Dennis,

1. Subscribers, via an email address, may immediately have access to a
public Groups.io sites (forums?), as I believe Groups.io works now.

Yes, visiting the site without logging in a subscriber is given only access to "public" areas. Basically the site does not know that a visitor is a subscriber unless he/she logs in.

But recall that it only takes a click on the "Email me a link to log in" button, and a click through the emailed link, for a subscriber to be logged in and then access the group as a full-fledged member. No muss, no fuss, no need for a password nor need to bother setting up anything in their account.

Except, we want to limit access to new subscribers to view and
download only; no posting, uploading anything, and no ability to
"create" anything (files, folders, calendar entry, polls, etc.).

I'm not precisely sure what distinction you are making by saying "new subscribers". As above, if the subscriber is not logged in to the site then he/she cannot create content via the web site, and can only read at the site that which is public. But once logged in the subscriber has full member rights - whatever those are in your group.

This is somewhat possible now, I think, by requiring new subscribers
to be moderated, except access control is very limited.

Message moderation for new subscribers/members applies only to message posting, and it applies to both posting by email and via the web pages. There have been calls in beta for an equivalent moderation ability for uploading Files, Photos, and other content - and that may be where your suggestion is heading.

2. ... Joining the "organization" also provides and grants full access
to the Groups.io forum (less owner/moderator functions, of course).

In your two stage subscription/membership model, I assume subscribers receive group postings by email (else what would "subscription" mean), and I assume they are allowed to post messages by email (possibly subject to moderation as new members or otherwise).

If so, this matches pretty well what we have now. Or are you looking to also tie their ability to post by email to the membership level?

Another thing you might be looking for is some form of gate-keeping (by the moderators) between the subscription level and the membership level. Right now, for restricted groups, the gate-keeping is strictly at the subscription level - you must approve their subscription. Are you looking to have a second approval required to advance from subscriber to member?

Yahoo! Groups allowed us to differentiate between subscribers and
members and we are missing that functionality.

No it doesn't. It is exactly the same over there, and always has been. If the group has restricted membership the gate-keeping is at the subscription level - no emails sent out until approved.

Gaining web access (as Y!Groups sometimes calls it) requires setting up an account, and attaching your subscriptions to it. And while that has often been a mysterious and/or complicated process, it never has required any additional approval by the group.

Shal


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Jim,

I don't clearly understand how members that have to resubscribe "lose
their past Yahoo message history."

Members can edit their own content (unless the group turned that off for message edits) and they can delete their own content. But not if that content is held under a defunct address/account.

Shal


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Patty,

Duane, what I was meaning was for all Groups someone has joined, to be
visible under one account main page, which, of course, requires that
person to be able to merge those two (or possibly more) accounts.

Those accounts tied to accessible email addresses they can merge; the ones tied to inaccessible addresses must simply be abandon, together with the ownership of any content carried in from the Yahoo Group under those addresses.

Except: moderators can now re-assign ownership of Photos and Albums. I haven't tried this but that may mean that if the person re-joins the group under an active account then a moderator can assign their photos from the old address to the new one. As I've said, I've not tried this and I've no idea how tedious it may be. Also, so far as I know, the same is not true for files or messages or other content.

So, those list members will have to re-apply and lose their past Yahoo
message history.

Yup.

On the "plus" side, they'll have to do the same with every Yahoo Group that gets transferred over with that old address as a member. So in that sense, between the merges and the re-joins, the member can unite all their group subscriptions under the same account.

I wonder if Mark is going to the-vamp the account merge process.

I very much doubt it. I don't see a way to demonstrate that you (the person with a new address) are the same person as previously used the now inaccessible address.

The only way I see it happening is the way it seems to be with photos: let the group mods make the decision to re-assign the ownership. So the question I think, is how that process can be streamlined for members with a large body of content under a defunct address.

Shal


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Received from Patty Sliney via Groups.Io at 6/25/2018 11:20 PM UTC:

Duane, what I was meaning was for all Groups someone has joined, to be visible under one account main page, which, of course, requires that person to be able to merge those two (or possibly more) accounts.

