".... my primary concern, which I believe most share, is for a group to be able to continue with a new Owner. 
Currently there is not enough protection for an Owner to be comfortable in many/most cases to have multiple Owners, or to designate who (or how) a Moderator or Member would be promoted to Owner should all current Owner(s) be on the same Bus/Plane that crashes with no survivors (or perish from getting COVID, perhaps at the same gathering)...

Those who say such a thing couldn't happen forget that whole teams have perished in plane crashes, or that Pearl Harbor, 9/11, or such tragedies have occurred."

I have a suggestion.

A few days ago, I was looking through an old notebook and found a Hotmail address I had used years ago.?? I went to Hotmail to check that address and see if there were any messages there.?? The reply I received stated that no such email address existed.

?? That tells me that there is a timer somewhere in their software that says that after a certain amount of time, maybe years,? if there was no activity on my part, the email address was purged.

What an idea!!!?? A timer, that monitors whether a person makes themselves known for a certain amount of time!!!

??? Well, ok, how about this.??? Pick a time, maybe a couple of years, maybe 3 or maybe 1, if the owner of a group has not checked in, has not done anything to prove he still exists, then the ownership of the group becomes available to the most senior moderator if that moderator writes in and requests to be made owner.

?? After all, if the owner trusted that person to be a moderator, he must have been in good standing with the owner all along.

?? If the most senior moderator has also been absent for a while, maybe a request from the second-most senior moderator could trigger another timer, that timer would give the first most senior moderator something like 6 months to make himself known.? If he did not, then the ownership would be available to the second-most senior moderator.

?? And so on, through all the moderators.

?? This whole scenario would give the original owner ample time to come out of the woodwork if he was paying any attention at all and respond to a notice that would be sent to him telling him that his timer was about to time-out.

?? If he did not respond, it would be assumed that he is no longer alive and does not care


[ad trimmed by moderator]

Duane:

There was a sometimes heated discussion about that on the beta group awhile back.? I think Mark decided the current mechanism was a good compromise of the sides.? The original owner (founder) can maintain ultimate control, but give moderators all the permissions so they can do everything except promote themselves to owner, demote an owner, and delete group.? They can promote others to the same moderator level as themselves, so the group should be able to continue indefinitely.

Thank you, Duane. That's fine for me and that's what I did.
Judging from the posts, I see that the subject is still a hot one, though.
Regards,
Marina

?

One option that might make the automatic option more trustable would be that
an owner must have more than one way to be contacted. Like an additional
email, text, or voice response phone number. The timer would try the
alternate method before going further. The idea is to give the owner a last
chance in case they had an email problem. Think of it as a keep alive
reminding them that they are an owner. This might also be useful to the case
of the owner email going into the bouncing state. Granted we'd still have
the issue of these becoming outdated but failure of these help support the
case where the survivor selection from the moderators or members become
important.

That last part, that a group member might be promoted, covers where the
single owner didn't want other moderators. They could tag anyone in the
group for promotion if they cease to respond to any contact. I could also
see the system sending warning messages if the owner hasn't been seen. The
warnings could also contain options for the owner to change things like
promote sooner, change who is promotable, etc...

But at the top of all of this should be a selection by the owner about the
group being something that should or should not be continued if they are
found to be 'not found'. That's the biggest gap, is the group intended to
continue beyond the owner or not. While I think for many groups the intent
is to continue, I'm sure there are some that do not intend it to continue.
Knowing the intent would make all of this much clearer as to what GIO should
be doing. That in turn justifies what should happen.

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

On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 10:59 AM, Janice wrote:

I read Mark's explanation but it doesn't make sense to me.?

Janice -- Me neither...and as you can see, I was kinda blindsided by it. But I was treated right, and got my refund within 5 days.

Changing your billing period should not affect your yearly subscription rate.? If I paid my mortgage for a full year and then the next year I went back to paying on a monthly basis, it would not change my mortgage amount.

