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Re: Groups.io site updates #changelog

Mary Emerson
 

Dave, I agree wholeheartedly. I had to deal with this when I did my income taxes last year. Being both totally blind and deaf on one side, I had to try quite a few times to get past the captcha. I subscribe to software that will figure out numbers and letters, but it can't figure out those pictures at all. This wonderful site is accessible to all of us with disabilities; must it be ruined with captchas?


Mary


Re: Groups.io site updates #changelog

 

If I understand that correctly, that is exactly the kind of Captcha I
said I did NOT want. It seems tightly linked into Google and unless
the site is registered with Google AND you are logged into Google
ticking the 'I am not a robot' box only brings up the dreaded series of
picture boxes where you have to select all the boxes with cars etc and
go round the loop several times. Maybe I am wrong, but I hope this is
not the type Mark is talking about, I hate them with a vengeance.

Dave

On 4 Nov 2017 at 18:07, Shal Farley wrote:

The CAPTCHA system Mark is testing is from Google. He didn't say exactly
which version he's using, other than "latest". Hopefully that's the same
or newer than the one reviewed here:


A way around CAPTCHA

 

From: Mary Emerson <maryemerson@...>
Captchas are a nuisance for all of us who are blind and can't
see the screen. They are also a problem for those of us,
including me, who are hearing-impaired and have trouble
hearing audio captchas.
The CAPTCHA we are talking about is planned for "subscribe" page
for people who never used groups.io before.
There is a way around it: send an empty email to
groupname+subscribe @ groups.io ,
reply to confirmation request,
then in groups.io website click Log In,
enter the email address, leave the Password field blank,
click "Email me a link to log in", click the link in the email,
optionally set up password.

The spambots perhaps don't intend to subscribe,
they just spam the signup form in the hope that it's
something like a guestbook.


Re: Groups.io site updates #changelog

 

Mary,

If I'm responding inappropriately, I apologize for that; I am new to
the site in general, and new to this group.
Welcome! Your response is fine. GMF is a help and discussion group run by volunteers. If you haven't you might also want to check out beta@, the official "suggestion box" group run by Mark (Founder of Groups.io):


Captchas are a nuisance for all of us who are blind and can't see the
screen. They are also a problem for those of us, including me, who are
hearing-impaired and have trouble hearing audio captchas.
The CAPTCHA system Mark is testing is from Google. He didn't say exactly which version he's using, other than "latest". Hopefully that's the same or newer than the one reviewed here:


If you plan to add captchas, please have some type of alternative for
multifactor identification, such as sending a code to the person's
email address, ...
That's an interesting variation.

Mark is testing Google's reCAPTCHA in the registration (sign-up) flow, a point at which the site does not yet know your email address, or maybe it is when you've first entered your address. So the question is whether the robots would be able to handle entering an email address and receiving the code. I suspect that they must be capable of that in order to have gotten as far as they did, but that's something only Mark would know.

I haven't seen the email code idea on beta@, you could add your idea to the topic over there and see if Mark replies.


Shal


Re: Pricing Too High, Storage Too Low, for groups.io

 

Bob,

What baffles me is the expectation to use facilities for virtually
zero cost.
While I appreciate your desire to help Mark out, everyone has their own limits and responsibilities.

GMF is just a help and discussion group, so here it is quite ok to talk about proposed features or changes to Groups.io without feeling that you'll insult Mark or impact his business. He's not even a member here (that's deliberate, he asked to send general questions over to Group Help and GMF to reduce the traffic level in beta@).
(see Group Description)

Shal


Re: Groups.io site updates #changelog

Mary Emerson
 

Hi all,


Captchas are a nuisance for all of us who are blind and can't see the screen. They are also a problem for those of us, including me, who are hearing-impaired and have trouble hearing audio captchas. I've dealt with them in various ways, but they are always a nuisance. If you plan to add captchas, please have some type of alternative for multifactor identification, such as sending a code to the person's email address, so that the code can be easily accessed and typed into an edit box on the page with the captcha.


If I'm responding inappropriately, I apologize for that; I am new to the site in general, and new to this group.


Thank you,


Mary Emerson


Re: Pricing Too High, Storage Too Low, for groups.io

 

What baffles me is the expectation to use facilities for virtually zero cost.
Tell me what hobbyist doesn't spend at minimum, every year, $2.00 per week on ANYthing not an absolute necessity for living?
That's about the price of a single Starbucks Grande coffee once per week.
Think about that!? What are our communities wiling to do to continue operating?
I'm retired and living on fixed income and this is a no brainer for me.
--
Bob Bellizzi

The Corneal Dystrophy Foundation


Groups.io site updates #changelog

 

Hi all,

This week's change log:


Feel free to reply to this topic if you'd like to comment on the
changes. Or better yet, if you expect a lot of discussion start a new
topic (or rejoin an existing one) about a specific change.


