I agree with Bruce. My reaction was the same as his, but I didn’t write it down here because it was more of a gut feeling that I couldn’t articulate or rationalize. He articulated it.

--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. - Desmond Tutu

On Sun, Nov 4, 2018 at 12:59 AM, Shal Farley wrote:

Proposal:

Update the 30-day login period when the user visits the site, rather than only when they go through the login flow.

I am not fond of this idea. Confirmation of identity needs to be done on a periodic basis, and simply visiting the site using the same device does not accomplish that objective.

Has anyone given thought to the legal ramifications of this?

If we want subscribers to be less disconcerted, perhaps we should make them log in every time, and time them out after a certain interval of inactivity. That would be consistent with what most other sites do and certainly makes no less sense.

Thanks,
Bruce

Pamela,

Is it possible to add a selection box for Date Formats to the
Calendar??

I don't think a new setting is needed. But I do think the reminders and notices sent from the calendar should obey the subscriber's Date and Time Display settings (from the recipient's Account Preferences page).

At present the Subject line is in US format ("10/30/18"). In the body of the reminder the month is spelled out (e.g. "30 October 2018") so that may be ok.

Shal

Mark,

Background:

There's been some discussion in GMF about the current login mechanism, in particular dissatisfaction with the user experience of having one's login suddenly evaporate (30 days after your last login) even though one has recently - even a second ago - been logged in and active on site.

Usually I'm heading for a page that requires login (such as GMF's Pending list), so my experience has been to be suddenly faced with the login page. That's fairly self-explanatory (at least to me) as to what happened and what I need to do next.

But if one is heading for a page that doesn't require login, say GMF's or beta's public messages, then the effect is much more disconcerting - you seem to have suddenly been unsubscribed from the group (the button list on the left shrank). If you're paying attention you'll notice that your name disappeared in the upper right, replaced with the Log In and Sign Up links - but that's not the most prominent change.

The consequence is that some group owners get complaints from members who believe they've been unsubscribed without cause, and who generally confound matters in their attempts to re-join the group.

Proposal:

Update the 30-day login period when the user visits the site, rather than only when they go through the login flow.

I presume you wouldn't want to add this to the burden of every page load, but if there's a way to do check it at most once daily per user that ought to be more than adequate.

Shal

I asked this question in the GMF and it was suggest it might be a matter for the beta group.

I am struggling to find where to change the date format for calendar reminders.  
I am in Australia and use the DD.MM.YY format.  I have this selected everywhere I can find to make a selection but the reminders still arrive with the American format of MM.DD.YY which is confusing for our elderly members.

Is it possible to add a selection box for Date Formats to the Calendar??  Either when adding Events or as a Default setting perhaps?

Kind regards,
Pamela

Al,

We sure would like "no footer links" whatsoever in our PAID group.

As JohnF said, at least the Unsubscribe link would likely need to remain. That's pretty much a standard for email lists.

Want a PURE email group, with no member ever learning there is an
"online interface" whatsoever.

I think you could also keep the Reply To links (Sender and Group) and Contact Group Owner, as those are mailto: links (no web pages involved in their function).

As to the rest...

The Mute links are useful for email subscribers also, though it takes one to the site to make the selection. And you con only Unmute via the site.

The Follow links are designed primarily for email subscribers, even though they take one to the site to make the selection. And the subscriber would have had to have visited the site at some time to make the "Following Only" subscription selection that activates the Follow/Unfollow links.

That leaves "View/Reply Online" and "New Topic" as the two links whose function is primarily aimed at using the web site. Those are the only two I think you could eliminate without diminishing the list functionality for email-using members.

So my recommendation would be to have this proposed option retain links to the subscription-related pages while removing links to the content pages.

Shal

Changes to the site this week:

Web:

• No changes

API:

• CHANGE: The /downloadarchives endpoint has been temporarily disabled because a company was abusing it and putting too much load on the system.
• NEW: The /gettopics endpoint now works.
• NEW: Additional error codes for /login API endpoint.
• NEW: Added group_alias, org_id, org_domain fields to the 'subscription_plus' object.

