On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 06:05 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

a moderator notification is sent out as well

Hi Mark,

can we get the group subject tag as a prefix to the email notification subject to match other notifications please?

Thanks
Andy

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 05:12 PM, Janice wrote:

Is the credit card number held in some kind of file or is it deleted once the donation is paid?

I think it's remembered, BUT you can go to your Account Billing page and remove it after paying, https://groups.io/account?page=billing  (I won't be removing mine since I use it to pay for a group.)

Duane

Is the credit card number held in some kind of file or is it deleted once the donation is paid?  I ask because I'm sure some of my members will ask me.

Janice B

Hi All,

With all the various discussions about the upcoming pricing change, along with me taking time to implement the new group sponsorship feature, as well as all the craziness going on in the USA right now impacting my productivity, I will not be able to implement the needed changes in time for Monday's deadline. So I'm pushing that back to Tuesday, February 2nd at 9am Pacific (Groundhog Day!).

Thanks,
Mark

Hi All,

Thank you for the discussion. I'm not going to lock this topic, but I think we've discussed every nook and cranny. I need some time to digest things (I would really appreciate the topic summarization feature I've been talking about for years right about now) and figure out if/when/how this would be implemented.

Thanks,
Mark

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 09:49 AM, J_Catlady wrote:

My objections to allowing people to pay to get into "full" groups is based on assuming that (eventually) the vast majority of groups will be under the new structure.

What is your concern/downside of allowing "full" groups to accept more members? 

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Sandi Dickenson

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 01:25 PM, Samuel Murrayy wrote:

both features can complement each other.

They could. But if only Mark's original plan plus this sponsorship plan are implemented, you end up with exactly what I thought was optimal, and what I'd suggested (although not the specifics), namely: Mark's original plan with an enhanced ability for owners to solicit donations/contributions to allay their high fees if they have high member counts. And you avoid all the issues I've brought up involving the paid memberships.
 
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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, Jan 13, 2021 at 07:14 PM, J_Catlady wrote:

Fantastic idea. ... It completely avoids all the objections I’ve expressed about member fees, competition, warped forces/space around groups, technical issues like refunds, member fees being disincentives to join groups.io, and a dozen others.

That may be, but my other proposal (about free-member slots) was meant to be separate from this suggestion and in fact both features can complement each other.

This sponsorship button makes it easier to group owners to gather funds without having to set up a financial system (I assume some group owners will active encourage members to click the button) which can be used to pay for premium services, but it does not the problem that the "free-member slots" suggestion was trying to solve, namely to make it possible to have free groups without membership number limits or to have premium groups where owners can limit their costs aggressively without having to turn away potential members who are willing to pay.

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 06:05 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

Group sponsorships are logged in the activity log

Yes, I can see that from my test $5.00 sponsorship

and a moderator notification is sent out as well.

I received a notification email but there is currently no option in the Moderator Notification panel to control these sponsorship notifications like there is for other types.

Regards
Andy

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 06:05 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

If a fee is paid solely by sponsorship reserves, you will not be sent a payment receipt, but you will still get an email notification.

Now might be a good time to reflect on and confirm what happens if insufficient sponsorship funds are 'in the bank' and there is no credit card on file so a group gets downgraded:

https://groups.io/helpcenter/ownersmanual/1/upgrading-or-downgrading-groups/downgrading-a-premium-or-enterprise-group

Andy

RE: Free/Basic groups can allow sponsorships.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sound like Free/Basic groups are not able to Allow Sponsorships. But, rather Free/Basic groups must upgrade to a Premium group to Allow Sponsorships, and incur a Premium-priced debt before sponsorship funds can be collected to help pay on that new debt.

My hope was that there would also be a method to somehow allow funds to be collected from members to help support the Groups.io service without having to upgrade a Free/Basic group to a Premium Group and incur a personal financial liability. I recommend that this continue to be looked at, so that members of existing Free/Basic groups in the future can somehow also freely help fund the Groups.io service.

Thanks,
Scott

Fantastic idea. Not sure how I missed it. (Must have been hiding under my rock at the time, aka had the thread muted.:) It completely avoids all the objections I’ve expressed about member fees, competition, warped forces/space around groups, technical issues like refunds, member fees being disincentives to join groups.io, and a dozen others.

