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Re: How best to educate about the 'Removed for SPAM' problem
Gerald,
Do we know any spammers? What do they do?[voice="Nomad"] Non-sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated. [/voice] "The Changeling", Star Trek TOS. -- Help: /static/help More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list |
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Re: How best to educate about the 'Removed for SPAM' problem
We agree that it is desirable for subscribers/members not to become unexpected unsubscribed and for Groups.io's reputation to improve. The differences on how to achieve this are either philosophical or just a cost/benefit analysis.
One view is for Groups.io to enlighten users to reduce/eliminate mis-marked messages as Spam, to prevent involuntary un-subscriptions. This requires Groups.io to do more upfront to protect and improve its reputation, keep users, and grow positively. The other view is that users after being involuntary un-subscribed will return and learn to not mis-mark messages as Spam if they and/or Groups.io owners try hard enough. This requires Groups.io to do nothing different, suffering diminished reputation and losing users in the short run; but that the retained users will reduce/eliminate mis-marked messages as Spam, thus redeeming and improving its reputation in the long run with less effort. |
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Re: How best to educate about the 'Removed for SPAM' problem
Patty,
Don't understand how I have the cart before the horse, here.Very simple. You gave as part of your criticism of the FBL mechanism that the people removed weren't spammers, they were members. You said it twice, so I took that to be a serious part of you complaint. But that is completely backwards. No one said those people sent spam. We may be wrangling with semantics, here, but the end result (whetherThe semantics are important though. To figure out how to improve the situation we really need to understand what is actually happening and why. Nope, not at all. Especially if an auto notice is sent to a anOk, but your thesis is that many times the members don't receive (or don't notice) the resume notice. How does Groups.io "serve up" some list member education without it also ending up in spam? There probably is no single answer to that. A banner on the web pages (such as is done for members on Bounce status) will help some, but many others never visit the site. One of the advantages of moderator intervention is that they often are in the best position to contact the member by an alternate channel. I hate to say this, but is applies: NOT MY JOB. This is Mark's job.That's fine, but this (GMF) isn't my job either. We volunteer to help each other out, and to help improve the product, hoping for the day that it is profitable enough for Mark to hire employee #2, #3, #4, ... Until then we have primarily the resources of each other to work with, just as our group members have us. And, of course, it's going to go there, as they've just told theirWell, it is true I can't say whether my member's notice went to his spam folder or not. My only evidence is that he found and used it. I don't think this has anything to do directly with the age of theI agree, it is primarily an artifact of the email service's policies. Which is why my "impertinent" response is to tell people to pick a service that works better with email lists. It is interesting, but probably not strange, that it is for the most part the same email services who cause this problem that also muck up deliverability of list messages by marking them for rejection with DMARC. Lastly, thanks for letting me vent.Not a problem. I'm sure your thoughts are mirrored by many others who haven't taken the time to write about it. Shal -- Help: /static/help More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list |
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Re: Hiding files from other than moderators
#question
I'd like to have the ability to restrict a database to only owners. Right now we use google docs to keep our main member database. That database has information that we would only want the highest officers in our group to have access to. We have moderators for that don't need access to all that info but need to have moderator abilities.?
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Re: How best to educate about the 'Removed for SPAM' problem
You still seem to have the cart before the horse: Don't understand how I have the cart before the horse, here.? We may be wrangling with semantics, here, but the end result (whether we say the action is telling groups.io the list member doesn't want the message, or, the list member is marked as a spammer, whatever), the list member in the end is ruthlessly unsubscribed. ? I find this action excessive, extremely unusual, and frankly off-putting to those who are understandably unfamiliar with this severe action.? It just doesn't happen on any other forum or chat list I am aware of.? So, my list members are shocked when it does.? Poor customer service in my mind that can be much better managed by my suggestion of putting list members in "suspension".? This I disagree with. If the member doesn't figure it out it then it doesn't get resolved. I'm reasonably certain that's why Mark hasn't relented on the existing policy.Nope, not at all.? Especially if an auto notice is sent to a an unsuspended list member that they were restored by their list mod, and their suspension was due to marking a Groups.io list message as spam.? This is easy peasy to set up, coding-wise.? You solve all problems here:? You stop putting off list members by the severe unsub action, you make it easy peasy for list mods to restore someone, and you serve up some list member education.? I think this is a much better option. We (GMF) have an opportunity to have an impact on the help pages. Mark has proven receptive to adopting sections of our Mock-up into the official help. All it takes is someone with the skill, time and gumption to write it. Admittedly, all three are in short supply...I hate to say this, but is applies:? NOT MY JOB.? This is Mark's job.? This is his product.? Many are paying for the product.? Provide a high quality product, and that should be created by the owner of the product.? Sorry, Shal, but if I were to sell a product, I would not ask for my customers to spend their time developing it, themselves. Providing feedback, sure.? Writing the Help files?? That's Mark's job.? You know I love you to pieces, and you are our stalwart Groups Managers List Mod/Owner, with the patience of Job, but this is preposterous in my mind.? Make your product good. Make it better.? Make it outstanding.? YOU need to make it, not your customers. Oy.? 4.? Sending the resubscription email is ineffective at best, worthless at it's worst.? Why?? Because guess where it goes, now??? To the unsubscribed person's Junk/Spam folder.
