Re: Single Owner Group - Owner Deceased
On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 11:34 PM, Art Kocsis wrote:
On 01-13-2021 17:16, ro-esp wrote:
... maybe just allow succession-requests no sooner than when the
original owner has not been active in any group for 2 or 3 months,
and have them step in to ask the group whether anybody has
objections to promoting the moderator to owner That is not practical. My groups operated on Yahoo for years without
any owner activity (a feat, unfortunately, unable to be achieved on
GIO!). While not the most active, we had 3000 members, no moderation
required and no problems with SPAM. Absence of owner activity is not
a reliable indicator of an owner's vitality. In fact, even on GIO,
all moderation/administration requirements could be performed by
separate moderators without any owner activity required at all.
you seem to have misinterpreted what I said Validating the death of an owner, given that he/she could have lived
anyplace on the world and is only identified by an email address may
just be an intractable problem. That's why I suggested that an owner be considered permanently incapacitated only when (s)he hasn't sent a message or done any moderating-tasks in groups.io at all. I am not suggesting that groups.io-staff limit their view to just one group. Obviously if the missed owner is still active in another group, (s)he isn't dead and no succession-procedure is warranted groetjes/?is, Ronaldo
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Re: Single Owner Group - Owner Deceased
Personally I haven't seen any discouragement by moderators, far from it, just the opposite in fact
This group ownership subject seems to be a pre-occupation of ex Yahoo groups
Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK)
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On 14/01/2021 23:11, Shal Farley wrote: WRB,
> Moderator opinions have, in my opinion, unduly discouraged earlier
> discussions on this subject.? Shouldn’t they encourage legitimate
> discussions rather than discourage them?
It is unnecessary, and unwise, to assume suppression by the moderators when what you really face is a difference of opinion with an individual member (who happens to be a moderator). Assuming an adversarial stance is not conducive to an open conversation about the issues.
We try to ensure that postings we make as individual members are signed only with our names, and when speaking as "the moderators" (which is quite rare, on-list) are signed with our title as well.
Shal
GMF Founder
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Re: 2 accounts open at the same time?
On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 01:51 AM, Niman H wrote:
Is there a way to have 2 or more accounts (ie, email addresses, I think that's the right term) open on gio at one time? It would be helpful to have a moderator and regular member account open at the same time to see how different settings are affected, etc, instead of having to log in and out (and in and out).
Hi Niman, See my previous post on this subject /g/GroupManagersForum/message/33488Regards Andy
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Re: Single Owner Group - Owner Deceased
Hi Duane,
My pleasure. ?
It isn’t a matter of “can’t”, but of “won’t. ?If you have lots of people in your groups you would trust with their continuity, consider yourself lucky. ?I don’t, perhaps because I set a very high bar to insure the survival of “my groups” (in the custodial sense) started in the ‘90s.
I wouldn’t give a neighbor I really don’t know very well the keys to my house, nor would I convey the “keys to the kingdom” of my groups easily, since they presently would concurrently convey the power to demote ME, present sole owner, at a time I DO NOT WISH TO RETIRE. ?
Another owner with the same powers I have could cause all kinds of mischief should they prove unworthy of such UNNECESSARY trust. ?For ?those reasons I’m simply NOT EVER going to use “existing features” clearly inappropriate to my needs and an unnecessary threat to the continuity of my groups (a primary responsibility of any leader worth of the title). ?
I WANT to have one or more designated successors, but I have NO intention of handing over powers unnecessary at present before I am ready to "hand over the reins”, incapacitated, or dead.
In my local county ordinary people are appointed to an Appraisal Review Board who have never had power of any sort before. ?Instead of remaining “peers” of taxpayers, they come to see themselves as an extension of the appraisal district; with impartiality the first victim. ?
Having power for the first time in their lives goes to their heads. ?As the saying goes, Power corrupts. ?Absolute power corrupts absolutely. ?Human nature.
Best! ?
WRB
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On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 04:24 PM, wrote:
You’re “...just not seeing a problem here…” because FOR YOU with YOUR group’s resources, it’s NOT a problem. ?With all due respect, that is no reason to dismiss out of hand the fact that this IS A PROBLEM for some owners and insuring continuity in case of their death or disability.
I'm not dismissing them out of hand.? Please explain in detail why you can't use the existing features.? (Have you tried them?)? I'd really like to understand why making changes would improve things.? My groups have no more resources than any other group and will survive fine, even if I don't appoint a co-owner, since the moderator(s) can carry on. Duane -- The official user documentation is in the Groups.io Help Center.
