On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 08:50 AM, J_Catlady wrote:

An owner *should* have the power to uniquely appoint a successor.

Of course, I am talking about if chosen before the owner gets hit by a bus. If the owner is gone and a successor must be chosen, then all bets are off.
 
--
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 Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 08:43 AM, Chris Jones wrote:

On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 04:25 PM, ro-esp wrote:

IMHO a moderator should have the power to appoint a successor.

Well yes, and, er, no. If it is necessary to appoint a successor then that ought really to be a collaborative decision taken by all the managers of a group, not just the person who is standing down.

If you substitute the word "owner" in the ro-esp message, which is what I think(?) was meant there, then I agree with that. An owner *should* have the power to uniquely appoint a successor. This is *not* and should never be a "collaborative decision." And even if the original post meant "moderator," I also think it's not a collaborative decision; it is, again, and I think should be, the unique decision of the owner. 
--
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 Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 04:25 PM, ro-esp wrote:

IMHO a moderator should have the power to appoint a successor.

Well yes, and, er, no. If it is necessary to appoint a successor then that ought really to be a collaborative decision taken by all the managers of a group, not just the person who is standing down. After all a successor is a replacement, not simply an additional moderator.

However I can envisage circumstances where an additional moderator might be required to cover a sudden gap in moderation coverage, and in that case it might well be acceptable for a single moderator to appoint someone to the role, possibly (probably?) with limited permissions.; even then a concensus decision would be preferable.

I struggle to think of any way in which Mark could provide a software solution to cater for both sets of circumstances.

In many ways the best solution is the application of good manners, good practice, and good faith, but sadly the implication underlying the current "Requirement" is that all three are, in some groups, lacking. :(

Chris

On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 07:27 AM, Shal Farley wrote:

I'll amend my prior message to add concurrence with what I believe is
Michael's point: a moderator should not be able to remove an owner
regardless of the moderator's permissions or the number of owners.

I think there's a lot of consensus here, but not quite the right wording yet. Let me give it a shot: someone with the title of *moderator* should not be able to demote or remove someone with the title of *owner*. Even a co-owner/vice-owner should not be able to singlehandedly demote an owner. Someone with the title "moderator" should not be able to singlehandedly promote someone else to owner. IMHO a moderator should have the power to appoint a successor.

I'm not going into any unpleasantness that could arise due to people changing group settings here for now.

groetjes, Ronaldo

Michael wrote:

If there is more than one Owner, a Moderator can remove other
Owner(s). Some Owners may wish to have more than one Owner...

I'll amend my prior message to add concurrence with what I believe is Michael's point: a moderator should not be able to remove an owner regardless of the moderator's permissions or the number of owners.
https://beta.groups.io/g/main/message/24151

Otherwise the risk is that a moderator might effectively decapitate a group by removing all the active owners, leaving only an inactive or incapacitated one.

Shal

In case that was unclear: When xyz member leaves or is removed from a group, all their messages in that group lose their display name as being by xyz, and instead show three dots where the display name used to be. But if xyz is then banned, their display name comes back below all their messages.

It does not make sense for banned members' messages to show display names when left/removed members' messages do not.

And if, in fact, a group moderator wanted to exploit that loophole, they could simply ban any past member to make the display names beneath their messages come back. (I would certainly never do that. Not moi! :)
--
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

This is strongly related to the other issue(s) regarding banning and display names, but I think merits its own bug report:

Past members, whether having left or been removed, no longer have their display names shown beneath their messages in the archive. The display name is replaced with three dots. However, if you ban a member who has already been removed, their display name COMES BACK TO HAUNT their messages in the form of their default (system-wide) display name.

Whichever way you call it, this is inconsistent. Either past members' display names should show up below their messages or they not (I personally think not). If not, they should not show up for banned members, either, since they are also gone. If yes, then they should be displayed for past members as well.
--
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

Unplanned downtime #outage

When:
Tuesday, 11 February 2020
8:17pm to 8:23pm
(UTC-08:00) America/Los Angeles

Description:

An upgrade to one of the database tables unexpectedly ended up locking the database, requiring shutting the site down and rebooting the database.

Duane,

On Feb 11, 2020, at 8:42 PM, Duane <txpigeon@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 07:09 PM, Michael Pavan wrote:
However this does not prevent a Moderator with "Remove Members (also allows access to the member list)" privileges from removing an Owner.
It should if there is no other owner. I believe Mark has it set up so that the last owner cannot be removed, nor remove themselves.