* System for dealing with DMCA takedown notices, for hiding topics and for storing notices.

That may all be part of DMCA handling, in that the handling of a take-down notice requires that the message be removed from the site, but handling a put-back notice requires that it be restored. So a mechanism to hide it instead of actually deleting it from the database would be useful.

There's also speculation in beta@ that the "hiding" part could be a step towards resolving the various problems that occur when people reply by email to messages which have been deleted from the group. And/Or that it could become the basis of a future "undelete" feature. Whatever the case, I haven't spotted any new user controls related to hiding messages or topics.


* Testing adding Recaptcha for some registrations. Sigh.

The "Sigh" no doubt relates to Mark's expressed dislike of captcha systems. But at least the Google "reCAPTCHA" mechanism works at being minimally troublesome. It is adaptive, putting up a something as simple as a checkbox or something more challenging, depending on whether the user seems more human-like or more robot-like, according to its own heuristics.



Note that Mark is testing this with a single group so far, and only in one of the registration (sign-up) flows leading to joining the group. Failing the captcha would prevent the user (presumed robot) from creating a Groups.io account, and hence from joining the group via a web link. I don't think this would affect +subscribe email commands or responding to an Invite.

The group was selected because they embedded a signup form on some website and were subsequently besieged by robotic attempts to join the group. See the Promote page (under Admin) in your group, under "Embed a Signup Form" for more information about that. I gather (from an earlier message) that the group's moderators couldn't keep up with rejecting Pending members quickly enough to keep ahead of the robot(s), and were put at some risk of tossing legit people along with the robots.


Comments about these others are also welcome:

INTERNAL: Work on tracking down a crash bug in the database replication system.
SYSADMIN: Moved the monitor instance to another physical machine.
CHANGE: Try to 'clean up' invalid search queries.
BUGFIX: Possible fix for Chrome autocomplete location field in adding an event.
BUGFIX: You could not edit a message from someone whose entire account has been deleted.
BUGFIX: New databases were not being indexed by the search cluster.
CHANGE: Group guidelines are sent to the group, not to individual subscribers. There's also now a separate email subject field. The guidelines are sent with the hashtag #guidelines, which if it doesn't already exist, is created with a topic duration of one month.


Please call out any you find significant.

Shal


Re: Pricing Too High, Storage Too Low, for groups.io

Martyn de Young
 

What might be a useful compromise would be to offer a Basic+ plan, offering the same facilities as the current Basic plan, but with 5-10Gb storage, for say $10-20 a year?

This would be affordable for many community-based and hobbyist groups, not able to justify $10/month and don't need the additional facilities offered with Premium and Enterprise, and provide a useful extra income for groups.io.

Just a thought...

Regards,

Martyn


Re: Yahoo Group Size

Martyn de Young
 

Thank?you for your responses. I was worried that 20 years of posts (just over 20,000) would be too much, but as they aren't included in the storage limit, my group should fit within the 1GB free "Basic" service, so I'll start preparing my members for the transfer...

Thanks again,
Martyn


Re: Yahoo Group Size

 

JMichaelTX,

I'm not sure if you are referring to Yahoo or groups.io storage limit.
In this topic I've only been referring to Yahoo Group sizes and limits.

My understanding is that the storage limits for each *groups.io plan*
apply to the total of everything other than messages. (but images and
attachments in messages are included in the limits).
That is my understanding as well.

The 100 GB that Shal mentioned is for the Enterprise Plan.
That's a numeric coincidence. I was referring to Yahoo Group Photos (including Attachments, as it happens).

Shal


Re: Yahoo Group Size

JMichaelTX
 
Edited

On Fri, Nov 3, 2017 at 04:01 pm, Shal Farley wrote:
For Message Attachments I'm not sure. My understanding is that they count towards the same 100 GB limit as Photos, but I don't see a place to find out their size, nor do I know if they are included in the size shown for Photos.
I'm not sure if you are referring to Yahoo or groups.io storage limit.? So, just to be clear for Martyn and other readers:

My understanding is that the storage limits for each groups.io plan apply to the total of everything other than messages. (but images and attachments in messages are included in the limits).

?

The 100 GB that Shal mentioned is for the Enterprise Plan.

The other plans provide very limited storage:

?

?

Plan

Basic Free

Premium

Enterprise

Storage

1GB

10GB

100GB


Re: Yahoo Group Size

 

Duane,

I don't know how current the information is, but
says attachments are
stored/counted with files.
Heh, the help page is wrong.