GMF's Unofficial Help Wiki: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki
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Re: Single Owner Group - Owner Deceased
Hi Shal,
Comments below in bold and “< >”.
Best!
WRB On Jan 14, 2021, at 5:54 PM, Shal Farley < shals2nd@...> wrote:
WRB,
> Shouldn’t that be “outbound email”, as in “owner-originated”?
Er, perspective again. I meant inbound to (the entity measuring the activity).
Specifically I wanted to exclude from "activity" any of the normal group traffic or moderator notices which may continue to be delivered successfully to an owner's address regardless of whether the owner is still able to read them.
<Makes sense now.>
>> 3) In the event that any owner or any moderator tagged for succession
>> is individually absent (as defined above) send a notification ...
>
> In such case, or if the designated “new Owner” declines advancement,
> just go to the next in line?
I was thinking of (3) as a kind of early warning system that the chain of succession may need attention. It wouldn't necessarily signify that a succession event has occurred. For example, if there were other active owners no promotion would occur and it would be up to them to decide what to do under the circumstances.
If the group had a single owner, and it was that owner who went absent, then the rules of succession would be in play and the first in line would be promoted. That person would "accept" the promotion by picking up the reins. Otherwise he/she can explicitly decline advancement by promoting someone else (mayhaps the next in line) and demoting him/herself. Or remain absent and the mechanism moves on to the next.
<Agree completely.>
> I don’t think a “chain of succession” is desirable. ?Once an owner is
> replaced by someone willing and competent, after six months or a year
> it should then be THEIR prerogative to designate their own successor
> candidate(s).
I was thinking it was their prerogative to immediately reshape the "chain" (or even turn the mechanism off altogether) as soon as he/she is promoted. I only made the mechanism capable of chaining in case the immediate successor also went absent (pre- or post-promotion).
<Works for me.>
> The perpetual “Con" of learning from experience is that the exam comes
> before the knowledge ?;<)
Too true. Which is why a stint as an active moderator before being promoted to Owner is a useful practice. That's part of why I proposed a mechanism that only applies to moderators in the chain of succession.
<In my opinion a successor should be a?“person in waiting”, a?“fallback in case something happens to a normally functioning founder or single owner. ?I?oppose the idea of multiple owners as?“unnatural”, i.e. wolf packs don’t have TWO?“alpha males” simultaneously?“in charge”. ?I’m not opposed to the idea of appointing a?“springing” successor from my moderators, but the person I presently deem most qualified to lead my groups in the long term has not yet been made a moderator.> ?
>> o ?Doesn't provide for alternate outcomes (group locked or deleted).
>
> Offer the latter [two] as optional checkboxes?
<These two?“options” merely provide for ratification of a leader’s failure to provide a future for their group. ?Hitler ordered Paris destroyed by his administrators in the field (they refused) and tried to take Germany down with him as?“undeserving” of continuing to exist. ?Not?something to encourage. ?That said, all such options should be discussed.>
It could be done, particularly easy if the controls are aggregated into a single tab in the Settings page. I forgot "remove everyone" from that list.
Shal
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Re: Single Owner Group - Owner Deceased
On 14/01/2021 07:56, Shal Farley wrote: 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). I setup a list here, purely to serve as a "contact support" function, for templates I've created. Two or three years can go by, without any messages on it. (As much as I'd like to think that nobody has questions about using the templates, I suspect the truth is that nobody uses them.) If I understand the proposal correctly, the list would be transferred to the appointed person, even if I was still alive and kicking, simply due to the low traffic of the list. That doesn't seem right to me. ##### For Premium & Enterprise lists, require both a mailing address, and a phone number. There are three circumstances under which the "owner succession" goes into effect: * A death certificate for the owner is submitted to Mark/Groups.io; * An "owner succession" vote, in which at least 50% +1 of the list subscribers vote for it to be used; * A request from the legal guardian of the owner is submitted to mark/Groups.io. (This is to cover scenarios in which the owner is no longer able to run the list, or transfer the list to another party. By way of example, rapid onset of dementia. I haven't thought through the protocol for Mark/Groups.IO to utilize, to verify the authenticity of the request. (^1)) For Basic lists, the "owner succession" kicks in, upon 50% +1 members votes for it to do so; ##### ^1: Given the ease in which a death certificate for somebody who is still living, can be obtained in India, I suspect that false claims of legal guardianship can easily obtained, both there, and elsewhere. jonathon
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Re: Single Owner Group - Owner Deceased
Did not understand that. Thanks for the information. I’m new at this, and wish to follow proper protocol when I am aware of it.