However, it appears this is impossible to do, if the email used on the transferred Yahoo Group is an old, non-functioning email.

Impossible for Groups.io to do for them, but simple enough for them to do for themselves. They can resubscribe under their working email address to the groups in which they have stale email addresses. And in my groups, if a member came to me with this problem, which can only be solved by that member, I'd send invitations to the working email address and delete the old accounts. Problem solved. Perhaps not as the subscriber might like it to be solved, but in the only way it could be solved.

I sent out several messages to both my Yahoo Groups, warning them to update their email addresses prior to the transfer, if needed, to a working and current email address. But, we still have a fair number of list members who apparently never read those messages, or, simply could not follow the instructions given.

Of those who read your message, I bet some "could not" follow instructions, but I also bet many "would not."

I ran a test years ago in which I sent an email - a "special message" so it was delivered to everyone's "home" email address - to all of my groups (which in my case are closely related and have many members in common) offering a chance for one subscriber to win $20 by responding in a specific but simple fashion to that email. Barely 5% responded and half of those responded incorrectly. I gather from that just what you suspect above. Many don't read and those who do fail - for reasons unknown - to follow directions. I have no idea how many read and then simply didn't try... those being the "would nots."

So, those list members will have to re-apply and lose their past Yahoo message history. I wonder if Mark is going to the-vamp the account merge process. The issue I see, is that you can use Groups.io in a limited fashion without having to create a password. So, not sure how the merge process could be changed to accommodate these types of issues without the problem you've cited. So for now, those old Yahoo list members are out of luck. They'll just have to reapply it appears.

I don't clearly understand how members that have to resubscribe "lose their past Yahoo message history." If you mean the new email address they resubscribe under doesn't match the email address on their messages already in the groups they must resubscribe to, I'm not clear on why that matters... unless they used different names to go with their different email addresses. Or if no name appears along with the email address in the posted messages. If either of those is the case, then any expectation of continuity of identity on their part simply isn't realistic.

Jim H

There certainly are two types of 'belonging' to Groups.io that do exist.

1) There are those people who 'belong' and do not have a Password (they may not understand or wish to have or use one - which is OK) but there are certain things they can not do in Groups.io

2) There are other people who 'belong' and do have a Password, and therefore can do those certain things that require a Password in Groups.io

Clearly "Subscriber" and "Member" have not been carefully used to distinguish between these two types. I stated what seemed to me to be the appropriate differentiation of what those terms could and should mean.

So that there is no confusion as to who is able to do what in Groups.io, my question was and is:
What are the unambiguous, official Groups.io terms for these two types of 'belonging¡¯?

I think it would be better to have clearly defined terms, than to have to say ¡®except if you do not have a Password¡¯, ¡®if you have a Password¡¯, or other such cumbersome phrases.

One of my friends uses aol and I have sent several invitations but they never reach her - not found in her spam or trash folders they just seem to vanish into thin air. My group is set up as invitation only membership and is not premium, Any suggestions as to what is going wrong? I have successfully invited other friends who use aol and they got their invites OK...? cheers!

All I can figure is that for the time being we need to manually add such last-(FRI, SAT, SUN, etc.)day-of-the-month events for the 12-month period.

In that way we can compensate for the alteration of (last) days as the months proceed and create an accurate schedule.

Hopefully if this is presented over on BETA they may have some way to provide this option.

'Til then it looks as if entering those dates manually is the simplest option.

Thoughts? Comments?

Cheers!

Paul M.
==

Received from Patty Sliney via Groups.Io at 6/25/2018 10:24 PM UTC:

<<On the home page, </>/, all of the groups associated with the account that's logged in will be shown.>>

Not if they have two accounts. So, what I still need to know how to merge two accounts, when one account is an email that is no longer in use (almost always their original email they used with Yahoo Groups, for our list.). I don?€?t know what the Merge process looks like, and I need to be able to give my list members some more specific instructions. I can?€?t find that at all in the Help section. They can?€?t create a password using that old, original email address, as they cannot get to that auto email sent by <>groups.io to click on the link to be taken to their Account page. Could they try doing that with the new Account? Then, after creating a password, try to change their email to the OLD email address in order to get those two accounts merged? Then change BACK, again, to the newer (and functioning) email? Do you see the problem?