A note on my focus for the next few months: https://beta.groups.io/g/main/message/18909

Have a good weekend everyone.

Mark

Mark,

There are several other projects that will also eventually roll into
this, including the notifications overhaul, ...

Yay!

Shal

On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 02:06 PM, J_Catlady wrote:

On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 10:51 AM, Sam Hughes wrote:

Want a PURE email group, with no member ever learning there is an "online interface" whatsoever.

I don't think that's possible in groups.io. It really goes against the model.

Indeed.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  Why choose to sign up to use a medium, intentionally designed as a fusion of e-mail list and online forum, if you adamantly don't want one half of said fusion?

There are plenty of other options out there if you want one, or the other, but not both.  When you add to that the fact that no one is obligated to use either interface if they do not so choose, well . . .
 
--

Brian - Windows 10 Home, 64-Bit, Version 1809, Build 17763 
The terrible state of public education has paid huge dividends in ignorance.  Huge.  We now have a country that can be told blatant lies — easily checkable, blatant lies — and I’m not talking about the covert workings of the CIA. When we have a terrorist attack, on September 11, 2001 with 19 men — 15 of them are Saudis — and five minutes later the whole country thinks they’re from Iraq — how can you have faith in the public? This is an easily checkable fact. The whole country is like the O.J. Simpson jurors.

      ~ Fran Lebowitz in Ruminator Magazine interview with Susannah McNeely (Aug/Sept 2005)

On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 10:51 AM, Sam Hughes wrote:

Want a PURE email group, with no member ever learning there is an "online interface" whatsoever.

I don't think that's possible in groups.io. It really goes against the model. Even if you have no footers, people can always log onto the site. Etc.
 
--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. - Desmond Tutu

There would probably need to be at least an unsubscribe link, or it would cause problems. If you want an email reflector list with absolutely no web presence, there may be better options than Groups.io available.

JohnF

 

 

Dont know if this helps but I have set up my databases and have no problem with column size.  I leave the 'Display Width' option set at 0 (default) for each column.
Some of my columns have a lot of comment in them and these 'wrap' neatly into the column.

Pamela

Problem: Collapsing "Advanced Settings for Email Aliases" section hides error messages.

This has to do with setting an Email Alias (from the Account settings page).  This is an offshoot of other recent discussions (here and here) but is a different issue.

Currently, the user has to click on "Advanced Settings for Email Aliases" in order to expose the Email Alias data entry field.  Once they make an entry and click on "+Add Email Alias" the section immediately returns to its collapsed state, leaving no visible indication of success or error.  Collapsing this section and hiding an error message is unexpected behavior.

Lacking any indication of an error, the unsuspecting user will most naturally assume that their entry was accepted and move on.  If their entry was not accepted for some reason, the user cannot see the resulting error message unless they know to re-expand the section.  Otherwise, they inevitably will be frustrated when they can't post a message from their "new" Email Alias.

Suggestion: Remove the expand/collapse control from the "Advanced Settings for Email Aliases" section, leaving it in its expanded state by default.  Error/success messages should always show after the user makes a change.  This should not be a problem given that the section's description and instructions are already quite clear.

Thanks,

-- Charlie

--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. - Desmond Tutu

On Thu, Nov 1, 2018 at 11:15 AM, Shal Farley wrote:

I haven't tested it, but if that is indeed the case I do wonder how that is achieved in the face of Reply All behavior.

It is not the case after all, you're right. I missed the little "+1" in the "To" field.
Anyway, this is very discouraging. In light of this, I can't use either the reply-to-sender or the reply-only-to-sender hashtag in my group.
 
--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. - Desmond Tutu

Shal, yes, that appears to be the problem. However, I still don’t understand why ‘reply only to sender’ uses the gmail setting (whatever the person has it set to, even if they, like me, are clueless about the default) whereas ‘reply to sender’ overrides it and creates a PM directly to the individual and not to the group. This still seems problematic and misleading to me, but I haven’t had time yet to sort through the whole new scheme. If I’m honest, I may never have time and I’m hoping that at Mark will consider at least this particular issue at this point.

--
J

Messages are the sole opinion of the author, especially the fishy ones.
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. - Desmond Tutu