I have had multiple list members reply to our private emails that we send, when we get the auto notice a list member was unsubbed due to marking a message as spam.? We warn them to look in their Spam folder as well as their Inbox for the auto restore message from Groups.io.? We've gotten several "thank you's" from list members to tell them to look in their Spam folder, as that's exactly where the auto restore message went.? Hence why I mentioned it.? It has happened frequently with my unsubbed members.? And, of course, it's going to go there, as they've just told their email program and/or ISP that messages from Groups.io are spam.? That has been my experience.? I don't think this has anything to do directly with the age of the list member, but more to do with how email programs/ISP's respond to this action.? Some are Johnny on the spot to blacklist Groups.io, others not so much. Lastly, thanks for letting me vent.? Again.? I hate this function of Groups.io if you can't tell.? I love just about everything else about Groups.io, which is why I left Yahoo Groups, and moved my two large lists over.? I loved Yahoo Groups original structure, and when I found that Mark was the originator of Yahoo Groups, that bolstered my decision.? There are a few bells and whistles I'd like to see added, such as being able to individually set your Sort function for Photos, Files, LInks, etc., add the ability to add Comments for photos, add a Photo enlarge option, so you can click on a photo and it will enlarge, but those are minor things.? This unsub function really needs to be modified.? It is such a pain, and I think it creates bad will with Groups.io members.? My 2 cents, and I promise I'll stop griping about it, said my piece. -- Patty S. |
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Re: How best to educate about the 'Removed for SPAM' problem
On Fri, Sep 28, 2018 at 08:10 PM, Michael Pavan wrote:
It would be great if Parents could take care of every problem of their Children, but most people realize Professional help is more effective and efficient for some things...There is no groups.io staff to do what you want. I would rather have Mark doing technical things than documentation things. We in GMF can do the latter...if we're willing to. I hire others to do things that I'm not competent to do. I consider myself competent as a group owner. It comes down to that. Bruce -- The system Help is your friend.??/static/help |
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Re: How best to educate about the 'Removed for SPAM' problem
On Sep 28, 2018, at 3:54 PM, Bruce Bowman <bruce.bowman@...> wrote:This points out that some subscribers/members recognize that it is easier to unsubscribe by mis-marking Groups.io messages as SPAM, than to find and go through the unsubscribe process of requesting and confirming Un-Subscription. It should be easier to find and use the 'unsubscribe process' than to ¡®mark a message as Spam¡¯. I was suggesting that there should be an additional ¡®confirm this is Spam¡¯ step which includes the warning that this also includes an automatic ¡®unsubscribe me¡¯ command. As long as the ¡®unsubscribe process¡¯ has a equal number or more steps than the ¡®mark it as Spam¡¯ process, users are encouraged to mis-mark messages as Spam, which also makes Groups.io look more like a Spam source. The FBL mechanism has the unintended consequence of unsubscribing them and making Groups.io look bad, because Email Providers also mark messages as Spam without their clients (our subscribers/members) knowing - not to mention the frustration it also causes group owners. So the question is: Do we really want groups.io to ignore such requests, at the cost of possibly being labeled a spammer site? Think really hard about that.I think the question is how to inform users how to unsubscribe AND what is Spam, that their Email Providers may be mis-marking messages to them as Spam, and what it means when a message is marked as Spam. Back in late February, Norton Internet Security blocked the entire groups.io domain. AVG soon followed. You can read all about it here. The problem persisted for nearly a week. I had moved my group(s) a little over a week prior to that. I had a very difficult time convincing everyone that we hadn't just made a horrible mistake. Compared to that, an occasional "false alarm" strikes me as a minor inconvenience.Better education = less ignorance = less ¡°false alarms¡±. Assuming we are in agreement to this point (and I suspect we're still far from unanimous), anything we can do to educate our subscribers is helpful.Agreed, but I favor prevention over repairs. Some good tools are already available, if not well-known.Unknown tools are rarely used. Perhaps the unsub notification sent to the subscriber could include a link to the GMF wiki entry, or its equivalent in the system Help (/static/help#fbl). I could support that as a suggestion in beta.This is still 'putting the horse behind the cart¡¯. Success requires reducing and eliminating unwanted un-subscriptions. I do agree that a more effective unsub notification should remain as a ¡®last line of defense¡¯. However, as group owners, we should know our subscribers. We should know if the wiki entry needs to be beefed up or dumbed down for the people in our respective groups.I not convinced that 1000s of wiki rewrites are the best answer - if multiple versions of the same information is required, perhaps