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locked Roadmap

Mark Fletcher
 

Perhaps it'd be useful to share and talk about the feature roadmap for Groups.io, especially in light of the recent conversation. Here's what I've been thinking, please let me know your thoughts.

- Calendar/Events with reminders
- Event signups, a la signupgenius.com
- Event scheduling, a la doodle.com
- General purpose polls
- Photo section
- Links and/or wiki (I'm leaning towards a wiki over a links section, but could be talked out of it)

Of course, the top priority is always bug fixing and making the site easier to use. Also, thinking of ways to increase engagement (i.e. getting people to come to Groups.io and use it). So, the recent conversations have been quite helpful.

Am I missing a killer feature? Would you order things differently?

Thanks,
Mark
Linda
 

Hi Mark,

The top priorities for my groups are Scheduled Files and a Links Library.

Thanks,
Linda 
Shal Farley
 

Mark,

- Calendar/Events with reminders
I'll agree with this one on top. Reminders are useful in most of my types of groups.

Assuming the existence of general Files storage (not on your list), if a reminder can have attached files that might check off the "scheduled files" feature in a more natural and more flexible way than Yahoo Groups' mechanism.

- Photo section
I might put photos ahead of polls. I had long hoped that Yahoo Groups would integrate their Photos section with Flickr in some slick way, allowing me to present photos from my Flickr stream in a group album without having to upload it separately. Perhaps even creating an automatic linkage of some kind between a set on Flickr and an Album in a group.

- Links and/or wiki (I'm leaning towards a wiki over a links section,
but could be talked out of it)
I'd definitely choose a wiki over a links collection, if I had to choose. I long ago suggested a wiki as a feature Yahoo Groups should have. And then started using pbwiki because they didn't.

Even though one can manage a links list within a wiki, that is a bit of an artifice and won't satisfy all users (or use cases). But maybe if the wiki has a sortable table as a formatting element it would.

-- Shal
whofanvidme
 

Here's my idea for an improved links section layout. I was going to
post it to the Yahoo! suggestion board, but I suspect it would gain
more traction here.

Back when Yahoo! Groups was created, people tended to only have a
basic web presence. These days, they're just as likely to have
multiple links for twitter, facebook, pinterest, youtube, etc. This
leads to problems when trying to generate a usable links section. Do
you create separate folders for each platform, forcing members to
constantly switch, or create a lot of redundant entries in the main
folder for people to plow through?

One solution would be to allow for several links to appear within a
single entry. It could have a main entry, the text of which would form
the basis of its alphabetical listing, and sub-links which would
automatically translate themselves into icons for things like facebook
and twitter. These would then appear as clickable icons next to the
main entry and, possibly, in text form at the bottom of the entry.

Main Link (facebook)(twitter)(pinterest)(YouTube), etc.

Another idea would be to make Main Link a text-only descriptor,
instead of a clickable link.
Jim Fisher
 

The requirements in relation to structuring links will vary enormously from one
group to another. I would suggest simple links with associated (limited)
explanatory text, but with the addition of an owner/moderator-defined structure
along the lines of Yahoo's hierarchy of photo albums. Groups with limited need
for just a few links (like my own on Yahoo) would then not need any
structuring, but it would be available for others who need it.

Remember that links are not necessarily to sites (or sub-sites like blogs and
other social media) operated by members, but can be any site related to the
group's objects.

I think it would be a mistake not to make links clickable - that would just
make them more difficult to use, with no obvious benefit.

Jim Fisher

On 1 Nov 2014 at 1:11, whofanvidme@zoho.com wrote:

Here's my idea for an improved links section layout. I was going to
post it to the Yahoo! suggestion board, but I suspect it would gain
more traction here.
Back when Yahoo! Groups was created, people tended to only have a
basic web presence. These days, they're just as likely to have
multiple links for twitter, facebook, pinterest, youtube, etc. This
leads to problems when trying to generate a usable links section. Do
you create separate folders for each platform, forcing members to
constantly switch, or create a lot of redundant entries in the main
folder for people to plow through?
One solution would be to allow for several links to appear within a
single entry. It could have a main entry, the text of which would form
the basis of its alphabetical listing, and sub-links which would
automatically translate themselves into icons for things like facebook
and twitter. These would then appear as clickable icons next to the
main entry and, possibly, in text form at the bottom of the entry.
Main Link (facebook)(twitter)(pinterest)(YouTube), etc.
Another idea would be to make Main Link a text-only descriptor,
instead of a clickable link.


