On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 06:11 PM, RCardona wrote:

Only about 10% of our membership made a donation, but sufficient funds were raised to fund the membership group for 2+ years.

And therein lies the problem. On your own admission you have 90% freeloaders.

Chris

I think using the term "Freeloaders" is inappropriate here. Chris, you apparently have a group of younger, affluent, working members. There are a number of groups that have a certain fraction of retired members. They may be on fixed incomes or not. From the description, I would suggest you know nothing about the makeup or purpose of RC's group, and you are making assumptions that show your lack of understanding.

I have a few of my groups that I took Premium and I pay for those myself. Part of the reason is that I have a number of members who are barely on the internet (as I term it, they are in the extreme right hand lane of the information highway), but the experiences and information they bring to the group to share are priceless. Members bring to the table what they have. Some have vast experience to share. Some come seeking that knowledge and have the ability to help support that exchange. And some come seeing information and guidance.

Implying that any member is a "freeloader" without knowing the specific situation is, in my mind, out of line, especially given the state of public decency, or lack thereof, in public discourse today. Such comments will get you pigeonholed in some people's minds and can harm your credibility in the long run.

Dano

On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 05:59 AM, JediPirx wrote:

Just a thought, but, what about creating a "Free" plan that
is mailing list and possibly Wiki only, and keeping "Basic"
as is but adding a nominal monthly charge ($5/month ?). This
avoids legacy plan tracking.

What is "legacy plan tracking"?

Those on the Basic plan who only need mailing list can
downgrade to Free plan if they wish.

Those who only need a mailing-list can use yahoo, mailman, riseup and many others

People come to groups.io for the digests, the message-archive, the polls, the thumbs-up - and maybe to avoid google...

About how many groups in total are we talking actually?

And am I the only one worrying about the fact that Mark F is doing everything by himself?


groetjes/ĝis, Ronaldo

Chris, 
I have almost 3800 spread around the globe with majority in the US.
There were two of us. 400 miles apart.  I took care of the money and processes.
When we started I received international money orders and US domestic checks.
In addition, we received somw actual cash from some in our home country, USA.
We went to PayPal as a means to make it more simple for us and for members.

As someone said, if you believe in what you doing and you get enought to support your group, you've got it made.
Just be sure to thank every person with a note..  Tell them in the note what their money will be used for.

But remember what someone recently said about whether you  believe in what the group is doing.
--

Bob Bellizzi

Oh, ok. When I heard “mailing list only” I thought “yahoo.”

--
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

Ok, it's clear now. But a description of what was staying as "mailing list features only" would not normally include a message archive

I think that depends on your mailing list. Both Google Groups and mailman provide web message archives.

Best,

Glenn

On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 12:10 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

That's why I listed the changes in terms of what was being removed, not what was staying. All message/topic editing stuff will still exist. All subscription options will still exist. All archive viewing pages will still exist.

Ok, it's clear now. But a description of what was staying as "mailing list features only" would not normally include a message archive (let alone one loaded with incredible features;), so at that point the list of what was being removed left me confused and seeking a better description.
 
--
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

--
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 not unusual in groups that have functioned for decades with free membership, and I’m not sure these good people should be described so derisively..  

Non-donators contribute to our genealogy site in a variety of others ways by way of sharing information and research.  Money is NOT the only manner in which one can contribute to a group.  You should have more faith in your members to support your group through donations.   If you have a valued group, I'm willing to bet more than enough donations would come in to support whatever membership level you may require for your group.   There are a variety of tools available to make this happen for any group.

That is how most non-profits work as well. . . those who believe in the mission and are able, support the financial part of a group.  And many more benefit from it irrespective of financial contribution.  

Robert

chris jones via groups.io wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 06:11 PM, RCardona wrote:
> >
> > Only about 10% of our membership made a donation, but sufficient funds
> > were raised to fund the membership group for 2+ years.
>
> And therein lies the problem. On your own admission you have 90%
> freeloaders.

Therein lies what problem? Actually, I read that as "members saw so
much value that we cut off the fundraising when we realized we were
way past our current needs". That's definitely what would happen
in any of my groups.

paul
=----------------------
paul fox, pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us (arlington, ma, where it's 85.3 degrees)

On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 06:11 PM, RCardona wrote:

Only about 10% of our membership made a donation, but sufficient funds were raised to fund the membership group for 2+ years.

And therein lies the problem. On your own admission you have 90% freeloaders.

Chris

On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 10:46 AM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

All the existing message viewing features will be enabled.

That's an improvement. But I think the list is still not complete. What about message and topic editing features, including editing, merge, split, moderate, lock, etc.?

I think at some point it will be necessary to list all features explicitly and have one of those column checkbox tables where you put a check in the box or not for each feature, for each kind of plan. It may be ok to tell *us* that "If you want to approximate a new basic group, go into group settings, and in the Features panel, turn everything off" but clearly, that won't be sufficient for marketing and is evidently confusing even us old-timers. :)
 
--
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,
Will the New Basic group be a Mailing list  with the same online posting, reading, searching, etc of the messages and the current Basic group?

A
--

Bob Bellizzi

I think there has been a lot of miscommunicatio in this thread, starting with Mark's statement that "Basic groups created after that time will be limited to mailing list features only." That's what made me (wrongly) think "yahoo." Because to me, "mailing list features only" does not include, for example, even a message archive. That's the way yahoo went - mailing list only, no web features AT ALL. In the next sentence Mark goes on the list what is NOT included. But nowhere does he state clearly exactly what WILL BE included.

I think instead of describing the new basic groups as "limited to mailing list features only," it would be helpful to list exactly what is meant by "mailing list features." The description doesn't cover all features as included or not included. That would 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