To be clear -- for the benefit of others -- switching from monthly to yearly does not cause you to lose your grandfathered Premium rate. Switching back from yearly to monthly does, or at least that's the way I read it.

Sounds like a rip off to me

I don't think he's trying to cheat anybody.

The policy does not affect your current payment plan. Just stick with $10/month and you should be fine.

Regards,
Bruce

---

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

On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 09:51 AM, Leeni wrote:

I know that a lot of suggestions come to that group. I see them. I do not take it personally, but at this time if others in this GMF group feel it is worthy of consideration, they can make the suggestion. It does seem that some members have?more clout then others. ?

Leeni -- I will occasionally take a post here in GMF forward and issue?bug report?on someone else's behalf. I will not do that with suggestions.?To the extent that you might see my posts being acted upon, that simply reflects the fact that bugs are bugs, and need prompt attention. I can assure you that I'm not sitting here congratulating myself on my level of influence on Mark.

Regards,
Bruce

---

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

On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 09:11 AM, Leeni wrote:

But being a Basic group owner, I feel what I have to say really has no weight as far as suggestions go.

As far as I'm aware, the only time Basic vs Premium makes any difference is if you send an email to support.

Duane
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开云体育

I understand that Mark may not reply to all of the suggestions, but I am not even talking about Mark's replies. I am talking about no one even commented on my suggestions. It was like I had never written them. My suggestions that I had made in the past would help groups IO with what is going on now with overload. But I will not make them again nor make any of the new suggestions and there are 2 of them that I mentioned here in GMF. ? One thing congrats that your suggestions was liked which brings me to say, you never know when something will be picked up on. But being a Basic group owner, I feel what I have to say really has no weight as far as suggestions go. That is just my feeling. If anyone wants to suggest the 2 suggestions I had mentioned here in GMF, feel free to do so. And I would know that the suggestions may be responded to because it isn't coming from me but a member who has clout. ? ? ? ? ?

On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 08:50 AM, Janice wrote:

I'm just wondering why my grandfathered group @ $10 per month or $110 if billed yearly would suddenly change to $20 per month or $220 per year because I switched my billing period.

Here's Mark's explanation -

Duane
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开云体育

I know that a lot of suggestions come to that group. I see them. I do not take it personally, but at this time if others in this GMF group feel it is worthy of consideration, they can make the suggestion. It does seem that some members have?more clout then others. ? ? ? ? ?

Fonald, I was meaning to suggest that an email address OR MAYBE IP... which is banned, be able to be readily noticed by owners/mods when applying elsewhere... or for a year, perhaps.

You cause me to recall that yahoo had both Removal and Ban. Removal allowed rejoining, if owners/mods approved it... whete approval is a requirement. Yes, bans are quite rarely needed.

BillSF9c

On 14/01/2021 02:06, Leeni wrote:

All of my suggestions and ideas made on the beta group are ignored.

I'm sure they are not ignored -- Mark simply does not reply to all of them, and sometimes other people have nothing to add. Or, it may be that the feature has been suggested before, so no-one has anything new to add.

I recently won the jackpot twice, but several of my other suggestions generated no additional traffic.

Samuel

I own a Premium group grandfathered in at a $10/month payment which I have been paying out of my pocket.? Yesterday, after Mark gave us the ability to have Sponsors, I announced it to my group and the Sponsoring started coming in.? Soon, there was enough in my reserves to make a yearly payment of $110.? Since my due date is the 17th of the month, I went ahead and switched from monthly billing ($10) to yearly billing ($110).? The $110 was deducted immediately from my reserves and applied to my yearly billing.? Here's my question/concern.? I notice that in the Switch Billing to Monthly Billing now indicates I would be billed $20 per month rather than the original $10 per month should I make the switch.? I don't envision having to switch back to monthly because my members have been very generous and we are well on our way to the next yearly payment.? I'm just wondering why my grandfathered group @ $10 per month or $110 if billed yearly would suddenly change to $20 per month or $220 per year because I switched my billing period.

Janice B
New Statler Siblings
Long Arm Quilters?

