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locked Delivery Options

Mark Fletcher
 

(Moving to a new thread...)

Here are the current delivery options:

- All Email
- First Message Only
- Replies Only
- Special Notices Only
- No Email

You can select one of the above, and that decides which messages you receive. Muting/following threads/hashtags are separate. If you're set to All Email, you can mute threads and you'll never see those. Or if you're set to First Message Only or Replies Only, if you follow a thread, you *will* see all those messages.

The Daily Digest is a checkbox, and is separate from the delivery options. What the digest does is collect any emails you would have been sent, and combines them into one message at night (or every 25 messages, whichever comes first). Say you're on digest. If you're set to All Email and mute a thread, you will not see that thread in your digest. If you're on digest and Replies Only, you'll only see messages in threads you participate in and any other threads that you specifically follow. Digests are customized and different for every person, unlike Y! Groups.

Special Notices are, well, special, in that they are sent immediately and not included in any digests.

Hope this explains things. I know it's a bit confusing, especially since with All Email, you end up muting things you don't want, but with First Message/Replies Only, you end up following things you do want (exclude versus include).

These are a lot of options. Any suggestions for how to make things more clear, or better organized, would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark


On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 3:02 PM, CatWoman <diana@...> wrote:
On 1/17/2015 1:14 PM, J. Faulkner wrote:
Does All Mail mean you are getting everything
individually?   If yes, maybe change that to also say as single messages or
something like that.

 I agree - especially since all other listerver programs use
"Individual Messages" to mean just that.

I would think that back to what I'd said before - there
are delivery options, and then there are LSoft like "topic"
options - and they should be separate.

Individual Messages or Digest or NoMail or Admin Notifications.

Those are delivery options - and since Admin notifications can
contain information on something affecting the web-group access,
I prefer to use that option instead of NoMail.  With the caveat
that I often have two addresses subscribed, and the second is set
NoMail.

Topic options should be put in a separate file cabinet - it
affects *what* you see, not *how* you see it.  So if I am set
to Individual Messages, but opt to not see #catchat - I get
all messages except #catchat, as separate individual messages
in my email.  If I've chosen Digest, then the Digest would also
hopefully have everything but #catchat.

I don't know how easy that is to code - I do know that is one
place that LSoft fails (and probably is the main reason I do
not like Digest).  If you choose Digest on LSoft, you get
*EVERYTHING*, whether you've subscribed to the topic or not.

Question, however - if you "mute the thread", does it just
refer to the actual subject?  Or to the subject *and* all the
hashtags used by that subject?

Would assume that the hashtags would have to be a setting,
the way you do with LSoft - and the thread refers to whatever
is after the hashtags?

dg
Diana Gregory
 

On 1/17/2015 4:23 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:
If you're set to All Email and mute a thread, you will not see that
thread in your digest.
I'm still not clear on how the Hashtag/Topics will work.

If you opt out of any messages with a specific hashtag,
but it also has hashtags you *are* following, you should
get the message/thread, right? (that's the way LSoft
does it)

Will that also be true of digest - any messages that
only have the undesired hashtag/topic should be left
out of the digest - but if the message has a tag/topic
that you do want as well as the unwanted one, it should
show up in the digest.

(apologies to any of you who have only dealt with Yahoo
and Google Groups - I've worked with several list server
programs, and can see that with the use of the hashtag,
Groups.io can have a functionality that is only available
on a very expensive server - LSoft. This functionality
is probably the only thing that has kept LSoft alive -
I'm not sure how much of what it does is configured by
the SysAdmin, and how much is built in - but on the
cat list that I am most familiar with, it only keeps
3 months of archived messages, and it is purely a mailing
list - no options for photos, files, etc. Those have to
be kept in some other location - and a lot of folks
gravitated to Yahoo because they did keep everything in
one place. So if Mark can add that one bit of functionality
that LSoft has now, with functionality Yahoo *should* have,
and the features it does, or did, have - I can see a lot
of folks jumping on board. Our list has a "let's move to
Yahoo" discussion about once a year).

dg
Diana Gregory
 

Reply on a second thought -

I think you are still mixing two separate concepts -
*what* you see, and *how* you see it.

These are *what* you see:
- All Email
- First Message Only
- Replies Only
- Special Notices Only
But this is a *how* you see it:
- No Email
IMO - Individual Messages, Digest, and No Email go together.

All Messages, First Message, Replies Only, <hashtag options>,
Special Notices Only are *what* you see. Muting or Following
a thread are added functionality in the *what* area.

Only place I'm still torn is the NoMail/Special Notice thing.
Myself - I would want to have people see them if the group
is going to be down (one of my mailing list servers is moving
from California to Oregon next week, so I need to make sure
the mirror group on Google has all the current addresses and
settings), or something like that - but if they really aren't
reading that mail - it's moot anyway, they'll just have to
find that out when they can't even get into the web group.

dg
Shal Farley
 

Mark,

Here are the current delivery options:

- All Email
- First Message Only
- Replies Only
- Special Notices Only
- No Email
...
These are a lot of options. Any suggestions for how to make things more
clear, or better organized, would be appreciated.
In another thread, dg raises a good point:

I would think that back to what I'd said before - there are delivery
options, and then there are LSoft like "topic" options - and they should
be separate.
Perhaps refactoring it a bit could make it easier to understand. See if you think this makes any more sense of things:

Email Delivery

o Individual Messages

o Daily digest - Group messages together as one email instead of individually.

o Special Notices Only - Only Special notices from the moderators are emailed to you.

o No Email - You will receive no emails.