Patty Sliney
<>Master Your Machine Blog

Is there some overriding reason they can't log into the working account and resubscribe to the groups that were previously subscribed to via the now non-working account?

Yahoo had a Wizard that allowed merging accounts, but as I recall it didn't work - nor should it have worked - when the contact email address was invalid and thus couldn't confirm ownership.

Jim H

Duane, what I was meaning was for all Groups someone has joined, to be visible under one account main page, which, of course, requires that person to be able to merge those two (or possibly more) accounts.

However, it appears this is impossible to do, if the email used on the transferred Yahoo Group is an old, non-functioning email. I sent out several messages to both my Yahoo Groups, warning them to update their email addresses prior to the transfer, if needed, to a working and current email address. But, we still have a fair number of list members who apparently never read those messages, or, simply could not follow the instructions given. So, those list members will have to re-apply and lose their past Yahoo message history. I wonder if Mark is going to the-vamp the account merge process. The issue I see, is that you can use Groups.io in a limited fashion without having to create a password. So, not sure how the merge process could be changed to accommodate these types of issues without the problem you¡¯ve cited. So for now, those old Yahoo list members are out of luck. They¡¯ll just have to reapply it appears.?

Thanks Shal ... the more I look at this I might be able to grant the exclusivity we need by making "members" in our organization "moderators", then limiting access there. I haven't looked at that, as Bruce suggested, but I will.
Best regards,
Dennis

On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 03:40 pm, Patty Sliney wrote:

<<On the home page,?/, all of the groups associated with the account that's logged in will be shown.>>

?

Not if they have two accounts.

Yes, even with 2 (or more) accounts, the one that's logged in will show all the groups for that account.

So, what I still need to know how to merge two accounts, when one account is an email that is no longer in use

Duane
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Okay, here are a few examples of how differentiating between "subscribers" and "members" might be useful and offer more functionality to a lot of Groups...

1. Subscribers, via an email address, may immediately have access to a public Groups.io sites (forums?), as I believe Groups.io works now. Think of it as a great way to promote "membership" in an "organization" to which the forum (or Group if that's the correct term) is associated. Except, we want to limit access to new subscribers to view and download only; no posting, uploading anything, and no ability to "create" anything (files, folders, calendar entry, polls, etc.). This is somewhat possible now, I think, by requiring new subscribers to be moderated, except access control is very limited.

2. During a visit to the organization's Groups.io forum, the subscriber views and learns more about the organization itself and decides they want to become a "member" of the organization; maybe go to meetings, pay annual dues, attend functions, and reap all the benefits of joining the organization. Joining the "organization" also provides and grants full access to the Groups.io forum (less owner/moderator functions, of course). The individual is now both a subscriber, which gets them access to other public Groups.io sites, and a "member" of the organization with member-exclusive privileges in specific Groups.io sites (forums, etc).

Facilitating this additional layer of level-management would require the addition of a "members" category to the drop-down access menus ... Of course, I know it is certainly not as simple as that and would require a substantial change in the "what if" programming. Maybe not ... as I haven't looked at the code, of course.

Anyway, I hope this helps understand the suggestion, and certainly, there are Groups that don't or won't need it ... fine ... if you guys are happy, no need to comment to this message! Yahoo! Groups allowed us to differentiate between subscribers and members and we are missing that functionality. I imagine a few other immigrants from Yahoo! might be missing this layer of management as well.
Respectfully,
D.Gregory

Received from Michael Pavan at 6/25/2018 08:14 PM UTC:

On Jun 25, 2018, at 3:51 PM, Bruce Bowman <bruce.bowman@...> wrote:

On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 12:32 pm, Michael Pavan wrote:
So what I was asking is:
if (I use the New Topic feature) is there (a copy of my post somewhere in

my Groups.io group that I sent the message to), (and if so) how can I find it?