On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 01:08 PM, Andy Wedge wrote:

I have posted an issue on Beta as the sponsorship option is available on subgroups but any payments made are not totalled in the main group or shown on any subgroup page that I can see (except the activity log).

Mark has very quickly confirmed that sponsorship for subgroups was a bug. The option has been removed and a refund issued.

Andy

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 08:16 PM, Leeni wrote:

All of my suggestions and ideas made on the beta group are ignored.

I wouldn't take it personal. A lot of suggestions come to that group. Sometimes they are popular and sometimes not. This one might turn out to be widely supported. It seems worthy of consideration beyond this group.?
?
--
Sandi Dickenson

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 08:17 PM, Shal Farley wrote:

now people member or not can sponsor a Groups.io group. If the group owner allows it there appears a Sponsor This Group button on the group's home page:

I have posted an issue on Beta as the sponsorship option is available on subgroups but any payments made are not totalled in the main group or shown on any subgroup page that I can see (except the activity log).

Andy

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Excellent suggestions!

ken,

This also includes new lists that had to upgrade to Premium to have
their list moved, they may not be able to downgrade to a Basic (Free)
list after the Pricing change.

Downgrading to Basic before or after the Pricing Change would still leave you with the legacy-enabled Basic features according to your group's creation date. Which includes unlimited membership.

So it is only the legacy Premium features you'd loose (Direct Add perhaps most notably).

I asked for a reply on how long it would be until lists larger than
100 members would have to upgrade.

For now the answer is never.

I figured with 2,000 members I would have three years of freebie
service and then I could face a forced upgrade to Enterprise at
$4400 a year.

You mean Premium, at $220/yr + $880/yr for members = $1100/yr, if for some reason you re-upgraded to Premium after the change.

Choosing Enterprise would be your option if you need/want the extra features.

I have seen nothing stating a firm commitment to pre-existing basic
lists remaining free forever, or even for the next three years.

I don't feel Mark owes any of us such a commitment. But on the other hand he's held his word on such things for the 6+ years of Groups.io's existence.

Shal


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Ronaldo,

We will need to take this to beta , in due time when Mark isn't too
busy

1) I think it has had a round or two there, and 2) Mark will never be not too busy. ;-)

As it would be quite difficult for Mark&co to figure out who is dead,
maybe just allow succession-requests no sooner than when the original
owner has not been active in any group for 2 or 3 months, ...

I think we need to be able to propose something that works without intervention by Groups.io support.

But you got me thinking...

What about:

1) Add an "Owner Succession" panel to each moderator's page, just below the Moderator Permissions panel. This panel would be accessible only by owners, not by any moderators.

2) In this panel place a checkbox for "Promote this moderator to owner in the event of absence of any owner. Place a second control to define how long an absence triggers succession.

For this purpose I'd define absence as being no activity by any owner's account (either web activity or inbound email).

3) In the event that any owner or any moderator tagged for succession is individually absent (as defined above) send a notification (Web/Email) to all Owners indicating who is absent and that the chain of succession may need review.

4) In the event that a moderator is promoted by this mechanism, notify the moderator and (attempt to notify) the absent owners.


Pros:

o Covers both single owner or multiple owner initial conditions.

o Allows the owner(s) to establish a chain of succession (first Alice, then Bob, then Charlie, then ...) simply by setting progressively longer times for each moderator in the line of succession.

o The first moderator promoted would, on their next activity in the group, reset the "absence" timer. Being now an owner that person would have access to the succession controls. If that person is inactive after their promotion then the timer continues, potentially promoting the next moderator in line.


Cons:

o Slightly complicated for new or inexperienced owners to grasp.

o Controls are distributed through the Moderators list rather than being in a single page.

o Doesn't provide for alternate outcomes (group locked or deleted).

o ?


The second "con" can be overcome by putting a fixed list of succession slots on a separate Settings page (again, visible only to owners) with each slot containing those same two controls plus a selector to choose which moderator goes in this slot.

Shal


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