You and your group members only need to use the bare minimum of settings. Also, join the GMF group if you haven't already. That's the place for basic user questions and help.
--
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

Thanks for the clarification.

We just moved over from Googe Groups and while I still think it was the right call to move (because Google was so limiting) our group has gone pretty dark. I think there's some confusion about the UX. And while I love the options, dare I say the vast amount of settings might be a bit too much for most. It's a learning curve I hope they'll see the value in trying to figure out.

But if you ever do any user testing I have some audience for you. :)

--
Rachel Cherry
@bamadesigner
https://bamadesigner.com

On Fri, Feb 14, 2020 at 07:56 AM, Chris Jones wrote:

it might be clearer if New Topic read New Subject;

I see your reasoning, and I know you're not suggesting it, but please! Let's not even *think* about going there! 
 
--
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 Fri, Feb 14, 2020 at 03:23 PM, Rachel Cherry wrote:

Is there a difference between messages and topics?

Yes; firstly see what Duane said. Then see J_Catlady's it really needs to say "New Topic".

If there had to be a name change (and no, I'm not suggesting one!) it might be clearer if New Topic read New Subject; think of it that way. Individual Messages relate to a Topic with a given Subject line and are (or ought to be) about the same general point. When someone has a new subject to raise then they use New Topic.

Chris

Agree with Duane, it really needs to say "New Topic." In case you're still confused, you can think of topics as threads (they are, as Duane says, "collections," but they're threaded collections).
--
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 Fri, Feb 14, 2020 at 09:23 AM, Rachel Cherry wrote:

Is there a difference between messages and topics?

Messages are the individual messages that are sent/posted.  Topics are a collection of messages that are (or should be) related.  New Topic is for starting a new collection.  It used to say New Message, but people were using that instead of Reply, thus starting a new collection/topic instead of continuing the original topic/thread.

Duane

Is there a difference between messages and topics?

Because my group finds having a menu item that says "Messages" and then you create a "New Topic" vs a "New Message" to be confusing.

Can we change "New Topic" to say "New Message"?

--
Rachel Cherry
@bamadesigner
https://bamadesigner.com

Stan,

With all due respect, simple posts stating “I agree” (with sufficient quotation
to identify WHAT is being agreed with or to) and “I disagree because…” are
vital and appropriate steps toward consensus by any reasonable definition.

Little discussion on a given subject may indicate there is little opposition to
what is posted, or it may indicate few or no one else cares about the subject.
Big difference in deciding how or whether to proceed further.

Respectfully,

WRB

—

On Feb 13, 2020, at 9:11 PM, JediPirx <stan@preciseit.ca> wrote:

I would like to suggest that the Charter Rules for this group
be added to the beta.groups.io Wiki.

It would help educate newcomers to the group, and remind
veterans of the group, about the rules of engagement.

To assist with this suggestion, I have extracted elements
from the various emails on this topic and added them below.
This is a rough draft.

Stan/jp

----------------------------------------------------------------------

<snip>

Posting Etiquette
-----------------
Avoid using "I agree", "me too", "No one will use that", "That would
cause a mess", and so on

Discussions/additions/clarifications should be fact-based and add to
understanding or clarification (or forbid improvement) of someone
else's suggestion, not leading to defending one's opinions (rather
than presenting or clarifying facts,) which adds tons of chaff.

If a point of discussion is incompletely presented, i.e. advantages but
not disadvantages, it is appropriate that anyone aware of this clarify
that part of the discussion with factual information of equally valid
considerations. A “culture” of dogmatism is a culture hostile to original
thinking.

Proposal for Proposing Proposals

I would instead say “How to prepare and present a #suggestion"

--------------------------------
It seems it would be good for there to be a way to 'discuss' an
idea (the "proposal") before it actually becomes a suggestion.

As I understand it, the GroupManagersForum (GMF) is comprised
of founders/owners/administrators; i.e. Groups.io CUSTOMERS.
[beta] is Groups.io Administration.

As is stated at the end here, it would seem reasonable and appropriate
that ALL ideas be discussed in detail in GMF before a suggestion# is
submitted on [beta].

Which means that the suggestion process involves two steps, the
#proposal and the #suggestion.

Actually, this might be more clear if it were #topic/discussion and the #suggestion.?