See /static/help#dupemail If you check the box, you

will receive a copy when you post online (as you wish), but will get a duplicate copy (i.e.: along with the one your client saved) whenever you send by email. If you uncheck the box, you will not get any emails you sent yourself, no matter where you send it from. You can't have it both ways.

Hope this helps,

No, it doesn't. My question has nothing to do with sending a message through my email provider.

Let me try the question again:

1) I click on "New Topic" on the GMF Groups.io group website (to which I am subscribed and have a Password)

2) I write and send a message.

3) It appears I have no copy of that message, unless and until it is approved and sent out to members of GMF

4) Only then do I have a copy of it (by receiving it through email) - if it is not approved, it seems I have no copy of it.

5) Before it is approved (if ever), is there a copy of my message submitted by clicking on "New Topic" on the GMF Groups.io group website, that I can find and refer to?

6) If so, where and how can I find it?

When posting via the web interface as you describe above, you cannot view the message you posted once submitting it until it is made visible to the entire group.

Perhaps a solution is to POST using an email client on your own computer and then read via whichever method you prefer.

Or perhaps copy the posting before submitting it and save/print it using something like WordPad until it appears on-line. (Yeah, I wouldn't go to that length either.)

Jim H

Received from Michael Pavan at 6/25/2018 08:03 PM UTC:

Members and Subscribers is synonymous.

I think of and understand:

Subscribers: as people who have a subscribed email address, but do not have a Password, and can only receive and send messages to a Groups.io group.

Members: as Subscribers who do have a Password, and can access the Groups.io group website to access all available features.

If those aren't the correct names to refer to these two distinct levels of Groups.io participation, what are?

There are no distinct levels of member/subscribership. Those two labels - member/subscriber - are synonymous. The "levels," if one chooses to think of it that way, are Owner, Moderator, member/subscriber... in that order. Moderators have additional privileges/authority/responsibility as granted by the Owner from a limited list of additional privileges/authorities/responsibilities.

Jim H

Michael,

As a former long time user of Yahoo Groups, I learned that making a post (new topic or reply) did not guarantee that I or anyone else would ever see a copy of it.

From that scenario, I got into the habit of making a backup copy for myself whenever I created a post. Saved me from recreating the post over from scratch many times.

I have not seen the need to make backups here as reliability has not been an issue.

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Gerald

¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

<<On the home page,?/, all of the groups associated with the account that's logged in will be shown.>>
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Patty S.

Gerald - THAT WAS IT! Many thanks ...

Clint Bradford

¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

Michael,

I think of and understand:

Subscribers: as people who have a subscribed email address, but do not
have a Password, and can only receive and send messages to a Groups.io
group.

Members: as Subscribers who do have a Password, and can access the
Groups.io group website to access all available features.

I like that usage as well, but am not consistent about it. And the Groups.io UI and help certainly aren't consistent in its usage.

However I'm inclined to use Subscriber in any email context, regardless of whether the person has a password or has ever used the web site or not.

If those aren¡¯t the correct names to refer to these two distinct
levels of Groups.io participation, what are?

Those "levels" are not as distinct in Groups.io as they were in Yahoo Groups, here they mostly reflect habitual participation.

One of the reasons the levels aren't as distinct is that every subscribed email address has a corresponding account - whether or not the user ever logged in to the web site to access it. Also, users can access their account (and groups subscribed by that account) at any time without setting or using a password - they can log in using a link sent by email instead.

Shal


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On Jun 25, 2018, at 4:09 PM, Shal Farley <shals2nd@...> wrote:

Michael,

if (I use the New Topic feature) is there (a copy of my post somewhere
in my Groups.io group that I sent the message to), (and if so) how can
I find it?

No there is not. Nor is there for replies you post via the group's Messages section. They only surface if approved to post in the group.

It would be nice if there were an equivalent of the Sent folder, say on your Subscription page. Failing that, or maybe in addition to it, it would also be nice if there were a BCC me checkbox in both places (New Topic and Reply). It is possible that one or both ideas have been discussed in beta:

Thanks for hearing my question and clarifying.

(My response to the other non-answer to my question passed each other by while posting) :)