If there is more than one Owner, a Moderator can remove other Owner(s).
Some Owners may wish to have more than one Owner...

Michael

On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 07:09 PM, Michael Pavan wrote:

However this does not prevent a Moderator with "Remove Members (also allows access to the member list)" privileges from removing an Owner.

It should if there is no other owner.  I believe Mark has it set up so that the last owner cannot be removed, nor remove themselves.

Duane

From extensive discussions both on GMF and here on beta, I think there are three separate issues relating to ensuring the integrity and continuity of group administration.

The first issue is protecting groups from rogue Moderators who would usurp the functions of the Owner(s). (This issue would be resolved if Bruce's suggestion in #24127 is implemented.) The second issue is protecting the original Owner from rogue co-Owners who are current;y able to depose and remove her/him, or even delete the group. The third issue is ensuring group continuity by a succession mechanism for transferring group ownership when the last existing owner is deceased, disabled, or missing in action.

I would like to focus on the second issue in this topic. I suggest that it be addressed by creating a new Role that would be a unique instance of Owner. The name doesn't matter at this point. It could be Founder or just Owner* (Owner with an asterisk). The other Owner(s) in the group would be able to do everything except 1) demote, replace, or remove the Founder; 2) delete the group; or 3) designate a successor to the Founder. Those three functions would be reserved for the Founder.

In the case of newly created groups going forward, the Founder would be the group's creator. I realize that implementing this Role for existing groups could be more complicated. The general principle would be that the sole Owner of an existing group would automatically be promoted to Founder. Some cases with multiple owners would be straightforward, e.g., when the original creator is still functioning as one of the Owners. Where it would be messier is when there are multiple Owners and the original creator is no longer in the group.  One possibility would be for all other Owners to step down temporarily so that the designated successor, or one elected by the remaining Owners, would be the last existing Owner and automatically inherit the role of Founder. The other Owner(s) could then be reinstated.

The third issue, dealing with the problem of a dead, disabled, or disappeared sole Owner or Founder (the 3Ds), should be taken up in a new topic.

The goal should be to make all of this as automated as possible, to minimize or eliminate the need for the involvement or intervention of Groups.io support.

Robert R.

Good proposal.

However this does not prevent a Moderator with "Remove Members (also allows access to the member list)" privileges from removing an Owner.

On Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 12:09 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

I suggest that the existing "Set Moderator Privileges" flag should not allow a Moderator to edit the Role field. Promoting/demoting people to/from Moderator or Owner strikes me as an Owner function.

Bruce's suggestion neatly takes care of the first of three related issues that have been, and continue to be, discussed at great length in the GMF group. As such, I strongly support Bruce's suggestion.

(The first issue is protecting groups from rogue Moderators who would usurp the functions of the Owner(s). The second issue is protecting the "real Owner" from rogue co-Owners who would depose and remove her/him, or even delete the group. The third issue is ensuring group continuity by a succession mechanism for transferring group ownership when the last existing owner is deceased, disabled, or missing in action.)

I don't want to hijack Bruce's thread, so I will start a new topic where we can work on the second issue. The third issue is the trickiest and messiest, but any comprehensive solution will need to deal with it.

Robert R.

I am 100% in favor of Bruce's suggestion.  
If an owner is worried about sudden unexpected death, tgey can choose a few moderators and privileges of each and the group can still function.  The only orivileges moderators need are approving messages and,  if you wish, approving membership requests and/or inviting new members if you wish the group to have new members after you are gone.   If you have the group set up to function without you, then moderators do not need any special privileges.

Moderators should never be able to mess with owner status or functions.  

No :)

Mark -
I concur with Shal's comments. I would like to have a moderator that can approve members, and if necessary, promote others to moderators. However I have seen such a situation where a person has abused authority given them, and so am hesitant to risk having a moderator that might try to remove an owner and put themselves in that place.

Dano

Mark,

I suggest that the existing "Set Moderator Privileges" flag should
not allow a Moderator to edit the Role field.

This makes sense. Any objections?

I concur with Lena, Chris, J, and Linda: that permission should extend to promoting members and demoting mods, but it should not permit any changes to/from the Owner role.

Nor should it (or any other moderator permission) allow a moderator to change an Owner's subscription settings (or should I say membership settings).

Shal