user selected menu options should be included for "beefed up or dumbed down¡± language. Again professionally written information seems more likely to effectively communicate than many amateur notes. I recognize that this would cost money. Not to scare anyone away by suggesting 'opening Pandora¡¯s Box', but Mark¡¯s recent survey asked what would you be willing to pay for. I have 11 groups, all under 100 members, I¡¯d be willing to pay something nominal - maybe a penny a member a month (to a maximum of $5 or $10) - for no additional features, but to rewrite information, better organization, and eliminate ambiguities of terms e.g. subscriber (email only) vs member (web access) users. Would it be worthwhile for Groups.io to collect these small fees? I pay Apple 99 cents/month for additional cloud storage... We should know how prevalent the problem really is in each group, and take action accordingly. We, individually, should take ownership of this and other things, to make everything as smooth as possible for our members. That is the job we signed up for.It would be great if Parents could take care of every problem of their Children, but most people realize Professional help is more effective and efficient for some things... |
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Re: pay for group
Jim, Another thought occurred to me. If we were to start donating by upgrading for ? One can choose the group transfer plan (Premium for one month). It doesn't include an automatic renewal each month so Mark can plan on this being a one-time donation. A donation tab should at least marginally improve the ability to plan ? Another thing it would do, presumably, would be provide flexibility in the donation amount. -- Help: /static/help More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list |
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Re: How best to educate about the 'Removed for SPAM' problem
On Fri, Sep 28, 2018 at 01:32 PM, Shal Farley wrote:
For this purpose it doesn't matter whether the message is or is not "spam" by any given criteria. All that matters is that this person didn't want it. A statement that carries the express or implied "so stop sending messages like it".I have had some of my subscribers actively do this. They decided that they really didn't want any more group messages. Rather than bother figuring out how to unsub, a message was marked as spam, and they were unsubbed. I did my usual follow-up, and was surprised to find that they really didn't want to be added back. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that sometimes the FBL mechanism works exactly the way it's supposed to. So the question is: Do we really want groups.io to ignore such requests, at the cost of possibly being labeled a spammer site??Think really hard about that. Back in late February, Norton Internet Security blocked the entire groups.io domain. AVG soon followed. You can read all about it . The problem persisted for nearly a week. I had moved my group(s) a little over a week prior to that. I had a very difficult time convincing everyone that we hadn't just made a horrible mistake. Compared to that, an occasional "false alarm" strikes me as a minor inconvenience.? Assuming we are in agreement to this point (and I suspect we're still far from unanimous), anything we can do to educate our subscribers is helpful. Some good tools are already available, if not well-known. Perhaps the unsub notification sent to the subscriber could include a link to the GMF wiki entry, or its equivalent in the system Help (/static/help#fbl). I could support that as a suggestion in beta. However, as group owners, we should know our subscribers. We should know if the wiki entry needs to be beefed up or dumbed down for the people in our respective groups. We should know how prevalent the problem really is in each group, and take action accordingly.?We, individually, should take ownership of this and other things, to make everything as smooth as possible for our members. That is the job we signed up for. Just my opinions, Bruce -- The system Help is your friend.??/static/help |
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Re: How best to educate about the 'Removed for SPAM' problem
Samuel, I think the best way to "educate" users about a problem such as this one I certainly agree with that, it is what Groups.io already attempts to do. When the victim gets unsubscribed, he should be informed in a That speaks directly to to Patty's issue. In her experience that information doesn't reach the member even though emailed direct to the member by Groups.io. So one of the questions we're struggling with is how and when to inform the member. Shal -- Help: /static/help More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list |
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Re: members being removed
I think perhaps the mail providers have become more aggressive classifying emails as spam. Today I started seeing replies to an email chain where I did not receive the first message, even though I was clearly in the to: list. When I logged into the online email (spectrum) I found three emails from the same person in my spam folder. We had emailed back and forth many times in the past so I have no idea what triggered it. And the replies from the other to: folks (that had simply replied all) were not classified as spam, even though the topic was now Re: <original topic> .
