开云体育

Received from Shal Farley at 10/31/2018 08:19 AM UTC:

Jim,

But a bit of research shows that with cookies deleted, visiting a Gio group that requires subscribership to read DOES take you to a login screen, while visiting a group that doesn't require subscribership to read does NOT take you to a login screen.

Ah, so that's the missing factor.

Yep. I trusted what you were saying, but I also knew what I saw. So I brainstormed possible causes for not seeing what you said I should (a logon screen). That lead me to test several combinations involving visiting my three groups with a good cookie and with a deleted cookie... to find that the group setting involving making the archives public makes a difference in what one sees when the cookie is expired. And it makes the same difference for the group owner (me) as it does for a subscriber.

Now the confusion makes more sense to me. Kind of ironic, given that GMF has public archives - but most of the time I'm going on site it is to access the Pending list. Which I do either through a link in the notice or by clicking on a pinned tab in my browser (which is almost always open to GMF's Pending list).

Given the cause, I don't see a 100% cure for this problem.

I don't know if it is readily possible for the page you land on to determine that you were previously at a page while logged in, and then put up the kind of banner Bruce suggested. I wouldn't want it to be there for people who are just visiting (were not previously logged in).
/g/GroupManagersForum/message/12579

A banner for ALL non-logged-in visitors might be more acceptable if it said something more than "YOU ARE NOT LOGGED IN." Perhaps, "YOU ARE UNABLE TO ACCESS ALL FEATURES OF THIS GROUP BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT LOGGED IN" would serve to create awareness in a subscriber without creating confusion in a visitor who didn't expect full access because he knows he's not logged in as a subscriber (or at least knows after reading the banner). It won't help the subscriber who is treated as a visitor because he isn't logged in... and subsequently tries to log in with the wrong email address.

Bottom line? We can't eliminate ALL (as in 100.0000%) confusion, but I do think the confusion caused by expiring cookies can be reduced.

How about an option to "Remain permanently logged in?" Those choosing it would get a cookie that never expires. ("Never" probably being Jan 2039.)

Jim H