On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 8:05 AM Chris Jones via groups.io <chrisjones12=btinternet.com@groups.io> wrote:

If a group is set to allow posts by non - members any such post is placed in Pending with a badge attached to inform any passing owner or moderator that the post is from a non - member. However, that badge uses the letters NM against the standard blue background. As such, unless examined more closely, it looks very like the NMM badge so the possibility of confusion cannot be ruled out. When the post is opened for checking before release (or rejection) then the badge is expanded to read Non Member against the same colour blue background. Obviously this is rather less easy to misinterpret.

I've changed the badge color to red for NM and Non Member respectively.

 

Suggestion 2: Somehow flag up the fact that any given post is from a non - member for both web UI & email reading. Perhaps use a default Display Name of Non Member or a message level #hashtag advising a non - member message.

This is trickier and not quite obvious to me how to handle. What if a message is sent by a non member, and then later that person becomes a member? Does the badge stay on the message when viewing the website? And vice-versa, if a member sends a message and then leaves the group, should a badge be displayed then?

Thanks,

Mark 

Both approaches happen in the field and I think epitomize the difference between email and UI approaches.

An email, once sent, is immutable. One cannot change how it looks in other people's inboxes. Thus, a tag or whatever is asserted to be true at the time of sending, but not either before or later.

Conversely, consider Slack, which has status icons. Changing the icon changes the icon for all posts past and future until it is changed again.

Personally, I prefer the former. The latter is too revisionist for my tastes.

Best,

Glenn

p.s. Great solution to make it the default.
--
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 Tue, Feb 2, 2021 at 08:17 AM, Christos G. Psarras wrote:

they can unwittingly become a "NoEmail" user by selecting FO but no suboption (since the current defaults are unchecked); they'll never receive anything except special notices, even if they send-in a new topic message themselves.

Yes and I think I mentioned that. In any case, even if I haven't mentioned this problem in beta, I've already issued an explicit warning to my group members because I've seen some people do exactly that. I used the phrase "unlike in some other forums," because in some venues, for example FB, if you reply to a thread you automatically follow it. That's not the case in groups.io so it needs to be made explicit. Immediately after I issued the warning in my group, a few people immediately went in and added "auto-follow replies" to their settings, showing that they had misunderstood and made the assumption that this was like other platforms, where replying automatically means following. This warning of course applies to all members, not just people who only use email (and whom you have termed "email only," even though there is currently no technical definition or category for that).
 
--
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

>>> (1) Following Only needs to specify that they also receive Special Notices
>>> (2) Digests and Daily Summary need to clarify that Special Notices are still sent as individual emails

Sorry for the delay, I finally got the chance to update the proposal graphic with the latest suggestions, plus added back the Signature suggestions as well for a fuller picture.

Even if not required, I also took the liberty of adding the corresponding badges next to the applicable setting as that should help to better visually tie things together when the user has visited the settings and is now in the MyGroups screen, or vice versa; easily relocated to the explanation text or taken out :)

I think it was mentioned earlier but there still remains one more invalid potential issue for the (possibly-inexperienced) email-only user who wanted to try out the FollowingOnly setting; they can unwittingly become a "NoEmail" user by selecting FO but no suboption (since the current defaults are unchecked); they'll never receive anything except special notices, even if they send-in a new topic message themselves. 

In our suggested redesign we have left the current unchecked default, but if instead we set it to where when one clicks on FollowingOnly for the very first time, the Replies suboption would default to checked, possibly FirstMessage as well.  This way it helps cover the uninitiated ones and if someone deliberately clears the suboptions, they deliberately want to receive less messages.

Let me know what you guys think and I'll update the graphic.

Cheers,
Christos

On Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 04:35 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

It will now happen on Monday, February 8th at 9am Pacific Time.

Probably!?! ;>)  Take care of the family first.

Duane

On Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 02:37 PM, Maritza wrote:

(it's only if we want to upgrade again at any point in the future after Feb. 2 that we would lose our unlimited membership and go into the pay-per-member plan. Yes?)

You will never lose the unlimited free members on the basic plan. If you upgrade again after February 8th, you will be on the per-member pricing for the premium plan.