Once a consensus is reached (and only then), submit a #suggestion,
referencing the proposal topic. If there's no interest in the
#proposal, it does not become a #suggestion.

I find the first sentence intellectually intimidating. What is specifically meant by
"Once a consensus is reached (and only then)? Those who might consider making
a suggestion should not be discouraged by an inappropriately complex or unclear
process.

True “consensus” is a level of agreement following evaluation seldom achieved.
It may also be utterly unrelated to the ease or difficulty of implementation. Some
decisions appropriate to circumstances may be appropriate but unpopular.

Ideally, I would not have to moderate (or spend much time involved
with) the #proposal process. I think we all want me focused on
actually getting stuff implemented. :-)

WHO is speaking here (above)? We know ALL posts to [beta] are moderated. We
DON’T know by whom. Presumably this is delegated. Mark’s personal attention is
much better invested elsewhere.

Conversely, however, it is an inseparable and essential “part of the process” that
Mark invest whatever time necessary to understand the history and group support
“pushing” a suggestion# before deciding to toss it, implement it, or study it further.

We are notified weekly what has been changed or implemented. We aren’t told
which suggestions have been considered and rejected and/or which remain under
consideration in some form.

Some proposals are discussed in the GroupManagersForum that eventually
find their way into beta.groups.io as a suggestion.

I would like to suggest that the Charter Rules for this group
be added to the beta.groups.io Wiki.

It would help educate newcomers to the group, and remind
veterans of the group, about the rules of engagement.

To assist with this suggestion, I have extracted elements
from the various emails on this topic and added them below.
This is a rough draft.

Stan/jp

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Objective
---------
To capture new features, updates to existing features, and bugs.


Alternate Help : HOW TO
-----------------------
Groups IO Help
https://groups.io/static/help

Group Managers Forum : Messages
https://groups.io/g/GroupManagersForum/topics

Group Managers Forum : Wiki Knowledge Base
https://groups.io/g/GroupManagersForum/wiki/home


The Charter
-----------
This is the new charter for the main beta group. This message
outlines how I've changed the set up and would like to run the
group going forward.

This group is now set so that all NEW topics are moderated.
Therefore, expect a delay before your post shows up if it
creates a new topic.

This group now requires topics to be tagged with a hashtag.
These are the currently available category hashtags for users :

#bug
#fixed

#suggestion
#done

#meta

#misc


#bug hashtag is for submitting bug reports to main@beta.groups.io
instead of support@groups.io

#fixed hashtag is for bugs that have been fixed.

#suggestion hashtag is for new features, and for changes to
existing features

#done hashtag is for suggestions that have been implemented

#meta is the tag to use when making suggestions about this group.

If you want to post something and are not sure which hashtag to use
or there isn't an appropriate hashtag, use #misc, and I will fix it.


Posting Etiquette
-----------------
Avoid using "I agree", "me too", "No one will use that", "That would
cause a mess", and so on

Discussions/additions/clarifications should be fact-based and add to
understanding or clarification (or forbid improvement) of someone
else's suggestion, not leading to defending one's opinions (rather
than presenting or clarifying facts,) which adds tons of chaff.


Proposal for Proposing Proposals
--------------------------------
It seems it would be good for there to be a way to 'discuss' an
idea (the "proposal") before it actually becomes a suggestion.

Which means that the suggestion process involves two steps, the
#proposal and the #suggestion.

Once a consensus is reached (and only then), submit a #suggestion,
referencing the proposal topic. If there's no interest in the
#proposal, it does not become a #suggestion.

Ideally, I would not have to moderate (or spend much time involved
with) the #proposal process. I think we all want me focused on
actually getting stuff implemented. :-)

Some proposals are discussed in the GroupManagersForum that eventually
find their way into beta.groups.io as a suggestion.

I found this thread in a message search to see if it had been covered before.
Could "responded to poll" be added as an activity in the logs (group's member activity log, and individual member activity log)?

Any plans to add triggers to the database functionality?

Even something simple like being able to send an email when a new row is added?

Chris

As noted in this thread, some email clients or services prepend "[External]" to the subject when a message arrives from outside the organization. This helps recipients avoid being tricked. (E.g the "accounting" department sends an urgent request to an executive asking for a wire transfer to xyz.) Good idea.

