinkOwner. Once they have been validated, I would then make them the LinkOwner of their record.

I also could have any record link that is owned by 'admin' display a link like "apply to be the linkowner" whenever a user is logged in. By clicking on it, an email would be sent to me with that users information and the link they want to own.

That might not look that great though to the casual visitors that have no interest in owning links. I guess I could create two classes of users. One for visitors and the other for potential LinkOwners. But that could get confusing on my end.

I'll have to think about this some more.

Bryan

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Re: Transferring Link Owner In reply to
In Reply To:
It does help simplify the process, but the only problem I see is that I would have to create passwords for the AltLinkOwners' myself. It's not hard to do that, but I would imagine that most people would remember their own password easier than one I have assigned to them.
Uh...no you wouldn't...the users would create an account and their information would be stored in the USERS table. No need to create accounts for them.

In Reply To:
That might not look that great though to the casual visitors that have no interest in owning links. I guess I could create two classes of users. One for visitors and the other for potential LinkOwners. But that could get confusing on my end.
Why would you have to do that? Basically, when a record is modified, if you feel that the person attempting to "own" the link is not legitimate, then you simply delete the USERID number in the AltLinkOwner field. No need to create two "classes" of users...more work than it's worth.

Regards,

Eliot Lee
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Re: Transferring Link Owner In reply to
Ok, I think I see how this would work, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

By leaving the AltLinkowner blank, the first logged-in user that modifies the link will become the AltLinkowner. The record would be owned by both the admin and the new link owner.

Thanks, this seems like it may work for what I want to do .

Bryan

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Re: Transferring Link Owner In reply to
your option is rather interesting, but the LinkOwner table have relation ships with the User table.
When I add AltLinkOwner, I should do that in the SQL.pm/Def something like this:

'fk' => {
'Users' => {
'AltLinkOwner' => 'Username',

in links.def
and
$c->fk( { Users => { AltLinkOwner => 'Username' } } );
in SQL.pm

is this correct, or impossible because this is similar as with the LinkOwner field???

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Re: Transferring Link Owner In reply to
Yes...by leaving it blank, web visitors can assume "dual ownership" of the record...if you validate it. If you feel that the user is not legitimate, then you simply remove the UserID number in the AltLinkOwners field when validating it.

Regards,

Eliot Lee
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Re: Transferring Link Owner In reply to
Yes...you would do something similar as that...Although I would use the primary key of UserID from the Users table.

By using Username, that is a variable field that is subject to change over time, which means that LinkOwners would lose ownership to the LINK record. That is why using unique identifers or keys is much better.

Replace the codes you've posted with:

Code:

'fk' => {
'Users' => {
'AltLinkOwner' => 'UserID',

in links.def
and
$c->fk( { Users => { AltLinkOwner => 'UserID' } } );
in SQL.pm


Regards,

Eliot Lee
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Re: Transferring Link Owner In reply to
Hmmm, that's a cool option.
another option i have is to add ContactName & contactEmail directly in the link table with the name and email of the real linkowner, the only thing I can't fix is to set this to receive email/newsletter from mailer.cgi

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Re: Transferring Link Owner In reply to
Hi everyone,

this is exactly what i want to do. Interesting ideas but not sure i understand them all. Can i run through what i think i was going to do and see if you can see a problem or something wrong.

1) I have added a column to link called temp_email. This contains the email address of the site that i found at the website
2) I add the AltLinkOwners column to the table.
3) I send an email to all websites with something like:

Site <url> added to directory. To assume ownership of the link in the directory please visit:

http://www.domain.com/dir/login2.cgi?ID<%linkid%>

4) When they hit login2.cgi they have to register. In the process of registering their new ID is added in AltLinksOwners table.

5) If the email address used to register matches the email address associate with the link in the temp_email then the owner id is update with the altlinks owners id.

6) If the email addresses are different send email saying "thanks for registering, explain that the email addresses are different, please provide some proof that the website is yours."

7) Have a little admin tool which simply lists all links with AltLinkOwners and checkboxes to change the owner to the AltLinkOwner (basically when you can confirm ownership).

8) After a user has registered, give them the ability to add list other links in the database which they also wish to claim ownership of. The altlinkowner is added to these as well.

What does everyone think of the process?

Obviously, in my way of doing it i want to transfer ownership of the link from me or the editor that added it to the real owner. Not to much custom code needs to be added i don't think, two columns and a slightly different signup script is all me thinks.

Comments/suggestions to make this easier?

http://www.ASciFi.com/ - The Science Fiction Portal
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Re: [Stealth] Transferring Link Owner In reply to
I've been trying to get a link to have the ability to be modified by two or more people for quite some time & thought I might be able to do this....but I still didn't get permission to modify the link. What I've done is gone into lsql_Links.def and modified it as such:

'fk' => {
'lsql_Users' => {
'LinkOwner' => 'Username',
},
'Users' => {
'AltLinkOwner' => 'UserID',
}
},


This is of course after adding a new category in links named AltLinkOwner. I then went into SQL.pm and added the following line:

$c->fk( { Users => { AltLinkOwner => 'UserID' } } );

And I manually went into the database and added a username to the AltLinkOwner category, and then went into link.html and added:

<%if AltLinkOwner%>
&nbsp;<a href="<%db_cgi_url%>/modify.cgi?LinkID=<%ID%>">Alternate Editor</a>
<%endif%>


but when you click on the link, it says you don't have permission to edit the link.

I think I've tried about every modification/hack/etc I can find, and nothing seems to go....I'd really appreciate any input from someone on this ability if it's been figured out.

tia,
Perl Hopefull