Group Managers Forum subscription reminder #admin

When:
Sunday, 1 November 2020

Description:

This is your monthly subscription reminder for the Group Managers Forum. We are glad you joined our group.

• Our GMF Group's web resources are open and public. Our Messages archives and Wiki are viewable and searchable by non-members. GMF message archives are indexed by major search engines. Unfortunately, due to Groups.io restrictions, you must be a member of GMF and logged in to access our Files and Photos sections.

• We expect members to post and act responsibly. Please respect your fellow members' time and attention: strive to be clear, concise and courteous. Our subject matter naturally includes matters of opinion; if you happen to disagree with another member please do so without being rude. Personal attacks are not allowed. Solicitations are off topic and will be deleted without comment. Listing your groups in your signature is perfectly acceptable, but just make sure there's also on-topic content in your post.

• Attachments are allowed and the judicious use of screen shots and other illustrations is encouraged!

• All messages sent to GMF are moderated. This is done to avoid malicious attachments, spam, off-topic messages, and messages from spoofed or compromised mail accounts. Despite these measures, be aware that the bad guys are clever so there's no guarantee that we'll always succeed; you are encouraged to be vigilant against any and all threats arriving via email. Your GMF moderators make no guarantees regarding the safety of emails arriving from this or any other Groups.io address.

• We are always looking for suggestions from our members to make this group better for all. Feel free to address any questions, comments, or concerns directly to the group moderators via email to [email protected].

GMF Mission Statement:

We strive to be a resource of the highest quality for owners and moderators of Groups.io groups. We allow as much information as possible from our group to be accessed by visitors! Would you like to be a better Groups.io group owner and/or moderator? Would you like to see even more improvements in Groups.io groups? We discuss our experiences as both group owners and moderators, share ideas for promoting and customizing the content areas, and offer various techniques for managing groups.

To send a message to the members of this group, simply send email to [email protected].

GMF is at times very busy. To substantially cut down on the email clutter see Subscription Options. In particular, Following Only, First Message Also, and Auto Follow Replies work well together to focus only on topics of interest to you.

If you do not wish to belong to GroupManagersForum you may unsubscribe by using the link in the footer of this (or any) message, or by sending an email to [email protected].

To see all of your group subscriptions, go to .

We thank you for your interest and for your contributions.

Shal, Founder & Owner
David, Owner
Duane, Owner
Bruce, Moderator
Frances, Moderator
Latest revision: 2018-10-31

1)? Why not post on the still-existing-as-email-thing-yahoo-group, inviting anyone interested to join the new groups.io group?

Message traffic on many, many yahoo groups significantly went down after yahoo started unevenly rolling out the neo junk, which nit different people/different groups at widely different times (some groups we knew, it hit like a year after other groups we knew!).? Many people left yahoo groups or just stopped participating.?
And with time, some folks are no longer interested in whatever the group topics/focus is.

So -- it seems to me, you'd be quite OK to ask people, want to join this new group?? here's the link --

2)? Seems to me, archived messages of the original yahoo group, which you are not the owner of, sounds like you're not a moderator either, is a different topic --
some people would probably NOT want their messages copied to a group that wasn't run by the original/current owners -- so that's something to figure out I think.? Others here probably have experience around this.

When groups.io was getting the 2 waves of deluges of transfers, I had been poking a number of yahoo group owners, c'mon, you need to transfer your group!? even if you only use that as a backup!? So sometimes you can convince a not-very-involved-anymore owner, to initiate a transfer, with the idea that that conserves the old group --

of course these days, transferring is conserving the membership list, the yahoo archives/files/etc. are gone.

If you have made copies of some of the archives, the only way I know to put them into group.io group, is to paste them into their own messages.? (Others are more familiar with groups.io in general!).

and of course, then it's different if OTHER people will be the people running that new group!

Teresa,

From your description, I would say groups prone to those issues should get
3rd party 'owners', people who have no connection to the goals of the group.
They just focus on making the features of the group available. Again this
sounds very much like the building owner. Under most conditions the owner
has little to do with the group. Final arbiter between moderators might be
the most an owner needs to do.

-Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
www.jmri.org
www.fingerlakeslivesteamers.org
www.cnymod.org
www.syracusemodelrr.org

On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 09:32 PM, TeresaQ wrote:

I would prefer to make all members "owners".?

You might prefer it, but please don't. If you had a disagreement with another member, their being another owner would allow them to demote you, or remove you from being a member, or put you on the Banned list. Even making everyone (else) Moderators is not without serious risk if clashes are a possibility, depending on what specific permissions you gave them. Would you really want a disaffected member / moderator going and tinkering with Settings (for example) as an act of possibly petty spite?

Configuring things so that anarchy could break out seems to be asking for trouble. Much better IMHO to set things so that potential trouble makers have limited opportunities to make trouble in the first place, and then try to maintain as low a profile as you can.

Chris

Thanks Frances. That is step one in an ongoing "lesson", if you will, on the equality of members. I have seen the extreme mess a recovery group can have when the "power over others" mentality comes in, AND they have the power they wouldn't have in an in person meeting/group. It is one dysfunctional, lying mess after another, and is in the middle of such a mess now.? :(?

Not just there, I have seen it in the group I have become group "owner" since the move. Before the then group "owner" made the decisions for the group. I try to model abiding the will of the group whether I like it or not rather than play boss. The real issue as I see it is that too many members often have the authoritarian mentality also looking to someone to be the "boss".? And that is the reason modeling the Traditions spirit is so important.?

Hi Dano, and thank you.

I appreciate your perspective very much. It helps me to see other ways to present a solution.?

One online recovery group has had one ego problem after another and is in the middle of another one, hence my thinking this out. My conclusion is that the "owner", which normally in most discussion forums I know of is? referred to as "Administrator", is more like the building itself rather than the owner of the building, tho I do see your point.?

In that group most who step up to do "service" want to be in a power position or none at all. :(?

It seems to me that having 5 or 6 "owners", hopefully like-minded in the Traditions in a non "boss" type mentality, to counter balance each other and handle business that comes would be ideal. I would prefer to make all members "owners".?

On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 02:44 PM, jamesl wrote:

I was actually sending the messages myself.

I have now got it to work, by setting the "Owner email" option to "All Emails" but I'd have thought it ought to work when restricted to "Members Only"

Before writing this off, I suggest double-checking the email address you sent the +owner message from, and whether it was actually subscribed to the group.

Regards,
Bruce

---

Check out the groups.io Help Center?and?groups.io Owners Manual

I was actually sending the messages myself.

I have now got it to work, by setting the "Owner email" option to "All Emails" but I'd have thought it ought to work when restricted to "Members Only"

James

On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 04:52 PM, jamesl wrote:

Is there something I haven’t understood?

Not obviously! At the same time you have not told us that it is messages from members that are not arriving? because (again obviously) your email setting will not allow non - member messages to get through. (Why don't you want them?)

Do you have any moderators with the same delivery setting who are receiving these messages?

Have you checked your ISP's spam box in case they are getting routed there for some reason?

Chris

Dano,

I love your response!?

Likewise with the group I'm owner with and a moderator of another.? I only think of myself as the IT go-to person to keep the lights on and things flowing.? Wish I could turn on the coffee/tea pot here literally!? Maybe ask Mark on the Beta for that upgrade. :-)

The internet needs tech savvy people to keep things going.? GroupsIO has made changes over the year since we arrived.? The group literally nominated me due to computer skills.? Yes, I'm now the janitor of an amazing group!? Love the fact people can share, improve and mentor others along.? A win-win for everyone.?
?
BMaverick

开云体育

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 07:51 PM, Shal Farley wrote:

Robert wrote:
> The bottom line is that, in all versions of Thunderbird on Windows and
> Macintosh going back at least a year, attempting to use the Reply to
> Group and Reply to Sender footer links in either an individual message
> or in a digest fails.

Not for me. But with caveats as stated on beta.

Shal

Shal,

I see now that I made an erroneous assumption about the Thunderbird bug being in "all versions." The TB bug was in an earlier release (version 60) from a couple of years ago. I first reported it here in GMF a year ago. Then it was at least partially fixed in some intermediate releases, including version 68. Then it was recently unfixed with version 78. I'll continue to monitor the progress of dealing with this problem here and on beta. Thanks for getting involved.