I just tested it and the size of an attachment adds to the Photos quota. That has been true since the "Store on site, send as link" option was first rolled out, so the help page was probably updated, incorrectly, for Neo.

As a Neo-related change they did put the attachments on a tab with Files. So maybe they intended to make them part of the Files allocation but didn't get around to it, just as they never got around to expanding Files allocation to match Photo's 100 GB. Making Attachments subject to that old 100 MB limit would have been a substantial downgrade.

Shal


Re: Yahoo Group Size

 

I don't know how current the information is, but says attachments are stored/counted with files.

Duane


Re: Yahoo Group Size

 

Martyn,

... I'd would like to know if it is possible to find the total
storage requirement of the Yahoo group - at present all I can see is
the size allocated to files - not images or posts.
Posts (the message texts) are not counted against one's storage allocation, on either Yahoo Groups or Groups.io.

For Photos go to the Photos section then switch to Albums. It will show your usage at the top (below the tabs, but above the first row of albums).

For Message Attachments I'm not sure. My understanding is that they count towards the same 100 GB limit as Photos, but I don't see a place to find out their size, nor do I know if they are included in the size shown for Photos.

Shal


Yahoo Group Size

Martyn de Young
 

I'm considering transferring some Yahoo Groups into Groups.io but, cognisant of the Groups.io hosting charges,?I'd would like to know if it is possible to find the total storage requirement of the Yahoo group - at present all I can see is the size allocated to files - not images or posts.?
TIA, Martyn


Re: Pricing Too High, Storage Too Low, for groups.io

JMichaelTX
 

On Wed, Nov 1, 2017 at 06:03 pm, Shal Farley wrote:
Anyway, this thread that JMichael started (here in GMF) began with his idea of boosting the storage included with each plan. I was more interested in buying an increment of extra storage for my Basic plan groups, at a price below that of going to Premium.
To be clear, I am for both:
? ? Increasing the storage provided with each plan
? ? Option to buy more storage for any plan


Re: Pricing Too High, Storage Too Low, for groups.io

 

Ginny,

I'm not sure that I wasn't hearing discussion about selling storage -
minus the other group functions. That's what I'm trying to clarify.
I may be guilty of sowing some semantic confusion by referring both to "a la carte" options and to whether Mark is or should be in the "cloud storage" business. I never intended either of those to mean storage separate from groups.

Likewise with comments comparing Marks current and hoped-for options prices for storage at other services.

Anyway, this thread that JMichael started (here in GMF) began with his idea of boosting the storage included with each plan. I was more interested in buying an increment of extra storage for my Basic plan groups, at a price below that of going to Premium.

Your thread (over in beta@) is exactly on target with what I had in mind.


Shal


Re: Pricing Too High, Storage Too Low, for groups.io

JMichaelTX
 

On Wed, Nov 1, 2017 at 04:02 pm, Ginny T. wrote:
I'm not sure that I wasn't hearing discussion about selling storage - minus the other group functions. That's what I'm trying to clarify. My suggestion/request to Mark was about offering add-on storage to basic groups; you need to own a group, and if needed you can purchase extra storage for it. Yes, because it's not resident on the owner's or group members' computer, by semantics it's "cloud" -
I'm clarifying that it's to augment an existing group, not "simply" offering cloud storage to anyone for any purpose.
I have no idea where you could possibly have gotten that idea.
Just to be clear, when I started this topic, it was asking for more storage as part of the overall groups.io service.? You might want to reread my entire OP, if you have any doubts.

From my OP:
While the groups.io service is a good one, IMO the storage limits are way too low, and?the pricing way too high.??

At first I loved the features of groups.io, but now as we are really starting to use it, and to develop a wiki, the storage limits, and corresponding pricing, have given me pause.? Storage is obviously very cheap these days, so the groups.io limits/pricing seem inappropriate to me.? I am concerned about getting started with a wiki, and then running out of storage space.
Please notice how many times I referenced the other features/services provided by groups.io.? I hope that makes things clear.? I have to say I am amazed at the number of times replies in this thread that others have stated things, as if they were facts, that clearly are NOT in my OP.? Please people, before you inject your opinion (which is fine), please read in full the other posts, and make sure your assertions reflect the facts.

It is always better to ask for clarification than to make assertions that are not supported.


Re: Pricing Too High, Storage Too Low, for groups.io

Arno Martens
 

Wed, 01 Nov 2017 15:59:02 -0700, "Ginny T." <gttemari21@...>,
wrote:

I'm clarifying that it's to augment an existing group, not "simply" offering cloud storage to anyone for any purpose.

I am at a little loss here, what business is it of a Group.io user if
Mark is selling storage space to anyone.
--
Arno