Best!
WRB
—
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On Jan 14, 2021, at 5:11 PM, Shal Farley <shals2nd@...> wrote:
WRB,
Moderator opinions have, in my opinion, unduly discouraged earlier
discussions on this subject. Shouldn’t they encourage legitimate
discussions rather than discourage them? It is unnecessary, and unwise, to assume suppression by the moderators when what you really face is a difference of opinion with an individual member (who happens to be a moderator). Assuming an adversarial stance is not conducive to an open conversation about the issues.
We try to ensure that postings we make as individual members are signed only with our names, and when speaking as "the moderators" (which is quite rare, on-list) are signed with our title as well.
Shal
GMF Founder
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Re: Single Owner Group - Owner Deceased
I definitely agree with you. I said on here multiple times, that the people that I run groups with, I have their phone numbers and or a sloth email addresses to contact them. And they can do the same for me. Not only Ken owners reach out to me by members can reach out to me as well. If there were such an issue on the group. And I think in regards to promotion of people, it should be those members that are the most active on the group that should be able to be promoted if the owner has not responded to any kind of pending notifications or done anything on the website for a period of time. Perhaps it should be 14 days just like the pending notifications are for approving new members.
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On Jan 14, 2021, at 10:30 AM, Ken Cameron <kcameron@...> wrote:
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
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Re: Single Owner Group - Owner Deceased
YahOops once was putting into place a mechanism whereby a mod could petition them and YahOo would post a yay or nay on their promotion to owner and find cause or not do make such a promotion.
As w IO, money rules by some necessity so it never got put into place as a regular potential. It gives members a say and they could add a different nominee to the Poll, so yahoo was sorta off the hook.
I keep 2 co-owners in a tiny list (over 10)? and 3 when we surpass tiny (100) with a working mod often in the wings and a CLEAR understanding to promote now and thiMk later... if I go AWOL.
I have seen this ignored after my pleas and the remaining owner lose email while promising to appoint someone after a 30 day vacation, during which she was hacked. SEALS say, "Two is ONE and One is None." No backup. The whole mission us at irresponsible risk. Point is, a worthy mission has value above ALL the players.
The list/group is 'everything,' or nothing more than an ego-stroke.
BillSF9c
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Re: 2 accounts open at the same time?
Dan, I'm lucky and have two 32" monitors and three browsers loaded on my
MAC ... Awesome. Load up two more browsers (or if some of those can do Bruce's trick) and you can have the pentafecta: o Not logged in o Logged in but not a member o Logged in as a member o Logged in as an moderator of limited permissions o Logged in as an owner but I can possibly find a Mac way I'd be shocked if there weren't a facile way to handle screenshots on a Mac. I always suggest storing screenshots in PNG format (not jpeg or other compressed formats) if you need to save it to a file. Direct copy and paste usually is uncompressed too. Shal -- Help: /helpcenterMore Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wikiEven More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list
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Re: 2 accounts open at the same time?
Awesome and Thanks, Shal and Bruce. I'm lucky and have two 32" monitors and three browsers loaded on my MAC - ergo, the Windoze options won't work; but I can possibly find a Mac way around them. — Dan Tucker Wasilla, AK. (907) 863-1313 ?On 1/14/21, 6:32 PM, " [email protected] on behalf of Shal Farley" < [email protected] on behalf of shals2nd@...> wrote: Dan, > I look forward to the answer to this also. Changes made on the Owner > page don’t look the same on a Member page. I haven't tried Bruce's technique either, but using two different browsers is also effective. Or a desktop and a laptop or mobile device. Or.. any method that gets you two separate cookie storages. My go-to choice is Firefox for my primary login (group ownerships) and Edge for my secondary login (an account that is only a member of those groups). Doing it this way may have a minor risk that something will appear significantly different in one browser than the other, but fortunately that's become much less frequent a problem in recent years. > And trying to coach a Member through a step-by-step process when you > are working from a ‘no limits’ Owner or Moderator page is tough. Exactly. The snip & sketch tool in Win10 (Shift+Window+S keystroke shortcut) is very handy for grabbing a quick screen shot you can paste into your email or chat. Now if only it had a feature to draw straight arrows (something I have a hard time with via mouse). Shal -- Help: /helpcenter More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list
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Re: 2 accounts open at the same time?
