On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 05:12 pm, Bruce Bowman wrote:

I'm just trying to come to terms with what your proposal is, because it doesn't seem to be in line with either of the two currently on the table.

Bruce, am just seeing this now. I missed it in the thread. I'm not proposing anything. This is just the way I've chosen to handle it for my group, which I can do because we pay for the privilege. :) Also, it clearly does no more harm than making people jump through the hoops of a resubscribe link, which, to my thinking, is a bit like locking them in jail and handing them the key in the hopes that they'll change their behavior.
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J

This will be my last post on this topic before I mute it (you're probably all glad to hear that).

I joined GIO about six weeks ago and moved my two groups two weeks later. "Spam problems" have been minimal. I had one guy get bumped off, and I followed up and offered some suggestions. He instead switched email providers. A little extreme, but he was happy, so who was I to argue?

Imagine my surprise when I checked my own email delivery history and found a half-dozen messages (some of them digests from this group) that I hadn't received. They were not delivered due to an "error 554" (spam content). One of the messages that was flagged said simply: "Great work, Ben!"?

Apparently my provider does not participate in the feedback loops, so I wasn't bumped off. I set up a couple of mail filters to keep all GIO messages in my inbox (one for individual messages and one for digests). It took all of 5 minutes, and I haven't had a nondelivery since.

The point I'm making here is that every message marked as spam is a message not delivered, regardless of whether the subscriber gets "dismembered." In fact, not getting bumped off may be the worst possible outcome, as the problem simply persists and no one even knows it's happening.

I've heard a lot about the importance of getting messages into the hands of our subscribers. I'm also hearing how our subscribers aren't capable of taking any action on their own behalf. They're either too lazy or too dumb. They can hardly push a button.?I'm beginning to wonder who the lazy ones really are. At best, I sure these folks would be really surprised to hear that we have such a low opinion of them.

It's a mess, and a lot of this it out of our hands. But are we doing everything we can to fix what we are capable of fixing? Simply reinstating someone does nothing to keep the next message out of the spam-box. Punishing them with "no email" or "dismemberment" doesn't either. Showing them how to set up a mail filter might. We need to do this kind of follow-up. No one is born with such knowledge, and if we aren't willing to teach them, who will?

I don't fully understand the whole FBL thing. Some of us may think Mark is overreacting with the "dismemberment" approach. I didn't think the entire groups.io domain would ever get blacklisted as a phishing site by Norton, AVG and others either -- until it happened. With the understanding that he probably knows more about this than all of us put together,?I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

My $0.02,
Bruce

I'm saving them the trouble of clicking a meaningless (to them) link to undo a meaningless (to them) action, something they themselves had nothing to do with. Even if they click on the resubscribe link instead of being saved the trouble by me, they still have NO IDEA what's going on and are not then "training" their spam filters because none of them finds any groups.io email marked as spam. They might as well be in Alice's Wonderland. The direct-add message I use also apologizes to them for the inconvenience of having been unsubscribed for however long they were unsubscribed for.

These are sick, often critically ill cats we're dealing with, whose lives may be on the line if the person doesn't receive messages. I'm not going to hold things up for the minutes or days longer it takes them to find the resubscribe email and click on the link than for the time it has taken me to notice the issue and direct-add them back in.
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J

J,

My point is that it's virtually no different from giving them a link
to resubscribe. Seriously. What's the epsilon of difference?

It is vitally different: the member had to take an action. No matter how simple the action, the member had to be mentally engaged enough to carry it out.

Your way is passive. In-one-ear-out-the-other, or maybe never saw it.

Shal


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On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 04:47 pm, J_Catlady wrote:

Nobody has the slightest idea what I'm talking about in the message and they just rejoin the group and go on their merry way.

J -- Let me make sure I understand. Whether they're set to "no email" or they are removed from the group, your practice will be to immediately reinstate them, thereby subverting whatever process is put in place.

It sounds like you're offering a third option...ignore the FBL entirely.?

I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad idea. I'm just trying to come to terms with what your proposal is, because it doesn't seem to be in line with either of the two currently on the table.

Regards,
Bruce

Maybe the solution is legal. Maybe Mark should get himself a bulldog lawyer and sue the pants off whatever companies are doing this to groups.io for damaging his business. Tortious interference with business practices, or something. I don't know. IANAL.
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J

On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 04:41 pm, Shal Farley wrote:

taking that act upon yourself certainly defeats the "forcing function"

Of course it does. And I was waiting for that exact response. My point is that it's virtually no different from giving them a link to resubscribe. Seriously. What's the epsilon of difference? Of COURSE the message I send them explains (or tries to - lol) that they were automatically removed because they "or their email spam filter" marked a groups.io message as spam. It then provides the standard warning about not marking messages as spam yada yada. Nobody pays it the slightest heed, because nobody themself is marking messages as spam. Nobody has the slightest idea what I'm talking about in the message and they just rejoin the group and go on their merry way.

