On Mon, Jun 22, 2020 at 06:41 AM, Chris Jones wrote:

A further thought about Polls; a Poll is a message with a specific question included, and as such is not a notification in the same way as an upload is. I would not want members to be able to suppress awareness of a  Poll by any means whatsoever. Choosing not to respond to a Poll is one thing; choosing not to know about it is another thing entirely. IMHO #poll-notice should not be a notification.

We do need to keep a clear view regarding which of the existing system hashtags are intrinsic to the effective operation of groups.io. We've already mentioned #cal-reminder and #cal-notice in that context, and I agree with Chris that #poll-notice (and possibly #chat-notice) are in the same category.

That said, members should continue to be allowed to mute these hashtags if they so desire.

Regards,
Bruce

On Mon, Jun 22, 2020 at 04:56 AM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

Right now the following notifications are missing: delete file/photo/wiki page, close chat, add/modify/delete photo album. 

 

1) Should I add those as notifications that group members can send when performing those actions, with `Notify Members` checkboxes? 

I'm getting rather loud alarm bells now with the list of Notifications growing. I'm still mulling over the question of Notifications to Moderators but I can see that notifications to members could become contentious.

To my way of thinking with the list likely to become quite long it will be impossible for group owners (inc Moderators) to set up a one - size - fits - all notification scheme with the only balanced solution being the ability of individual members to be able to select the notifications that they want to receive from a pick list in the same way as they can select their (message) email deliveries now.

In addition, with many individuals being members of several groups if the decision is made by Owners then members will find different criteria applied in different groups when they would prefer to select notifications to meet their own individual requirements.

At the moment I cannot see a better solution to "the notification problem" than to put the decision in the hands of the recipients rather than group managers.

At the same time I, as a moderator, want or even need the ability to tidy up a Files or Photos section without generating a blizzard of notifications as a result. Left to themselves members can make an untidy and uncoordinated mess of Files and Photos and it occasionally needs moderator intervention to try to restore some sense of order. Excessively granular notification of uploads, deletions, edits (inc relocations) will just serve to generate frustration amongst a group's members so that has to be a way for a moderator to rework archive contents without triggering a notification at every turn.

A further thought about Polls; a Poll is a message with a specific question included, and as such is not a notification in the same way as an upload is. I would not want members to be able to suppress awareness of a  Poll by any means whatsoever. Choosing not to respond to a Poll is one thing; choosing not to know about it is another thing entirely. IMHO #poll-notice should not be a notification.

Chris

Hi Mark,

this may be an anomaly due to the way I'm testing but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

From my 'owner' account using the web UI I send a message to my testing subgroup. When I open the email received by my 'member' account in that group and click on the Your Subscription link in the footer, I get a new Browser tab (I'm using FF) showing the subscription options for my 'owner' account.

If I initially click on the Follow This Topic link in the footer, it detects that this relates to a different account and I get presented with a login screen for that. It's the initial click on Your Subscription where this account detection mechanism doesn't seem to work.

Regards,
Andy

Hi Mark,

When searching my main group activity log (All Activity) for an action 'Changed display name' the latest entry shows that a member changed their name on Jun 10. What is not shown is that I, as an owner, changed it again on Jun 15.

It seems that the Member Activity filter is being applied to the initial search even though All Activity was selected.

Regards,
Andy

On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 09:43 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

When uploading files, the checkbox to notify the group is now checked by default.

Didn't this one get changed back?
 
--
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, Jun 19, 2020 at 11:43 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

• NEW: Added notifications for new photos uploaded and wiki additions/changes. Added the #file-notify hashtag to file upload notifications.
• CHANGE: When uploading files, the checkbox to notify the group is now checked by default.

I believe the correct name is #file-notice (based on a test.)  And Notify Members is back to unchecked as default, at least temporarily.

Duane

On Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 11:10 AM, Andy Wedge wrote:

on the Chats screen, a count of unread messages in the same way that the number of pending messages or subscription requests are shown.

Hmm. It seems that feature already exists. I may not have refreshed my browser page as I thought.

Andy

With the introduction of push notifications we can get an immediate notice if a chat starts via the #chat-notice tag.  What would make this little used feature of Groups.io (my impression) more useful is if push notifications could be enabled for individual chat messages and on the Chats screen, a count of unread messages in the same way that the number of pending messages or subscription requests are shown.

Regards,
Andy

On Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 07:07 AM, Shal Farley wrote:

That is, Mark didn't rename the old #wiki into #wiki-notices, he just added the new one internally, and it gets created in the group when used.

Aha; I think I can now see where I managed to mislead myself; sorry Mark!!

Aslo thanks to Andy W for his point.

These points triggered me into investigating an action that others might want to consider.

If a group owner or moderator sets up the -notice hashtags in anticipation of their use then those tags can be preset to be "Moderators Only" (to prevent their use by members other than by triggering a notification) and set them to "No Email" should that be the preferred option.

However, setting to No Email requires a small action on Mark's part... please!

Notification messages read... This email message is a notification... etc. Can I request that the word "email" be removed, because if a moderator sets the hashtag to No Email then no email is generated, risking leaving members who see the web UI to wonder why they didn't get an email.

Chris

On Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 07:07 AM, Shal Farley wrote:

That is, Mark didn't rename the old #wiki into #wiki-notices, he just added the new one internally, and it gets created in the group when used.

I have a moderated #wiki hashtag defined in my testing subgroup from the first incarnation of these and no #wiki-notice. I just updated a wiki page and I see a pending message with a #wiki-notice tag that is sent out if I approve it. However, a new #wiki-notice hashtag is not created, the new message shows as an extra message tied to the old #wiki hashtag.

Andy

Chris,

After Mark's changes I'm certain that I had a look and the /-notice/
had been added to the hashtags, but now it has vanished again.