Dan, I look forward to the answer to this also. Changes made on the Owner
page don’t look the same on a Member page. I haven't tried Bruce's technique either, but using two different browsers is also effective. Or a desktop and a laptop or mobile device. Or.. any method that gets you two separate cookie storages. My go-to choice is Firefox for my primary login (group ownerships) and Edge for my secondary login (an account that is only a member of those groups). Doing it this way may have a minor risk that something will appear significantly different in one browser than the other, but fortunately that's become much less frequent a problem in recent years. And trying to coach a Member through a step-by-step process when you
are working from a ‘no limits’ Owner or Moderator page is tough. Exactly. The snip & sketch tool in Win10 (Shift+Window+S keystroke shortcut) is very handy for grabbing a quick screen shot you can paste into your email or chat. Now if only it had a feature to draw straight arrows (something I have a hard time with via mouse). Shal -- Help: /helpcenterMore Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wikiEven More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list
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Re: 2 accounts open at the same time?
I look forward to the answer to this also. Changes made on the Owner page don’t look the same on a Member page.?
And trying to coach a Member through a step-by-step process when you are working from a ‘no limits’ Owner or Moderator page is tough.?
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On Jan 14, 2021, at 17:49, Bruce Bowman <bruce.bowman@...> wrote:
?On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 08:51 PM, Niman H wrote:
Is there a way to have 2 or more accounts (ie, email addresses, I think that's the right term) open on gio at one time?
Niman -- You can do this if one of the instances is opened in incognito mode (a Chrome term...I don't know what it's called using other browsers). Such instances do not share cookies, and thus you can effectively have two different logins open at the same time. Disclaimer: I have not actually attempted this using any browser other than Chrome. Regards, Bruce
Check out the groups.io Help Center?and?groups.io Owners Manual
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Re: 2 accounts open at the same time?
On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 08:51 PM, Niman H wrote:
Is there a way to have 2 or more accounts (ie, email addresses, I think that's the right term) open on gio at one time?
Niman -- You can do this if one of the instances is opened in incognito mode (a Chrome term...I don't know what it's called using other browsers). Such instances do not share cookies, and thus you can effectively have two different logins open at the same time. Disclaimer: I have not actually attempted this using any browser other than Chrome. Regards, Bruce
Check out the groups.io Help Center?and?groups.io Owners Manual
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2 accounts open at the same time?
Is there a way to have 2 or more accounts (ie, email addresses, I think that's the right term) open on gio at one time? It would be helpful to have a moderator and regular member account open at the same time to see how different settings are affected, etc, instead of having to log in and out (and in and out).
Thanks
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Re: Single Owner Group - Owner Deceased
Ronaldo, yeah, but if we refine the proposal here we may prevent a huge thread
on beta I agree, although I think we can be assured that something as "core" as this will get some discussion from those who didn't see it here (or even those that did). I could see that my earlier suggestion wasn't ready for "prime time" (beta) so I'm happy to get a lot of comments and refinements here. I think we need to be able to propose something that works without
intervention by Groups.io support. I don't think that it's possible to make that "watertight"
No, I do not expect to cover all possible cases. But if there are more cases that we can cover (without the proposal getting unweildy) then we should discuss them here. I think a proposal that includes intervention (explicitly or implicitly) would be a non-starter for Mark. Then, the more we can keep it as simple to implement and describe as possible the more attractive it would be from his point of view. I'm missing an adjective before "absence".. maybe "longterm" or
"permanent" I don't want to define the interval, that's what the second control does. That is, I think different owners will prefer different time frames. We could discuss here whether the time frame needs to be limited, and if so how. One vision is a drop-list to select one from a limited number of choices. Another vision is a numeric control with a (relatively) unlimited range. maybe make it possible to appoint a MEMBER to take over I avoided that for the two reasons I recently mentioned to Ken. The philosophical one is, why not give them at least a little training as a moderator first. The practical one is that there can be a huge number of members to select from in some groups. Having to dig through a longer list each time your consider (or reconsider) succession makes it that much more tedious. But if there's a will I'm sure there's a way. delete the word "inbound" I was perhaps too terse. What I mean to exclude is email delivery to that owner, which may continue to succeed indefinitely despite the owner's inability or unwillingness to manage the group. What problem is there to be solved when you have multiple owners? Cases where they all go absent at once, or at least in close enough time that the last of them hasn't yet chosen a successor. o Allows the owner(s) to establish a chain of succession ... For a group with a few dozen members, that seems like overkill
True. But it is only a capability, not a requirement. The owner of a group may designate a single successor, or none at all, or set two successors to be promoted at the same time, or whatever seems most reasonable to him/her. simply by setting progressively longer times for each moderator in
the line of succession. I have no idea what you mean here