Message Selection

o All Messages - Every message is emailed to you according to your Email Delivery selection, except threads or hashtags you've muted.

o Following Only - Every message in threads or hashtags you are following are emailed to you, except threads you've muted. (Special notices from the moderators are followed).

|_| First Message Also - The first message of every thread is also emailed to you, except for hashtags you've muted.

|_| Follow Replies - You automatically follow any threads you start or reply in.

("First Message" is intended to be indented, an option to "Following Only". "Follow Replies" applies regardless of the Message selection.)


This refactoring loses the case of getting messages from threads you start, but not threads you replied in (as in the current "First Message Only" option), but I think that's probably not a loss anyone will miss.

Making the "Follow Replies" a separate option means that it is useful even for those who prefer to read and post messages via web (using the "Followed Threads" lists on the web site).

I think thread following or muting threads should take precedence over hashtags. That is implied above but not explicitly stated.

Special Notices are, well, special, in that they are sent immediately
and not included in any digests.
I think they should probably be included in the digests, as well as the archives. Belts and suspenders, I know, but it could matter depending on filters the member may have set up in their email. Also, I think fewer special cases are better.

-- Shal
Judy F.
 

Shal, I agree with your recommendations, at least until someone comes along
and confuses me again. LOL

I keep going back in my mind to those members that are very senior and
barely know how to turn on a computer, let alone understand hashtags (I had
to look it up and I'm not that senior yet). I think it's great having all
of these options to try to suit a large number of the various groups, but
let's not forget those people that are not that knowledgeable and also those
that are physically or mentally challenged in one way or the other. Things
need to be easy and not confusing. We all keep talking about ease of use,
some of us have never used another group except Yahoo, me for one.

I have said this before, but will say it again, I think this new group is
great and I feel sure it will be a success. Mark has taken on quite a task
and it's amazing how he is updating things as we go.


Thanks.

Judy F.,
SW Florida - USA

-----Original Message-----
From: Shal Farley [mailto:shal@roadrunner.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2015 8:12 PM
To: beta@groups.io
Subject: Re: [beta] Delivery Options

Mark,

Here are the current delivery options:

- All Email
- First Message Only
- Replies Only
- Special Notices Only
- No Email
...
These are a lot of options. Any suggestions for how to make things
more clear, or better organized, would be appreciated.
In another thread, dg raises a good point:

I would think that back to what I'd said before - there are delivery
options, and then there are LSoft like "topic" options - and they
should be separate.
Perhaps refactoring it a bit could make it easier to understand. See if you
think this makes any more sense of things:

Email Delivery

o Individual Messages

o Daily digest - Group messages together as one email instead of
individually.

o Special Notices Only - Only Special notices from the moderators are
emailed to you.

o No Email - You will receive no emails.

Message Selection

o All Messages - Every message is emailed to you according to your Email
Delivery selection, except threads or hashtags you've muted.

o Following Only - Every message in threads or hashtags you are following
are emailed to you, except threads you've muted. (Special notices from the
moderators are followed).

|_| First Message Also - The first message of every thread is also
emailed to you, except for hashtags you've muted.

|_| Follow Replies - You automatically follow any threads you start or
reply in.

("First Message" is intended to be indented, an option to "Following Only".
"Follow Replies" applies regardless of the Message selection.)


This refactoring loses the case of getting messages from threads you start,
but not threads you replied in (as in the current "First Message Only"
option), but I think that's probably not a loss anyone will miss.

Making the "Follow Replies" a separate option means that it is useful even
for those who prefer to read and post messages via web (using the "Followed
Threads" lists on the web site).

I think thread following or muting threads should take precedence over
hashtags. That is implied above but not explicitly stated.

Special Notices are, well, special, in that they are sent immediately
and not included in any digests.
I think they should probably be included in the digests, as well as the
archives. Belts and suspenders, I know, but it could matter depending on
filters the member may have set up in their email. Also, I think fewer
special cases are better.

-- Shal
Shal Farley
 

Judy F.,

I keep going back in my mind to those members that are very senior and
barely know how to turn on a computer, let alone understand hashtags (I
had to look it up and I'm not that senior yet).
I think - hope - that separating the Message Selection options from the Email Delivery options will make it easier for them as well.

It should be possible for them to select the Email Delivery option they want and ignore the Message Selection features they don't need or wish to understand. If All Messages is the default Message Selection then the Delivery Options work just like Yahoo Groups.

-- Shal
Judy F.
 

I agree Shal and knowing Mark, if it can be done he will do it. Just
separating them and adding the different wording makes all the difference.

Judy F.
SW Florida - USA

-----Original Message-----
From: Shal Farley [mailto:shal@roadrunner.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2015 9:44 PM
To: beta@groups.io
Subject: RE: [beta] Delivery Options

Judy F.,

I keep going back in my mind to those members that are very senior and
barely know how to turn on a computer, let alone understand hashtags
(I had to look it up and I'm not that senior yet).
I think - hope - that separating the Message Selection options from the
Email Delivery options will make it easier for them as well.

It should be possible for them to select the Email Delivery option they want
and ignore the Message Selection features they don't need or wish to
understand. If All Messages is the default Message Selection then the
Delivery Options work just like Yahoo Groups.

-- Shal
Diana Gregory
 

On 1/17/2015 6:43 PM, Shal Farley wrote:
I think - hope - that separating the Message Selection options from the Email Delivery options will make it easier for them as well.
I am more than overwhelmed that Shal and I had the same basic vision of
this.

8-)

dg
Duane
 

One of the members on one of my groups had a problem this morning.  He has selected "No email", and I've verified the setting, but he's still getting all messages.  I would suspect that while Mark was making changes to the delivery options concerning Special Notices that a bug may have crept in.  BTW, I don't have this problem on my account.  I'll check with him again to see if it's still happening.


Duane
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