So then I decided to review my yahoo email spam. Sure enough there were several that should not have been spam, including a "Welcome" message from another group here at groups.io. But funnier still, although Yahoo marked the welcome message as spam, I received a half dozen other messages from the same group without problems. It sounds complicated, but EVERYONE should be checking their email account for email incorrectly marked as spam. It doesn't just affect groups.io. This is far more pervasive. |
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Re: How best to educate about the 'Removed for SPAM' problem
Michael, My ¡®opt-out¡¯ button suggestion is to opt-out of receiving the regular? Special Notices reminders of ¡°How and Why not to get 'Removed for SPAM¡¯" - it would not be mandatory to choose not to receive these reminders, or even acknowledge receipt of them in any fashion. Ah, that's better than what I thought you meant. Still, I'm concerned that those messages would themselves be perceived (and even marked) as spam, because people who receive such boilerplate tend to do that, even the first time. Perhaps this could be a better Industry standard operating procedure to fight SPAM?¡ [I'm not holding my breathe on this] There is out there for (what looks like) a better standard: One-Click Unsubscribe. But I still wouldn't hold my breath for widespread adoption by email services. Or perhaps more to the point, it won't necessarily replace FBLs, just (hopefully) make them less used for the purpose of unsubscribing. However, those email services that cause trouble by using their own filters to instigate FBL reports will likely continue to do so. Shal -- Help: /static/help More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list |
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Re: How best to educate about the 'Removed for SPAM' problem
Patty, Okay, for fear of getting stomped on, again, since I've been a vocal proponent of changing this function on Groups.io, here is my experience with my large groups: You still seem to have the cart before the horse:
When the email service sends a report to Groups.io, they are not saying "this person is a spammer". They are saying "this person doesn't want the messages you are sending". Let that sink in.
For this purpose it doesn't matter whether the message is or is not
"spam" by any given criteria. All that matters is that this person
didn't want it. A statement that carries the express or implied "so stop sending
messages like it".
Another aspect of the problem is that many sources of advice have for years confounded marking something as spam with unsubscribing. Including the email services themselves. Yahoo Mail, for example, says:
o Unsubscribe from mailing lists
At the bottom of any subscription based email there is an option to unsubscribe. If you're not sure the email is legit, mark it as spam. 3.? The general Groups.io Help files would be the most logical place for subscribers/members to go, to find out about Groups.io.? There should be a very robust explanation of why this policy is in place, how it can happen, and how to fix your membership, if you are unsubscribed due to marking a Groups.io message as spam.? In detail.? With photos, and in non-technical language.? We (GMF) have an opportunity to have an impact on the help pages. Mark has proven receptive to adopting sections of our Mock-up into the official help. All it takes is someone with the skill, time and gumption to write it. Admittedly, all three are in short supply... 4.? Sending the resubscription email is ineffective at best, worthless at it's worst.? Why?? Because guess where it goes, now??? To the unsubscribed person's Junk/Spam folder. ... it's possible that the unsubbed list member will miss out on that 3 day window they have, to restore themselves.? That window should be set to 7 days. That seems reasonable to me, even 10 days. I suspect there are many group members who don't pay much attention to personal email during the work week, or vice-versa. Suggest it on beta and see if Mark agrees. Instead of completely unsubbing a list member for inadvertently marking a message as Spam (or WORSE, they didn't do ANYTHING, but their ISP/email service decided to do that for them), don't unsub them.? Suspend them and place them in a Suspension list.? That's been discussed in beta, I've advocated for it. I think it needs the additional feature that after some reasonable time (a year, say) in suspension the subscription should ultimately be removed. Because sometimes marking a message as spam was intended by the member as an unsubscribe. But, let the list mods be able to restore someone, This I disagree with. If the member doesn't figure it out it then it doesn't get resolved. I'm reasonably certain that's why Mark hasn't relented on the existing policy. Shal -- Help: /static/help More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list |
Shal Farley
Michael Pavan
Nancy Funk
Patty Sliney
Bruce
Tom Link