On Sat, Sep 29, 2018 at 09:41 AM, Beth Weld wrote:

I guess I'm trying to get to task oriented "stuff" after someone joins the group - like "how to add a photo" or "how to reply to a topic (by email or website" or "where to find help"? or even "what are the different email delivery options and explain the features of each".? For moderators something like "how to add a subgroup" or "how to upload files" or even "how to create a folder".

Some of this is covered in the GMF wiki, /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki/home, so that might be a good starting place for ideas.? If you think the existing info is enough, you can send a link to the appropriate page since our wiki can be read by the public.? Adding more complete information or even new pages is encouraged.? In some cases, one page for owner/mods may be more technical and less detailed than a page for regular users, so separating them could be useful.

Duane
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Samuel, from my perspective, the only way to notify a list member who's been unsubbed, is to do that via a list mod's private email address, so you can have more assurance they'll actually get notified they've been unsubbed, since trying to get restored is time-sensitive (3-day window to use that Restore link, in the auto Restore Groups.io email).? For what it's worth, I have required all my list mods to check off in their list Subscription section, "Email when a member joins/leaves this group" option, so they get notified of list members unsubscribed due to marking a list message as spam.? If they get that notification, they are to send that list member an email from their private email address notifying them of this.? Here is the boilerplate language we us in that email:


This has worked pretty well for us.? We get maybe about a 50-75% response rate.? Some are able to make that 3-day window to restore themselves, others have to resubscribe.? Just a lot of work of list mods, that I really wish we didn't have to do.

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Patty S.

Ok, 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?

You're right.? All/most Groups.io message would continue to go into the Spam folder until that member told their email program/ISP Groups.io emails are NOT Spam (by going into their Spam folder, and marking any Groups.io emails as "Not Spam", restoring those emails to that person's Inbox.)?

No solution available via Groups.io.? I still hate this feature.? So the onus is on the List Mods/Owners to send private emails to those unsubbed list members as we're currently doing, to let them know they were unsubbed.? Why they were unsubbed, and how to restore themselves.? And, we also include how to manage their Junk/Spam folders moving forward (teaching "old dogs new tricks" sort of thing.)? I've gotten pushback from some of my list members about that last piece of advice.? Our reply to them is:? If you continue to just randomly empty your Junk/Spam folder without restoring authentic emails as "Not Spam", then you're going to be continually unsubbed from Groups.io, if there are emails from the same in your Junk/Spam folder.? Bad Form.? Not Best Practice.? And perhaps our list is not the best place for you, then.? Harsh, but if someone isn't willing to make a small change in how they manage their email, nothing we can do about that. ?
2!
And, for what it's worth, for my lists, the most common email service unsubbed folks use are in order:? @yahoo.com and @aol.com
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Patty S.

Thanks Frances,
The welcome letter is step one.

I guess I'm trying to get to task oriented "stuff" after someone joins the group - like "how to add a photo" or "how to reply to a topic (by email or website" or "where to find help"? or even "what are the different email delivery options and explain the features of each".? For moderators something like "how to add a subgroup" or "how to upload files" or even "how to create a folder".? I know that many of these seem simple, but if you have never done it or do it rarely then it isn't simple.

I guess I am hoping that others have run into this and created some help - I can't even think of what a new user might need to know since I've been working with GIO for months. Sometimes we tend to assume that new users can figure it out, and some can, but some can't.
Thanks again
Beth

On Fri, Sep 28, 2018 at 07:27 PM, Nancy Funk wrote:

I'd like to have the ability to restrict a database to only owners.

This may be the simplest answer to the issue. ?If when uploading a file/database there was an "Access" option so you could click Members, Moderators, or Owners then that file would only be visible to that level and above. ?With a default of Members, most would never have to deal with it. ?A bonus would be if the file/database owner, moderators, and group owners could go in and change the access?after it is downloaded, but not necessary.

Peace,
Tom

开云体育

I'm getting ready to move a group of mainly non-technical members to GIO, and before I try to develop some help documentation, I thought I would ask what others have done.? I'm sure that some of you have great letters/files/wiki/whatever that work for your groups, and I would love to use what works instead of creating something new that may or may not work.

In fact I wondered if we might set up something in GMF to store examples of what moderators have already developed so that new moderators have something to start with.? It is just an idea for the future that I would be happy to help with.?