--
http://www.jimella.me.uk - my personal web site covering many subjects
http://jimellame.tumblr.com - My thoughts on freedom
http://jimella.wordpress.com - political snippets, especially economic policy
http://jimella.livejournal.com - misc. snippets, some political, some not
Forget Google! I search with https://duckduckgo.com which doesn't spy on you
Shal Farley
 

whofanvidme,

One solution would be to allow for several links to appear within a
single entry. It could have a main entry, the text of which would form
the basis of its alphabetical listing, and sub-links which would
automatically translate themselves into icons for things like facebook
and twitter.
Having each link entry consist of a description text plus an expandable list of links is not a bad idea. It neatly handles the case of a few related links without having to go to the formality of making a folder and putting the related links inside.

Another way to achieve this would be to allow the link description text to be rich text. Then users could put sub-links into the description, as text or as images, with no additional structure needed. Or less ambitiously, auto-linkify any URLs written into a plain-text description.

-- Shal
Chris Leong
 

I think when deciding what features to add that it might be worth considering inconvenient it will be for people to emulate those features if you don't provide them.

For most of those features, the disadvantages are that you need to make an extra click and that you need to log in. One way to make external tools easier to use would be to allow people to add extra links in the sidebar.

Photos/Wiki being external is less of a pain than other features because people will most often just want to view the content and hence don't need to log in. However, with polls, people will typically be responding.

With some of these features, you may be able to integrate in a third party tool, rather than writing it yourself. Since this would be so much quicker, these integrations might deserve a higher priority.
Shal Farley
 

Chris,

Photos/Wiki being external is less of a pain than other features because
people will most often just want to view the content and hence don't
need to log in.
That depends strongly on the nature of the group and its members. In many cases access control is a key component of using the feature - just as with the message archives.
People don't necessarily want to share their photos with the world, or their comments on those photos.

-- Shal
Chris Leong
 

Good point. Although initially, a service that utilises private URLs might be sufficient. It depends heavily on the nature of the groups though.
Shal Farley
 

Chris,

Although initially, a service that utilises private URLs might be sufficient.
Like Flickr's Guest Pass? Yes, that could work.

Then the trick would be to let the "integration" display the referenced photo(s) in a natural way for the members, rather than them having to click through to the photo sharing site. A large step better than putting private URLs in a Links list.

-- Shal
Shal Farley
 

Mark,

Am I missing a killer feature?
I don't think it is "killer", but I was just looking at my company's Wordpress stats page and that reminded me that some "hit stats" for various group resources was a perennial request in the Yahoo Groups suggestion board.

-- Shal
http://curiouser.cheshireeng.com/
Jim Fisher
 

Would the count be confined to "real" hits, or would it include visits by
search engine spiders? Is there any way to distinguish them? I'm fairly sure
the counts on my personal web site pages must include spiders for them to be so
high in some cases.

Jim Fisher

On 5 Nov 2014 at 14:56, Shal Farley wrote:

Mark,

> Am I missing a killer feature?

I don't think it is "killer", but I was just looking at my company's
Wordpress stats page and that reminded me that some "hit stats" for
various group resources was a perennial request in the Yahoo Groups
suggestion board.

-- Shal
http://curiouser.cheshireeng.com/
--
http://www.jimella.me.uk - my personal web site covering many subjects
http://jimellame.tumblr.com - My thoughts on freedom
http://jimella.wordpress.com - political snippets, especially economic policy
http://jimella.livejournal.com - misc. snippets, some political, some not
Forget Google! I search with https://duckduckgo.com which doesn't spy on you
Shal Farley
 

Jim,

Would the count be confined to "real" hits, or would it include visits
by search engine spiders?
Ideally "real" hits, I would think.

Is there any way to distinguish them?
Beyond my knowledge. As I understand it there are rules spiders are supposed to follow, but perhaps not all do.

-- Shal
Jim Fisher
 

Thanks Shal. I must do some research to find out what the rules are, and then
try to adjust the hit counters on my site accordingly.

Jim

On 6 Nov 2014 at 19:10, Shal Farley wrote:

Jim,

Would the count be confined to "real" hits, or would it include visits
by search engine spiders?
Ideally "real" hits, I would think.

Is there any way to distinguish them?
Beyond my knowledge. As I understand it there are rules spiders are supposed to
follow, but perhaps not all do.

-- Shal
--
http://www.jimella.me.uk - my personal web site covering many subjects
http://jimellame.tumblr.com - My thoughts on freedom
http://jimella.wordpress.com - political snippets, especially economic policy
http://jimella.livejournal.com - misc. snippets, some political, some not
Forget Google! I search with https://duckduckgo.com which doesn't spy on you
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