Hi - first time offering a suggestion, please be gentle.

I find myself wanting a little rw permission control in the files section of our group. File-level granularity would be great,
but I could probably live with folder/directory-level control. Has the question simply never come up, or is there a reason
for not implementing it?

Thanks.

Jonathan

I’ve requested/suggested the same thing in the past. It would make my life a lot easier. I’d like to allow group members to upload their own cats’ lab reports, but not touch our informational / educational files, etc.

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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 Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 02:13 PM, J_Catlady wrote:

I’d like to allow group members to upload their own cats’ lab reports, but not touch our informational / educational files, etc.

It seems like it basically works that way now, as long as you give permission for members to upload (and not just moderators/owners).  It's similar to Photos in that only the 'owner' of the file or a moderator can change it.

Duane

Thx, Duane, but I also don’t want anybody uploading any files except their cats’ lsbwork. 

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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

J_Catlady - we kind of addressed that in an equine group by making a subgroup where each member can make a folder for their own animal (horse) and upload labs and an indepth case history.  They're them required to set up a signature which incluides the link to their folder as there are several hundred folders.  I suppose you might not want them adding cute kitty photos, etc.; with the horses some photos are useful.

Patti in AZ

Great idea but I have always avoided subgroups. 🐱

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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

I've long been asking for the option of members being able to upload files but they need moderator approval before the files are visible to members. Would make life so very much easier for my main group.

Helen

On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 12:43 PM, Duane wrote:

It seems like it basically works that way now, as long as you give permission
for members to upload (and not just moderators/owners).  It's similar to
Photos in that only the 'owner' of the file or a moderator can change it.

Hmmm. Now you've got me thinking that the only problem is that I'm seeing a
problem where there's no problem. See, now that I'm a mod I've forgotten what
it's like to be a mere mortal and I'm assuming that the users have the ability to
modify files I've uploaded. What you're telling me is that they don't. So this
actually leads us to a different question.

All us grownups know of the evils of (logging in and) working as root, or of su'ing
and just going about one's daily business, so the good admins drill into us that we
should sudo instead, for an assortment of good reasons. Makes me wonder now
whether there should be a mod-do, or a way of operating as a normal user and only
stepping up to mod privileges when needed. Being shifted permanently from an
ordinary user to a mod is kind of inflexible. What if I want to return to normal
privileges to test stuff - is the only way to create a separate account?

On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 11:30 PM, jslcanuck wrote:

What if I want to return to normal
privileges to test stuff - is the only way to create a separate account?

This is a very common request with a relatively simple solution. Create another subscription to the group as a mere mortal using another account (email address). This becomes your test account. As you said, you have already considered that.

However, even better, create another test group specifically for playing around, again using multiple accounts with differing permissions to test out theories, etc. This has the advantage of not filling up the real group with test messages. Likewise, you can test out settings changes without fear of making a mess on the live group.

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Gerald

On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 07:58 PM, Gerald Boutin wrote:

This is a very common request with a relatively simple solution. Create another subscription

But the more recent requests include not having to go through the trouble of creating another subscription in order to see a non-moderator view of the group. I've had several non-mod accounts to view my groups for years, but rarely use them because I've actually got to go into those email addresses (which I barely remember the passwords for), etc. Would be much better to have a "view as non-moderator" feature.
 
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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 Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 06:16 AM, J_Catlady wrote:

I've actually got to go into those email addresses

More accurately, I've actually got to log into those accounts
 
--
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 Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 10:16 AM, J_Catlady wrote:

On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 07:58 PM, Gerald Boutin wrote:

This is a very common request with a relatively simple solution. Create another subscription

But the more recent requests include not having to go through the trouble of creating another subscription in order to see a non-moderator view of the group. I've had several non-mod accounts to view my groups for years, but rarely use them because I've actually got to go into those email addresses (which I barely remember the passwords for), etc. Would be much better to have a "view as non-moderator" feature.
 