In my proposed controls I associated an interval with each candidate successor. The owner(s) of the group can set them all to the same interval, in which case they are all promoted at once. Or the owner can set them each to a different interval, in which case they will be promoted in sequence, shortest to longest, until one of them is active (which resets this clock that defines "absent"). I assume that first successive owner will re-arrange the succession controls to reflect his/her own judgement about further succession when his/her time comes. But if not there's still the next in sequence from the original list. Shal -- Help: /helpcenterMore Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wikiEven More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list
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Re: Single Owner Group - Owner Deceased
Ken, 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. Agreed. At the account level also: having a list of alternate forms of contact would be a good things for notifications about many situations (password changes, primary email address change, etc.). That last part, that a group member might be promoted, covers where
the single owner didn't want other moderators. I didn't suggest including members in the line of succession for two reasons. One is the question of training them to the tasks. The single owner can always limit the permissions of the moderators to nearly nothing. The other is that I immensely dislike drop-lists (or nearly any other type of control) where one must choose one or more out of a list of more than 20 or so. Granted, some groups may have more than 20 moderators, but also some groups have thousands of members (shudder). Shal -- Help: /helpcenterMore Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wikiEven More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list
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Re: How to stop address harvesting
Ken . . . On Thu, 14 Jan 2021 04:12:47 +0000, "Ken Schweizer" <kensch888@...> wrote:
Once ideas are garnered here, we could take Mark an idea in Beta to have
anyone Banned have a red B by their application so we can make a better
decicion about their application. I believe all someone with bad intentions has to do is to join with another e-mail address.
I agree. The comments you quoted were not mine but Bill's. I don't see anything useful an indication would do to help me keep out troublemakers. I do think the banning helps with some people but it is possible that they could, indeed, create another account and join as a new member. It might even be better to just lock them on moderated status and not approve any of their posts, or just the ones that are appropriate. Donald -- AD8DY Formerly KJ3I ---------------------------------------------------- Some ham radio groups you may be interested in: /g/ICOM /g/Ham-Antennas/g/HamRadioHelp /g/Baofeng/g/CHIRP
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Re: Single Owner Group - Owner Deceased
Art, My groups operated on Yahoo for years without any owner activity (a
feat, unfortunately, unable to be achieved on GIO!). I may have missed it, but why do you think not? The mechanisms here and there regarding the capabilities of owners versus moderators have been made nearly identical to what was possible in Yahoo Groups. Mostly by co-evolution (meeting the same needs) but also by example. Shal -- Help: /helpcenterMore Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wikiEven More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list
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Re: Single Owner Group - Owner Deceased
WRB, Shouldn’t that be “outbound email”, as in “owner-originated”? Er, perspective again. I meant inbound to groups.io (the entity measuring the activity). Specifically I wanted to exclude from "activity" any of the normal group traffic or moderator notices which may continue to be delivered successfully to an owner's address regardless of whether the owner is still able to read them. 3) In the event that any owner or any moderator tagged for succession
is individually absent (as defined above) send a notification ... In such case, or if the designated “new Owner” declines advancement,
just go to the next in line?
I was thinking of (3) as a kind of early warning system that the chain of succession may need attention. It wouldn't necessarily signify that a succession event has occurred. For example, if there were other active owners no promotion would occur and it would be up to them to decide what to do under the circumstances. If the group had a single owner, and it was that owner who went absent, then the rules of succession would be in play and the first in line would be promoted. That person would "accept" the promotion by picking up the reins. Otherwise he/she can explicitly decline advancement by promoting someone else (mayhaps the next in line) and demoting him/herself. Or remain absent and the mechanism moves on to the next. I don’t think a “chain of succession” is desirable. Once an owner is
replaced by someone willing and competent, after six months or a year
it should then be THEIR prerogative to designate their own successor
candidate(s). I was thinking it was their prerogative to immediately reshape the "chain" (or even turn the mechanism off altogether) as soon as he/she is promoted. I only made the mechanism capable of chaining in case the immediate successor also went absent (pre- or post-promotion). The perpetual “Con" of learning from experience is that the exam comes
before the knowledge ;<) Too true. Which is why a stint as an active moderator before being promoted to Owner is a useful practice. That's part of why I proposed a mechanism that only applies to moderators in the chain of succession. o Doesn't provide for alternate outcomes (group locked or deleted). Offer the latter [two] as optional checkboxes?
It could be done, particularly easy if the controls are aggregated into a single tab in the Settings page. I forgot "remove everyone" from that list. Shal -- Help: /helpcenterMore Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wikiEven More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list
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Nivard Ovington
Andy Wedge
Shal Farley
Dan Tucker
Bruce