Thanks,
Mark

Howdy all,
I just want to double check that if we switch our current premium plan that was opened after Jan. 15 and downgrade after Feb. 2 whether it's in a few months or years, that we'll be downgraded to the free basic plan with unlimited members and most of the features except subdomains.  Is that right?  

(it's only if we want to upgrade again at any point in the future after Feb. 2 that we would lose our unlimited membership and go into the pay-per-member plan. Yes?)

Thanks,
Maritza
[Mod Note: Edited the message subject, which only contained a hashtag]

Hi Mark,

While in the member list admin page, I noticed two of the multi-select Action menu items have inconsistent tooltips, see attached.

Cheers,
Christos

Hi Mark,

When we get a message sent to our restricted main group from a non-member it's flagged in the Activity Log as 'Non-member <emailaddress> attempted to send message <subject> via email' which is as expected.  However, a member of our main group sent a message to the Committee subgroup of which they are not a member and the Activity Log entry is 'Non-member sent "<subject>" requiring approval because it was sent by a non-member via email'.

There is no indication of the main group member's name or email address so we seem have two formats of the Activity Log entry depending upon whether the incoming message is bounced (as in the main group) or held for moderation (as in the subgroup).  Could we show the email address of the sender in both cases?

This member is registered on the main group with a gmail address and the message to the Committee subgroup was sent from their googlemail address. From previous conversations with this member, it's possible the googlemail address is an alias of the gmail address and if that's the case then it should also be possible to show the member's name also.

Regards
Andy

On Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 08:09 PM, Christos G. Psarras wrote:

I don't know the origins, maybe it was just a convenience gifted to the paid groups due to an Enterprise request

Probably.  It was originally only available on Enterprise groups:

On Wed, Nov 23, 2016 at 05:38 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

NEW: For enterprise groups, you can set up group aliases, which redirect to your group (for misspellings, prevent sound-alike squatters, etc).

A few months later, it was allowed on Premium groups:

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 11:11 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

CHANGE: Premium plans now support having group aliases (previously this was an Enterprise plan only feature).

Duane

If you start to create a private message and then go out and do something else, when you come back to the draft it is no longer set to "private." Obviously this can be pretty dangerous! Also, although the private setting is not maintained, the "private" prefix is still there. So if you notice that the message is no longer set to private and reset it, that results in two "private" prefixes.
--
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

Furthermore, you can ban email addresses (or domains) preemptively, before they've been a member or even applied for membership. It makes no sense to notify those banned email addresses or domains a priori.
--
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

I remember/know of one case so far where a group wanting to move from Yahoo couldn't use the old group name.  A 'competitor' used it as an alias here just so the group moving couldn't.  There are liable to be more of these as GIO grows, so I hope Mark has something in place to handle it.  Allowing aliases isn't something I'd do at all because of the ensuing headaches, but a low limit should help.

I would agree with zero as the limit. Name squatting, like domain name squatting, is pretty evil.

 
 
This group alias issue is one of those bits that can get somewhat complicated.

If the aim of the no-more or limited aliases is to disable or discourage/curb squatting (malevolent or not for that matter), that can easily be defeated and the same net effect achieved by smartly creating & configuring groups, it would just be a bit more work; you can't (easily) stop/discourage someone knowledgeable from malevolently doing what that owner did, neither here nor on the net. 

You can however monitor them for recurring/suspect behavior.

I don't want to start a philosophical discussion on the ethics of group name (or domain) parking, there are valid points from both sides of the debate.  Plus after all, Mark implemented it here (and it has remained, so far), apparently it must have some type of value to him.  I don't know the origins, maybe it was just a convenience gifted to the paid groups due to an Enterprise request, I don't know; only Mark knows about the value of this feature to him and whether taking it away could present the potential impact of removing a convenience feature for prospective clients.  And if applied retroactively it could cause complications to existing Enterprise groups using it, so if that was to be avoided it may be yet another grandfathered thing now that needs tracking.

Cheers,
Christos

PS: One of my other selves, the green-eyed one, whispered to my ear "paid optional feature", but he's known to be a troublemaker, I don't know, maybe I should throw him out of the room.