In the meantime, does anyone have examples of how we tell a new user what GIO is all about and how to navigate both the website and email (including the infamous spam issue)?? ?Also, I am going to have a number of moderators that need to know how to do various tasks for the group and subgroups so I would love to provide very simple, step by step instructions.

Thanks for your help
Beth

On 2018/09/28 09:31 PM, Shal Farley wrote:

Samuel wrote:

When the victim gets unsubscribed, he should be informed in a
compassionate (possibly apologetic) way, and told how to undo the bad
thing that had happened to him.

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.

Oh, okay.

Well, my opinion (which I think is shared by some others here) is that "informing the member" should be a two-pronged approach: send them a message with re-activation instructions (for in case that message does not end up in the spam box) and inform the moderator (for in case the message does end up in the spam box or in case the user simply did not see the re-activation message or did not realise that it requires his urgent attention). Each moderator can decide how to deal with it --
whether to try to educate the user or simply hold his hand.

Since some users also use the web interface, an idea might be to put up a large notification there informing the user that there is something about his subscription that requires attention. For this to work, the user would have to be suspended, not unsubscribed.

I'm not sure what people generally think a group moderator's job is, but on my Yahoogroups I consider it part of the moderator's job to help users troubleshoot subscription issues. Many/most users are able to use the automated systems and many users are able to learn how to use them after reading prepared guides/FAQs, but a moderator has a job anyway and that job includes dealing with subscription problems.

[[Anything that makes the moderator's job easier, is welcome. By this I mean notifications about events such as users bouncing or going no-mail or attempting to subscribe or attempting to unsubscribe or having been suspended due to a spam report. If a moderator does not want to receive so many notifications via e-mail, he can opt out of them, but it would be nice if those notifications would remain on the web site to consult at any time anyway.

My own experience when trying to get a member to resubscribed is that I'm often in the dark as to what the member has actually done so far. He may claim to have done X but he may have actually done something else and simply believes that he had done X. Yahoogroups doesn't tell me when a user tried to subscribe -- only when a user had successfully confirmed that he wanted to subscribe. Nor does Yahoogroups tell me from which e-mail address the user tried to subscribe, and to which e-mail address the confirmation message was sent. Knowing all of these things would have made my life so much easier in the past.

But this may be a topic for a different discussion.]]

Samuel

Gerald,

Do we know any spammers? What do they do?

[voice="Nomad"] Non-sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated. [/voice]

"The Changeling", Star Trek TOS.



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Do we know any spammers? What do they do? They make a living by minimizing being flagged as spammers.

By spammers, I am not (necessarily) referring to the really nefarious ones.

For example, it is very common practice on commercial websites that are trying to sell a product or service to require your contact information in order to obtain access to free services and information. The welcome email always seems to include the "please add our email address to your white-list". Note that this is done up front before they start spamming me.

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Gerald

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.

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 (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.

The 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 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.
... and you serve up some list member education.

Ok, 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 their
email program and/or ISP that messages from Groups.io are spam. That
has been my experience.

Well, 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 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.

I 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



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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.?

On 9/28/2018 2:21 PM, Tom Link via Groups.Io wrote:

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.

Amen!
Cacky

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 only have a sample of one. In the exactly one case of one of my group members (outside of GMF) being unsubbed for spam, that member resumed his subscription on his own without prompting from me. He's in the 60+ age group, but I don't know what his level of computer skill is. So a blanket statement that it is ineffective doesn't jive with my limited experience.

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.



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Patty S.

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
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On Sep 28, 2018, at 3:54 PM, Bruce Bowman <bruce.bowman@...> wrote:

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.

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...

Thanks so very much everyone.
You are wonderful!!
I will read up and give it a go.? It sounds like it will be the best option for us.
Wish me luck

Humbly yours,
Pamela

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Received from Ellen at 9/28/2018 02:15 AM UTC:

I agree with that too. I have limited funds, but could put together a donation now and again. But I don't want the look of my group to change in any way.
A donation tab would be the perfect answer.
Ellen

Another thought occurred to me. If we were to start donating by upgrading for a month then Mark's ability to project future income is lessened because he wouldn't know who would be cancelling next month vs continuing for a year or more. A donation tab should at least marginally improve the ability to plan financially.

Jim H