For general Groups.io questions, please see the Group Managers Forum and Group_Help groups. Note: those groups are volunteer-led and are not officially run by Groups.io.
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Announcement in other moderator groups?
Are you interested in announcing groups.io, and this beta group, in the other moderator groups on Yahoo? If you'd rather that happen "organically" there's enough overlap in membership of these groups that I'm somewhat surprised that there's been no mention of the EL-M conversations in the others yet.
As a moderator for both YGOG and GMF I can tell you that such an announcement would be welcome. Even though the focus of those groups is strictly on Yahoo Groups, we have had discussion threads in both groups discussing the merits of other services. I consider discussions of relative merits to be on-topic, but getting into the "how-to" of the other services to be off-topic. That's unlike EL-M and ListHelp, whose subject includes all mailing list systems. I don't know about FEM, their group description sounds specific to Yahoo Groups, but they are old enough to be named For Egroup Moderators so you could always ask the moderators about it. There is also modsandmembers, whose mission was once to stop an earlier rollout of a major revision to Yahoo Groups, and which took up the fight again with the roll-out of Neo. They are currently going through some existential angst, as it appears the fight againts Neo is definitively lost. I know they and their members are very interested in Yahoo alternatives. -- Shal |
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Re: Announcement in other moderator groups?
Shal, I'd definitely like to get the word out to the other groups, but maybe not quite yet. I wanted to start things slowly for three reasons. First, to be able to work through the (sigh, numerous) bugs in the system. Looking at the logs, probably close to 100 bugs have been fixed in the last week, so we're getting there. Second, to work through any rough edges in the interface and any basic missing functionality. For example, later today I'll send a pointer here to a page containing a list of all your subscriptions and ask for feedback. And finally, to (hopefully) finalize the business model (ie. what's paid and what's free). One of my goals with Groups.io was to create a sustainable business that was not reliable on advertising. The pricing model currently on the site was my best guess at how to do that, but I'd like to discuss it with the group here and get feedback. So, maybe another week or two? Thanks, Mark On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 11:39 PM, Shal Farley <shal@...> wrote: Are you interested in announcing groups.io, and this beta group, in the other moderator groups on Yahoo? If you'd rather that happen "organically" there's enough overlap in membership of these groups that I'm somewhat surprised that there's been no mention of the EL-M conversations in the others yet. |
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Re: Announcement in other moderator groups?
David P. Dillard
If you want these groups to do well, you will need to have a free service based on advertising as most people cannot afford to pay to own groups. It would also be very smart to allow groups to be public if so desired so that their content can be indexed by search engines. This will serve not only to make these groups visible on the web, but also the service they are a part of.
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Sincerely, David Dillard Temple University (215) 204 - 4584 jwne@... On Tue, 30 Sep 2014, Mark Fletcher wrote:
Shal, |
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Re: Announcement in other moderator groups?
David, Yes, that's the plan. Public groups are free. And always will be. When we launched last week, free groups originally had the restriction that you couldn't send attachments through them. I removed that restriction. But with that, I need to ponder whether to limit the amount of storage that group archives can take (currently unlimited), and whether to charge for extra space. For example, Wordpress gives their free blogs 3gigs of storage space, and you can pay a small amount to increase that. Do I do the same with groups? Separately, the current pricing model is based on number of subscribers. Again, looking at Wordpress, they charge based on features, not subscribers (which in their case is page views). Do I switch to something like that? (ie. X dollars a year for a private group, regardless of number of subscribers). I want to make as much of Groups.io free as possible and the rest affordable. Not just because I'm nice (well, my mom says I am), but because I think it's good business. And of course I want Groups.io to be so much better than everything else that people will want to pay for it. Thoughts appreciated. Thanks, Mark On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 7:54 AM, David P. Dillard <jwne@...> wrote:
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Subs and home pages
One page that's been missing is a page displaying all your subscriptions. Here is a first pass: You can sort, but you can't change any subscriptions/unsubscribe yet. Please let me know what you think. Is anything missing from that page? Currently, when you're logged in and you go to https://groups.io, it displays your 'Inbox', which is all the threads from all the groups you're subscribed to.. It also has links to view threads/hashtags you've muted and followed. Is this useful and understandable? Should this be replaced with the new /subs page? And if so, should the 'Inbox' view be removed all together, or should it be somewhere else? Thanks, Mark |
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Unsubscribing from hashtags is unintuitive
Instead of unsubscribing by clicking on Subscription and seeing the option under that tab, you have to click on Groups.IO, then select muted hashtags
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Re: Unsubscribing from hashtags is unintuitive
Ah, I had not thought about that. Would you also want to have the tabs for Muted or Followed Threads there as well? Thanks, Mark On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 7:06 AM, <walkraft@...> wrote: Instead of unsubscribing by clicking on Subscription and seeing the option under that tab, you have to click on Groups.IO, then select muted hashtags |
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Discovering new groups
I just created a group for people to announce new groups that they've created as an alternative discovery mechanism.
https://groups.io/org/groupsio/new-groups |
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Re: Discovering new groups
Linda
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Re: Subs and home pages
I've gone ahead and added a link from the home page to the /subs page, which should now be fully operational. I took out the part at the bottom of the subs page that displayed how many groups you were a member of, etc, because I didn't like how it was formatted. Once I figure out a nicer way of displaying that information, I'll put it back.
Let me know if you have any thoughts. I'll probably send out a message to updates@groups.io tomorrow about it. Thanks, Mark |
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Re: Discovering new groups
The problem is that the majority of those groups are test groups.
