Requiring name on sign up
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On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 09:43 AM, Karen Yun-Lutz wrote:
Is there a way to require new people signing up to include their name??Not at this time. It would be handy. I run an open group and some people only include their email address. No first or last name.? Display Name will usually be populated as soon as a subscriber sends an email to the group. If they never do - or never edit their subscription record to add one - it will remain empty.
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There is an ongoing discussion in the beta group about adding fields for this during signup (). If you want such a feature to be added, you might want to weigh in there.
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In doing so, please consider that there exist many groups where anonymity is actually desirable.
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Regards,
Bruce
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开云体育Hi Karen,You can activate ?restricted membership“ for your group (admin - preferences - settings) - then any membership request will be moderated, and you can ask for a name if necessary before approving a membership request. But there‘s no automatic way to achieve that I believe. Thomas Am 08.04.2025 um 15:43 schrieb Karen Yun-Lutz via groups.io <renaissancewomn04@...>:
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开云体育Hi Bruce,Is it possible for a person to have a user profile in groups.io that contains a display name, but clear the name (or change it to something different) just for a specific group to be anonymous in that group? Normally the same email address and display name are used in all groups where a person is a member.? Actually I would use 2 different email addresses (= user ids) if I was such a person, many email services offer the free use of an alias name so it would be easy to set up, and then use 2 different email addresses in groups.io which would look like 2 different persons for the system and for all other members.? Thomas Am 08.04.2025 um 15:56 schrieb Bruce Bowman via groups.io <bowman46118@...>:
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On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 10:24 AM, Thomas Gruber wrote:
Thomas -- Yes, you can. ?
In my experience, Display Name gets auto-populated by an incoming email only if initially empty. If you manually change/clear it by editing a subscription record, it remains that way (I would welcome further testing on this).
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Which brings up a point that I meant to mention to Karen, but forgot - even if you force your subscribers to enter something, there's no assurance that a real name will be provided.
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This is certainly another way to provide a second level of anonymity.
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Regards,
Bruce
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开云体育Hi Bruce,I tried this right away, and it works as you describe. I changed my display name in 1 group, by editing the subscription entry, and that change stuck (incl. subgroups, as expected). In other main groups the old name (from the groups.io user profile) remained what it was.? I didn‘t try to clear the name altogether - will try that next and report the result. Of course - we don‘t want a legally binding subscription with the correct name in groups.io I think. There are enough organisations with 3 letter abbreviations that can work on finding out the correct name from an email address … Thomas |
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Names is tricky thing. Many a family gathering had three generations of “David”. My father-in-law immediately simplified things by immediately adapting “Wally”. Thus we had “young David“, David & Wally. Pops neatly sidestepped “Old” or “Ancient” David.
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In one of my groups there is resistance to using a name, even as I assure that I don’t care if it’s real. I consider it polite to address a person by name, even if it’s false or I think it should be “mud”
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The one unspoken rule in the group is no politics. I recently allowed a topic of “Tariffs” ?for 48 hours with a demand for curtesy and a big stick “your posts will be set to ‘moderated’”. I got one direct nasty gram and was pleasantly surprised at how civility was maintained.
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cheers,
Dave F. |
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On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 08:43 AM, Karen Yun-Lutz wrote:
Is there a way to require new people signing up to include their name? There is, but it requires a paid group.? You'd create an Extra Member Data field for it, then make those required when they apply.? It only works for those that apply online, not via email.
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Duane
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Lots of detailed information can be found in the Owners Manual and Members Manual found in the Help Center. |
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On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 04:21 PM, Sarah Shapiro wrote:
I can give one example:? One of my groups is associated with a parent organization that holds regular in-person meetings and outreach events (i.e.: we are not just a bunch of people talking over the internet). In that context we'd like to be able to reliably associate each message with a person. Our group Guidelines - sent every month - make it clear that we expect folks to use their real name and that "handles" are not allowed. Having said that, it isn't strictly enforced.
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More generally, there are more than 50,000 groups here, each created for a different reason. The many groups.io options/settings already available are designed to serve them all (or try to). We need to keep such things in mind before telling someone what they do or don't need. Allow me to be the first to admit that I don't always do a good job of that.?
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Regards,
Bruce
Check out the groups.io Help Center?and?groups.io Owners Manual |
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Hi Sarah,
However, in this instance, how on earth would you ever know if John Jones is in real life actually Harry Smith?My only Group that its not Restricted Membership is Announcement only, so it doesn’t matter. My only other Group that I haven’t personally met members before Approving them, I have a Pending Member notice sent asking: 1) Why do you want to Join? 2) What is your real First and Last Name? Plausible answers to both questions get Approva. Incomplete or non-answers get at least one resend of the Pending Member notice and/or a personal inquiry from me. Some members may be submitting a false name, but our focus isn’t confidential and our Messages archive is public. New Member Posts Require Approval, which also helps to vet new members. I believe most people who don’t conceal their identity are more likely to be courteous and respectful in discussions. I have only in a few instances put anyone temporarily back on Moderation. I have had to announce that there is a “Mute Topic” link on each message and there are Subscription > Settings > Advanced Preferences > Message Selection options "Following Only”, "First Message Also”, and "Auto Follow Replies” options for those who aren’t interested in a particular Topic and/or have complained of too many messages -Michael |
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> And what possible difference can it make???
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My main group is for residents of my neighborhood only. We require each prospective member to tell us their full name and to put that name in their display field. We also require them to tell us their property address. We verify their information with state property records; if there is any question about their authenticity I contact someone at a neighboring home. Only then do we approve their membership.?
My members want to feel safe knowing that they’re having a discussion with an actual neighbor and not any random person who feels like joining.?
Pete |
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This one is a potential ‘sticky wicket’ as some have noted. And, for any and many reasons, some folks want to remain anonymous to the rest, and some groups want unabashed outright attachments made. ? I manage a few Groups, among them a Group for Retired, Past, Associated, and Current members of a moderately large fire department. Our membership includes folks who retired from the department in the 80’s – who none of the Current or even past 25 years membership may have only heard of, or not. Likewise, those of us oldtimers (I worked from ’69-2002; retired since then), know those older than us but few who hired on after we retired – and some of them are retiring now! A display name of ‘bumperbender’ might be readily recognized by anyone who was around when the ‘bumper bending’ took place, but not by anyone who joins today; or, conversely, if the bumper got bent today, none of the oldtimers would have a clue who it was. “HoseA” and “JoseB” just don’t identify anything or anyone. And the common theme among all of us is that at one time or another we shared some of our many ‘family of things.’ Unlike so many people and groups – we’ve slept in each other’s beds, eaten from the same plates, and possibly pulled each other’s bacon out of a fire. ? We insist on using/showing the ‘real name’ – and/or, in the case or a ‘widow or widower/significant other’ we’ll show the actual name of the Group member with the name of the former firefighter in parenthesis. i.e. ‘John Brown’, versus “Jane (John) Brown”. I tell any proposed new member that I send an invite to that they should “fill in YOUR KNOWN NAME in the Display Name field when you get to the sign-in page. If you don’t, I’ll fill it in for you.” I’ve had a few applicants who only submitted with their email moniker…and held the application until I got an answer back from them identifying them and assuring I knew they were ‘one of us’ and appropriate for membership; then approved them and added their appropriate Display Name. ? -- Dan Tucker [Personal information trimmed by Moderator] |
Karen Yun-Lutz
Bruce Bowman
Thomas Gruber
Dave Farrington
Duane
Michael Pavan
Pete Cook
Dan Tucker