How is this even a "nagging reminder to do better"? Seriously. LMAO. Sorry.
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J

Jeremy,

My thought is that unsubscribing people, and allowing them to rejoin
the group, is perhaps a bit brutal, and will frequently lead them to
yo-yo out and back into the group. and not necessarily resolve the
'marked as spam' problem.

I don't see how suspending message delivery by a different means (e.g. No Mail) would be any more effective at resolving the issue.

An advantage to "dismemberment" is that it correctly handles the other case: the case where the member has lost interest in the group and used the "mark as spam" feature of their email interface rather than unsubscribing. That advice is not uncommon - for example Yahoo Mail's advice on the subject:

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.

Better to set them to 'no mail', ...
...
There is the question of what to do about groups where 'no mail' is
not allowed

As I've mentioned before, I would not propose a mechanism that changes the user's Email Delivery setting - for that reason among others. Instead I'd propose a new subscription status.
/g/GroupManagersForum/message/6782

The only advantage (over the current "dismemberment" mechanism) that I can see being gained by this extra complexity is that it converts the member to effectively a web-only member of the group. And for some that might be the best answer.

Shal


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J,

In fact, in my group if I've seen that it's happened, I just
direct-add the person back in, since we're a premium group with that
capability.

Well, taking that act upon yourself certainly defeats the "forcing function", the point of which was to inconvenience the member as a motivation for them to do whatever is needed to avoid future occurrences.

... it's barely even a slap on the wrist if it lets the member right
back in again, which it does. It's like going through the motions.

It is a reminder. It isn't really intended as a punishment, much less a severe one. But a nagging reminder to do better.

Shal


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Rick,

I'm asking SHAL ONLY to say if he got one or two replies.

Only the one via GMF this time.

Shal


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Ellen,

I see only Easily switch, add, or remove accounts on this computer.
Then below: ellen.moody@...

This is part of Yahoo's new and somewhat confusing way of letting you stay signed in to more than one account at a time. You can then switch between signed in accounts without having to sign out and sign back in.

Is there a list of accounts to choose from or just the one? The list should include your normal Yahoo ID "ellenmoody" or "ellenmoody@..." (without the dot in your name). If that's not in the list I'm not sure why, unless you are using a computer or browser you haven't used before, or have cleared the cookies in that browser.

below that: Add account or sign out all accounts.

Click Add account. That won't be creating a new account, but adding one of your existing accounts to the list of accounts in use in this browser session.

After you click Add account it should prompt you to sign in. On that page, where it says Enter your email, enter "ellenmoody" or "ellenmoody@..." - without the dot in your name, either should work, they both mean the same account.

On the next page enter the password for that account.

The next time you see this "easily switch" page you should see more than one account listed - the ellen.moody it showed you today, plus the ellenmoody you just (re-)added to this browser session.

Shal


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Yes, some forms of HTML are removed from group messages. I've experienced a similar thing in the wiki, where my attempts to insert inline styles (benign things like "float:right") were unceremoniously stripped.

I'm not sure of the rationale, except that email/wiki markup could become a means of spreading malware by an enterprising subscriber. The home page stuff can only be updated by group owners, and on that basis may be less susceptible to abuse.?

Hope this helps,
Bruce

I created a PayPal button for contributions to my group. It generated the html code.

1. When I paste the html code in our group profile (eg what shows up when you hit the "Home" button), it displays perfectly (I placed it in the source code window and hit ok when editing the existing profile, then updated the site).

2. When I paste that same exact html code in a message (opening the source code window, etc. and hitting "ok") it displays perfectly.? But when I SEND that message, and then view the message, it does not display correctly, only part shows up.

So my question is, why does the same code that works great when put in the group profile, not work the same when put in a message and sent?

Any clues???

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I would as well. I'm not an expert or anything like that, but I do agree.?A "no mail" wording would be nice. Most of my members in my groups I run have more?experience in this stuff than I do, but still. The "you have ben set to no mail because ..." is a good idea.

On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 01:37 pm, Jeremy Harrison wrote:

Given the unsophistication of many members (which means that they have no idea of spam filters, let alone what to about them), and the difficulties of understanding what anyone thinks is going on (are e-mails sent to spam 'accidental' or 'deliberate' (and if so to what end)?), anything intended to cause group members to take any particular action is unlikely to succeed, certainly beyond a simple click (and frequently even that).

I think we should also consider that many Owners and Moderators might fall into the "unsophisticated" description as well. I would never try to pass myself off as any sort of "IT specialist". Even if we are a sort of "first line of defence" there are going to be limits to what we can do to advise bewildered members. Thank goodness for this forum!

There is the question of what to do about groups where 'no mail' is not allowed - either it should be forced (overriding group owner's setting) or (in this case only) that they should be unsubscribed.

I didn't suggest that earlier because I didn't want to make any reconfiguration of how Groups.io operates bigger than it needed to be; for all I know it might be an easy option to implement - OTOH it might be a real headache. (See my comment above about not being an IT specialist!) The big plus about your suggestion is that it would satisfy both camps.

FWIW I would support the draft wording of your "you have been set to no mail" message.

Regards,

Chris

Yes - one person on HTML not receiving digest, changed to plain digest, don't know yet if that is working or not