--
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,

Can I trouble you to confirm whether (or not) you are still seeing this effect? I certainly am still seeing it.

I wonder whether there is anyone (outside PST) who is seeing the correct times in /feed ? If there is, then it would be useful to know it!

It may be on Mark's hit list of course and just waiting its turn .. ?

Keep safe, Malcolm.

Hi All,

I have just pushed a new group sponsorship feature, based on Shal's and Samuel's proposals. Here are the details:

• In Group Settings, there's a new Allow Sponsorships checkbox, with the help text Allow members to sponsor the Groups.io fees for the group.
• If a group allows sponsorships, a new Sponsor This Group button appears on the group home page.
• Clicking that button brings you to a page to enter an amount (of at least $5.00USD) and a credit card, if we don't have one on file for you. The text is By sponsoring this group, you are helping pay the Groups.io hosting fees. Any amount you sponsor will be held by Groups.io and used to pay hosting fees as needed. Sponsorships are non-refundable.
• You do not need to be a member to sponsor a group but you do need to have a Groups.io account.
• Free/Basic groups can allow sponsorships. Converting from Free/Basic to a Premium group still requires a credit card to be on file when you do it, but you can delete the credit card after you've upgraded the group, relying only on sponsorship reserves to pay for premium.
• To see how much money is in a group's sponsorship reserve, go to the Billing/Upgrade tab under Admin. It will appear as a line like There is $23.00 in reserve to pay hosting fees.
• Group sponsorships are logged in the activity log and a moderator notification is sent out as well.
• Any group sponsorships that you have paid are listed in your Account on the Billing page.
• If a fee is paid solely by sponsorship reserves, you will not be sent a payment receipt, but you will still get an email notification.

Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. Thanks to Shal and Samuel for the idea.

Thanks,
Mark

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 04:49 AM, Samuel Murrayy wrote:

Yes, but the purpose of this thread is not to discuss what the potential downsides of grandfathering is.  Your objection would apply even if my proposal isn't implemented.

Exactly right. Grandfathered groups are actually not even worthy of discussion in what happens going forward because they will start to be a smaller and smaller fraction of the total groups. And in any case, I don't think people would go around looking for free groups. The fee is a pittance and people join groups based on their interests. My objections to allowing people to pay to get into "full" groups is based on assuming that (eventually) the vast majority of groups will be under the new structure. My problems with the payment proposal have nothing to do with grandfathered vs non-grandfathered groups.
 
--
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, Jan 13, 2021 at 01:14 PM, monamouroui wrote:

Shal, if you exclude grandfathered groups then the new groups that had to and will continue to have to pay, will be at a disadvantage. So unless Mark is trying to constrain the formation of new groups this is a bad idea. Why would someone join a newly formed group where they would have to pay $2.50/annually when they can search for older groups that would be free to the user?

Yes, but the purpose of this thread is not to discuss what the potential downsides of grandfathering is.  Your objection would apply even if my proposal isn't implemented.

If a user applies for membership a non-grandfathered group that is "full" (i.e. already has as many members as the owner is willing to pay for), here's what happens:

• If premium groups can be capped: either the user gets a system message telling him that the group is full, or the moderator replies to user, "sorry, we have no more room in our group, and there is nothing either of us can do about it"
• If premium groups can't be capped: moderator replies to user, "sorry, I can't afford another member; however, if you're willing to pay me $1.00 per year via PayPal, then you can join our group"
• With my proposal: moderator replies to user, "sorry, our free-member slots are full; however, if you become a paid member of Groups.io for $2.50 per year, then you can join our group"

Grandfathering isn't going to go away, so yes, if a user is not picky and would join any existing grandfathered group, then that option would be open to him.  However, my experience with the groups that I'm in is that people who become members of those groups specifically want to become members of **those** groups.  If there are a dozen cat group and all the user wants is to share cat photos, then "any group will do", but a lot of groups are quite specialised and people don't really have alternatives to join.

(The ability to cap premium groups has been suggested but has not been confirmed or commented on by Mark.)