Oh! I misunderstood you. Now I see what you mean.

I think what happened is that the Hashtag pages now have both spellings if the feature was used in your group during both intervals of time.

That is, Mark didn't rename the old #wiki into #wiki-notices, he just added the new one internally, and it gets created in the group when used.

At least that's what I see in GMF - There are both spellings in the list/grid view, with the #wiki hashtag listing only the one topic created while it existed, and the #wiki-notice hashtag listing the two that have posted since.

I should probably instantiate all the other new spellings manually, and adjust them all to use the orange color I put on the old ones and have a description. After the dust settles again I can probably alias the old ones out of the list.

Shal

Mark,

Ok, so create a bunch of new per-moderator notification toggles under
the 'Notifications' section of each moderator's subscription, that
have to do with the various types of content on the site (ie wiki,
files, photos, etc), anything we send a #-notify message about.

Yes, I like that better than what I suggested.

The sending of these notifications to moderators would be independent
of whether the notification ended up being sent to the group or not.
The notifications to moderators would be what I'm currently sending to
the groups when the 'Notify Members' checkbox is checked.

In this scenario, I would keep the newly added group notifications,
along with their default-unchecked 'Notify Members' checkbox.

Is that right?

Yes!

I actually want to notify the group members in my social groups. In those I'd probably set "Notify Members" on by default if I could.

Probably not so much in my PTA group, but members have very little capability there (all but announcement only). All the Wiki, File and Photo content comes from the moderators.

That's like the concept of subscribing to notifications about
something. The creator of the wiki page would be automatically
subscribed to notifications of changes to it, with the option to
unsubscribe at any time.

Precisely. It may make sense to subscribe any member who edits the page also.

I'd also apply it to cases where someone (a moderator perforce, I think) edits the Description and other info about their Photos, Files, and Calendar events as well. I'm not sure what to say about Database tables (maybe yes) and rows (hm...), but the principle seems to apply there too.

Shal

On Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 01:42 AM, Shal Farley wrote:

So maybe the notifications just aren't happening in your group now.

I'm not sure why that should matter. Just after this process started someone did a couple of photo uploads and I did a wiki edit, all of which were notified in the format without -notice. After Mark's changes I'm certain that I had a look and the -notice had been added to the hashtags, but now it has vanished again.

Unless of course I imagined the whole thing... :(

I'll try a couple of test uploads later.

Chris

Changes to the site this week:

• CHANGE: Guidelines sent monthly will now have the hashtag #guidelines-notice.
• CHANGE: Monthly notices will now have the hashtag #monthly-notice.
• BUGFIX: Notification messages did not obey group moderation settings.
• NEW: Added notifications for new photos uploaded and wiki additions/changes. Added the #file-notify hashtag to file upload notifications.
• CHANGE: When uploading files, the checkbox to notify the group is now checked by default.
• INTERNAL: Changed combinerd daemon to use nsqd.
• INTERNAL: Added a utility to check for and fix timezone subscription copy-down inconsistencies in the database.
• CHANGE: Fixed plain text digest subject lines to include subject tags/group titles
• NEW: Add a Send A Test Notification button in the Account notifications page to test if notifications are working.
• BUGFIX: Fix issue with merging a topic into a topic that had an apostrophe in the subject line.
• BUGFIX: If attempting to upload a photo to the Files section, and the group is configured to disallow that, we would still generate an upload notification.
• NEW: Web push notifications are now supported for Chrome, Firefox and Opera browsers via a new tab in the Account section.
• NEW: You can specify to have push notifications sent on a per-hashtag basis.
• NEW: Moderator notifications will now be sent by default via both email and web push notifications, if you have them configured. Moderator notification settings are now dropdowns instead of checkboxes.
• NEW: Moderator notifications for pending members and pending messages will only be sent to moderators with privileges to approve them.

Take care everyone.

Mark

On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 08:41 PM, Shal Farley wrote:

I did not anticipate that these notifications would be shared with the entire membership

This is why I've been suggesting a separate controls/options page for when and to whom each notification is emailed out in a group. I think you need to be able to control if the notification is sent to just moderators, for example. I'm with you on the wiki changes, for one. All the time I've been requesting wiki change notifications, I never dreamed they would be sent out to the whole group, just to the mods. It also depends on who in a group has permissions to do these actions (e.g., upload files). In my group, only mods can do that so there's no situation where a member can upload a file and choose not to notify. Maybe notifications should be coordinated with permissions.
 
--
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

Mark,

I have changed the |Notify Members| checkbox when uploading files so
that it defaults to being unchecked, as before. I have also added new
|Notify Members| checkboxes when adding/updating wiki pages and when
uploading photos. They default to being unchecked.

I know that this is just a stopgap, but the directions many commenters are pushing make this mechanism unfit for purpose. At least for my needs.

My vision for the notifications overhaul was most fundamentally that I, as a group moderator, would get notification of group activity. Creating / editing content in any group area: all in. I did not anticipate that these notifications would be shared with the entire membership, and with that all the push-back that has caused.

If a member can choose not to notify me, if a group owner can decide not to allow notification of a given type of content, or of any type, then it doesn't suit the needs of a moderator who wants to actually moderate - which requires knowledge of what's being stored in the group.

Two things I think can help.

1) If the user chooses not to Notify Members, or if a Notification's hashtag controls would cause it not to be posted by email, send it to each owner/moderator by email, and/or web/app notification, regardless - subject only to that owner/moderator's Email and Notifications settings.

2) Under the same conditions, send/push it to the owner of the affected content anyway (unless it is they themselves taking the action). The concept here is to follow the precedent of Message editing, where the poster of a message is always informed of any edit. I'd like to see that concept extended to the other content a member may contribute.

Shal