Also, if people start posting too many groups, then we can set standards. Like you need at least 5 members before you post. |
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Business model changes
Hey All, After gathering a lot of feedback, and doing a lot of thinking, I've decided to make some changes. I hope you'll like them. Here's what I'm considering: there will be two types of groups, Basic and Premium. Basic groups will have the following features: Listed or unlisted in group directory Public or private archives Open, restricted, or moderated groups Full moderation tools Unlimited subscribers Full hashtag support Mute threads and hashtags Fully downloadable archives and member lists 1GB Attachment Storage 5 Integrations Ad Supported Premium groups will have the following upgrades: 10GB Attachment Storage Unlimited Integrations No Ads Directly Add Members Premium Support Basic groups will be free. Premium groups will be $10/month. Please let me know what you think. Thanks, Mark |
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Re: Business model changes
Hi Mark,
Basic groups will have the following features:Ideal for my PTA groups would be Basic, with Direct Add "à la carte" at a lower fee. Something well under $100/yr, that I can get into the budget, or find a parent to donate, or donate myself. Basic as you've written it would be perfect for my Alumni and family groups. Beyond premium you could also have "consigned" groups (there must be a better word for it). The upgrades over premium could include: Custom domain name (a la wordpress blogs) Paid subscription (shopping cart, you split the subscription fee with the group owner) -- Shal |
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Re: Business model changes
Sal, Thanks for the feedback.
If you need the direct add for a one time thing, to populate the group, for example, you could pay the $10 for one month, add everyone you need, and then downgrade to free. Would that work for you? Paid subscription (shopping cart, you split the subscription fee with Do you think there's demand for this? Thanks, Mark |
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Re: Business model changes
Mark,
If you need the direct add for a one time thing, to populate thePossibly. The vast majority of PTA sign-ups are during registration (mid-August) or back-to-school-night (early September), depending on the school. There's usually a trickle throughout the year and sometimes batches related to other membership drives; but those tend to be few enough that using the Invite process with the "late-comer" members might be manageable. One suggestion in that regard is to be sure that the Invitation mechanism also tracks bounces, and provides a UI for the group moderators to see them. That's something missing at Yahoo, their mechanism covers only regular group messages, not invites nor even moderator notifications. That makes them a real pain in today's world of too-aggressive spam filters (especially challenge filters). Paid subscription (shopping cart, you split the subscription feeI don't really have a basis for thinking so, it is just something that came up when talking with some people about your prior (per-member) pricing model. Of course it assumes that the group owner has content that the membership is willing to pay for. This would be a completely different kind of group than mine, most likely with the moderators providing most or all of the content. But at a nominal per-year cost to the member that may be at least as common as a group owner believing that it is worth their own money to put their content out there. After all, who's benefiting from the service? It goes with the increasing public realization that "if you're not paying you're not the customer: you're the product". -- Shal (Caveat: free advice is worth the price. If I really knew anything about pricing in this kind of business that would be my day job.) |
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Re: Business model changes
On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 3:53 PM, Shal Farley <shal@...> wrote:
That's already in the system. You can track each invitation, whether it's been accepted, and you can see what the receiver's email server has sent back to us. I appreciate the advice, even when it's free. :-) Thanks, Mark |
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Membership options
Hi Mark, Thanks for creating this alternative email exchange service. I created a group and asked a few friends to join so we could kick the tires. A couple of issues. Members require approval to join, but there is no field for them to fill out so I can know who they are and why they want to join. Right now it's not a problem because I do know them. But if new members cannot give me a reason for joining then there isn't a point in having to approve new members. Which leads me to the next problem. I have to log into groups.io to approve them. I can't just reply to the request mail. I don't want to have to go to the group to make these approvals. I'm used to sending a reply for approval and forward for rejection. Right now I'm not allowing posts, but have a feeling I'm going to need to log into the group to approve pending posts too. Thanks, |
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Pricing changes
Hi All, I've just pushed to the live site the changes to the pricing model that I mentioned last week. This means that free groups can now have private archives and can be unlisted. It also means that direct adding of subscribers/unlimited integrations/10GB attachment space is available for $10/month. I've also added a "group transfer" plan that does not automatically renew, so you can pay $10, add your subscribers, and not have to worry about canceling the premium subscription. All of this is under the revamped Upgrade tab in each group. Also, as per Linda's suggestion, I've added the ability to limit the Members section to owners only (previously you could only restrict it to moderators and owners together). I will announce these changes tomorrow on the updates@groups.io group and on Twitter. Lots of changes. Please let me know if you have any questions, suggestions or bug reports. Thanks! Mark |
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Feature suggestion: Group calendar
Hi All,
I suggest this with some trepidation, as I know that calendars are just about the canonical example of the "how hard can it be?" fallacy. Closer to the "research team and five years" end of the spectrum than "a few hours". http://www.xkcd.com/1425/ That trepidation is reinforced by the botch job Yahoo did of the Groups calendar redesign in mid-2012: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/GroupManagersForum/conversations/messages/38143 Anyway, the essential requested feature is the ability to create reminders for events, and have those reminders post to the group. In my PTA groups I've used them for recurring meetings and special events. It is those pesky timezones and especially daylight savings time that are fraught with geographic (varying laws) and temporal (changing laws) edge cases. Even my relatively simple use case with PTA group members all in the same timezone gets mangled by the current Yahoo Groups calendar around every fall back and spring forward. I'm not particularly interested in integration between the group's calendar and personal or other calenders (though others might be). That said, if there's a way for Groups.io to leverage Google calendar to achieve group reminders that might make the effort manageable, and theirs seems to work. -- Shal |
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Re: Membership options
Hi Sara, Thanks for the suggestions. Approval/rejection of pending members via email is definitely on the todo list, as is asking prospective members for more information. You can approve/reject pending messages through email already. Thanks, Mark On Sat, Oct 4, 2014 at 4:28 PM, monamouroui <monamouroui@...> wrote:
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