The modified subject is of course retained when the recipient replies. Unfortunately, this splits the thread in groups.io. And while it may be possible to manually merge threads, it will be a never-ending process.

Is it possible to strip the "[External]" tag before accepting the message into the group? Or better, is there a way to edit the list of tags that get stripped? I'm assuming it is already stripping "RE:", "FW:", and maybe some other translations. I wouldn't be surprised if the "[External]" tag might also get modified in some systems to read "[Ext]" or "[Ausserhalb]" or whatever, so it would be best if we could create/edit our own list of strings to strip from the subject.

Thanks,

Mark Berry

Hello

From limited testing, it would appear that the message "Your chat will be created when it's approved by the moderators." pops up after creating a chat, only if the user chose to notify the group about the chat.

Also, moderators do not seem to have any option to approve or deny a chat.  What moderators can do, is to approve or deny the *notification* that is sent to the group.  Rejecting or deleting the pending notification message does not affect the chat.  A chat always exists as soon as the user tries to create it (right?).

So, it would seem that the message "Your chat will be created when it's approved by the moderators." should be changed to "The group will be notified of your chat when the moderators approve the notification."

Samuel

On Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 09:02 PM, Chris Smith wrote:

It would be really useful to be able to set a default visibility on database columns.

I agree, it's not always necessary to see all columns at the start.  One may wish to include certain information in the database for the sake of completeness even though that data is not the main function of the database.  It would be good if the table owner can specify which columns should be considered the "default visible" columns (and perhaps have a button "reset table to default view" so that people who showed or hid certain columns can easily revert to the table owner's preferred view), and if the system could remember an individual member's previously viewed set of columns.

The fact that the viewed columns is not remembered affected the way I designed some of my tables.  For example, I added old mails to the database, and had a separate column for sender, receiver and date, but I really wanted the body of the mail to be most visible (and the other columns only there for when the database feature starts supporting search within specific columns), but since those columns get re-visible each time the user visits the table, I have opted to simply NOT have separate columns for sender, receiver, etc.

We have a use case where we want to store a HTML page, but when you view the rows it looks a mess, as the entire HTML page is being displayed.

Hiding that column by default would be useful, but another useful feature would be to specify a default maximum height of a row (so that the cell appears truncated until the user does something, e.g. click inside the cell or select the row and select the option to view the row individually).

Samuel

On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 02:10 PM, ro-esp wrote:

(crazy stuff I haven found the word for excluded)

Oh, right! Haha.
 
--
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 05:50 PM, J_Catlady 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

No, that's not what I meant. If someone with the title of moderator is doing all the work, but has to go away for a while, (s)he needs to be able to promote someone to *moderator*. If the *owner* is missing, appointing a new one requires intervention by support@groups.io , and I don't want any time-pressure on that.

As to "collaborative decision taken by all the managers"... no, I don't necessarily agree with that. I think the GROUP can have a vote on it if it disagrees with a decision of a moderator/owner.

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

Yes, of course an owner should be able to bestow the title of (co- / vice-) owner upon somebody. Most of the discussion is about who has the right to TAKE IT AWAY.

Maybe nobody except the owner him/herself should have the right to demote an owner (crazy stuff I haven found the word for excluded)


groetjes/ĝis, Ronaldo

When I set up one of my groups I deliberately made both moderators
owners. This has now come in useful as the original owner is now in a
care home, quite unwell and unable to moderate. I also ensure that all
moderators have priveleges to upgrade members to moderators (something
that nearly stopped me sorting out a Yahoogroups transfer a few years
ago).

Dave

On 12 Feb 2020 at 8:54, J_Catlady wrote:

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.

http://davesergeant.com

On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 08:57 AM, Chris Jones wrote:

If it meant owner rather than moderator then I think I agree with you. :)

I think there might be a lot of conflation of terms in this thread. Not sure. But I can say that it's confusing enough even without that happening. ;)
 
--
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 04:50 PM, J_Catlady wrote:

If you substitute the word "owner" in the ro-esp message, which is what I think(?) was meant there,

My comments were based on what was written, not what might have been meant. If it meant owner rather than moderator then I think I agree with you. :)

Chris