--
Robert R.

On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 10:29 AM, Bruce Bowman wrote:

If the message does not need to be private (and since you're sending it to everyone, why should it be?), just select New Topic from the left-side menu bar and select the +owner address in the "From:" menu at the top of the message composition page.

I just tested it again, but more thoroughly.
It works fine when you are on the group site and replying to just one person.?
You can click on Reply to a message in the group homepage, select your owner email address and select Private (bottom right).
(Note: your group has to allow other reply options - make sure "Remove Other Reply Options
However if you don't select Private, the email is displayed as coming from your main email address. You can't send to the whole group from the owner email address, at least this way. Wish it could. It looks like it could!
?
--
GMF wiki for help.?Search box at the top of each page.

Check out the?new groups.io Help Center??Use your browser to search or download?the PDF.

On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 09:32 AM, ro-esp wrote:

where you can read "select the checkbox in the row of the member you want to send the message to".

So how do you send one to the entire group?

Ronaldo -- By checking the box at upper left, you can select every member on that page. If you also use infinite scroll,?in principle?you should be able to select everyone in in the group in this manner and post a private message to each one using the +owner address.?

I admit that I have not actually tested this. If you do, please report back on how it went.

If the message does not need to be private (and since you're sending it to everyone, why should it be?), just select New Topic from the left-side menu bar and select the +owner address in the "From:" menu at the top of the message composition page.

Hope this helps,
Bruce

---

Check out the groups.io Help Center?and?groups.io Owners Manual

On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 02:31 AM, Frances wrote:

There is a "group owner" email account but most members never use it. You can
email to the group or reply to a member from it.
/helpcenter/ownersmanual/1/sending-and-receiving-group-owner-email-messages

where you can read "select the checkbox in the row of the member you want to send the message to".

So how do you send one to the entire group?


groetjes/?is, Ronaldo

On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 01:24 AM, TeresaQ wrote:

If no one can see who the mods or owners are then there would be no need for administrator to be used as a display name. Am I understanding you correctly??

Yes. As I mentioned earlier An owner or moderator does not have a default Display Name of Owner or Moderator. Although they can be found if you know where to look for them (because they made a choice to publish them) you cannot tell from postings on this group who the owners and moderators are. (Just in case you are wondering I am not one of them!)

Chris

Hi Jeff

I think you perhaps underestimate what "oldies" can do ;-)

Most of my subscribers are older and most manage it okay, and for those that forget I remind them and hopefully they remember the next time

But if they are never told how will they ever learn?

Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK)

Hi again

As I said previously I don't use the footer to reply but as you have found clicking reply to sender gets a blank tab

But if you either hover over Reply to XX in the footer and right click and use "copy email address" or even easier hover over right click and select "Compose message to" it works fine

Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK)

开云体育

Win,

I've got a reply back from the Mozilla support Staff, suggesting this...

As a start, many display issues in 78 can be fixed by starting in safe mode (hold Shift when launching TB), checking 'Reset toolbars & controls', 'Make changes and restart'.?

...
I haven't tried it yet, but judging by the previous responses, it isn't going to make much difference....

Sounds to me lake the staff member didn't understand the problem and gave you a canned response.

Try copy/paste the following line for him/her to try:

Here is a sample Reply To Group mailto: link.

This test reproduced the symptom when I sent it to myself, hopefully it gets through Groups.io intact. If not, I've bcc'd you directly so that you have a copy that likely fails the same way.

Shal


--
Help: /helpcenter
More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki
Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list

开云体育

For me, up until a few days ago, Reply to Sender worked perfectly, giving me a new message with address and subject line correctly filled in and a blank body ready for me to type in.
That's why I was so surprised when it didn't work the other day.

I've got a reply back from the Mozilla support Staff, suggesting this...

As a start, many display issues in 78 can be fixed by starting in safe mode (hold Shift when launching TB), checking 'Reset toolbars & controls', 'Make changes and restart'. Slowness may be caused by an antivirus/TB incompatibility. The AV should be set to exclude the TB profile folder from scanning, leaving the real-time background enabled.