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J

Presumably that also means you don't often need this feature. That is probably OK for someone with a lot of experience with the system. I also find that there are less and less occasions that I need to use the non-moderator account. The way I take advantage of the additional account is that I log in on another browser altogether. That way, I can have my cake and eat it too.
 
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Gerald

On Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 06:47 AM, Gerald Boutin wrote:

Presumably that also means you don't often need this feature.

That's a wrong conclusion. Plus it depends on what you mean by "need."
 
--
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

Hi,

On Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 02:31 PM, D R Stinson wrote:

I too often forget that the members see something different, and I'm not always certain what is different and what is not. I would suggest a prompt on the screen to indicate non-moderator mode when it's turned on.

Sadly it isn't quite that straightforward. Looking first at Files and Photos all moderators see the same thing, but what a member sees depends on whether or not the File or Photo (Album) is one they they themselves created or if it is one created by someone else. There is a further subdivision within Photo Albums because an album's creator can predetermine whether others can upload to the same album or not. (As an aside a moderator can change that anyway!)

This boils down to Moderator View / Member View not being "binary"; there are subtle  variations within Member View meaning that a toggle between the 2 states wouldn't work for the simple reason that there are more than two states.

Although strictly speaking this is outside the original query, what Moderator "A" sees in any given group may differ from what Moderator "B" sees in the same group. These differences are a function of the the greoup Owner has allocated to each of them as Moderator Permissions; the result is that 2 moderators in the same group trying to sort something out in the absence of the owner (who by definition has every permission, and knows what permissions he gave to each moderator) may struggle if their permissions are different; what each will see, and what each can actually do is not the same. As in the case above a toggle between Moderator View and Member View may not by definition provide a complete picture.

I think a step back from a specific request to Mark might be in order.

Chris

On Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 02:31 PM, D R Stinson wrote:

I too often forget that the members see something different, and I'm not always certain what is different and what is not. I would suggest a prompt on the screen to indicate non-moderator mode when it's turned on.

On Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 12:26 PM, D R Stinson wrote:

This boils down to Moderator View / Member View not being "binary";

Good point. Although I hate to model anything on FB, what about a "view as" feature, where you'd specify the member you're viewing as.
 
--
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 Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 08:26 PM, D R Stinson wrote:

They're not trying to be another member - in fact this simply needs to see what a basic unspecified member sees.

Rather than asking Mark to find a solution in software, I submit that your description brings us back to the idea of an owner / moderator having an "ordinary" subscription so that the different views can be determined "in house".

In any event I question whether there is any such thing as an "unspecified member"; in the "Files" example earlier would that be an unspecified member looking at a file they had uploaded, or a file someone else had uploaded? The two views would be different.

I am a member of a test group owned by a person well known on this group and GMF, but I don't think it would be appropriate for me to invite you to join it. But it is very useful, although to get the best from it one needs to have dual memberships; one as a moderator, the other as a member. OK, that involves some occasionally tedious work logging in and out but the outcome is worth it. A voyage of discovery...

Chris

They're not trying to be another member - in fact this simply needs to see what a basic unspecified member sees.

Rather than asking Mark to find a solution in software, I submit that your description brings us back to the idea of an owner / moderator having an "ordinary" subscription so that the different views can be determined "in house".

There are whole lot of niceties on groups.io that were evolved in from the very beginning of beta based on suggestions such as this. Mark has always seemed to want groups.io to be the best possible system for running groups, and that includes ease of operation for moderators. So users have offered a lot of their own ideas.

Remember that Mark is the one who will read all the input and make his own judgement on what he considers useful or frivolous. And he may see a possibility that makes things simpler in a different way. We don't make any decisions here on beta. Workarounds are worked out in GMF, but suggestions are offered here. That's what this string has been about - passing along an idea. Yes, there is a workaround for this, just like there's a workaround for a great many functions that have been built into groups.io, but this just might make some owners' and moderators' jobs here just a little easier. Not everyone who runs a group is a programmer. Some of us know enough to get through things, but we can see where a simple switch would save a lot of time and perhaps the loss of a thought as we work through the log in/log out process and then reverse it to come back to where we were.

Dano