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Requiring email addresses

 

I can¡¯t imagine a list with anonymous members posting. I have a 3,000 member neighborhood list and it starts a big row if people don¡¯t sign their emails and indicate the street on which they live. (We have government agency posters who list titles and offices.)

I think if people want to lurk, that¡¯s fine, but if they post we should know who is posting. Many members have been living here for 40 years and know everyone. If someone sets up a gmail address and starts posting things as Patsy on 5th, it doesn¡¯t last long. Particularly if they are snarky or endorsing political candidates.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
[email protected]
 

Sharon,

I can¡¯t imagine a list with anonymous members posting.
I think it is entirely a question of the nature of the group.

For some types of help groups I think it would be entirely appropriate to allow (or even require) anonymity. For my classmate groups it would be pointless to do so. And it sounds like in your neighborhood group it could even be harmful.

have a 3,000 member neighborhood list and it starts a big row if
people don¡¯t sign their emails and indicate the street on which they
live. (We have government agency posters who list titles and offices.)
Not meaning to undermine you group here, but have you checked out Nextdoor? The specialize in neighborhood (geographically defined) groups. One cannot be anonymous there either.


I only mention them because Gordon Strause, former Product Manager for Yahoo Groups, went to Nextdoor when he left Yahoo. In my opinion he was one of the "good guys" from YG's golden age. And I like what they've done over at Nextdoor.

Shal
J_Catlady
 

On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 04:47 pm, Sharon Villines wrote:
I can¡¯t imagine a list with anonymous members posting.
Having been through similar discussions (debates?;) ad infinitum in the beta group over the past 1+ years, it's become more and more clear to me how idiosyncratic these preferences are. On one end, you have people and groups who would sell their souls to hide their email addresses. On the other you have people who insist on complete personal info from group members. Everyone feels very strongly about their point of view, without exception. I personally happen to fall somewhere in the middle. It's not important, but I personally would never use my real email address in a group such as the one I host, would never expect my group members to use theirs, and am always surprised that some of them do. But that's me. There is every possible variation to this and every possible extreme. That's why Mark finally (after a LONG, and very heated debate) agreed to make figleafing of email addresses a group option. He still has not done it and I have no idea why not and these discussions continue to come up like Groundhog Day.?
?
--
J
 

My list that had 33,000 members when it was on Yahoo was a technical support group for an online broker's application programming interface: this is something that enables people to develop financial trading software (both personal and corporate). It is of huge interest to people around the globe.

I've never met a single person from that list (and probably never will), I know nothing about them except what comes across in their posts (which of course reveals a lot about them in general terms!), for the most part I have no idea where they live, and in general I have absolutely no reason to need their email addresses.

However there are occasions where people want to contact each other off list, for example further to discuss an issue that has arisen that's off topic for the list itself, and this can be tricky in a list where people can hide (unless there is a private messaging facility, which groups.io sadly lacks - though I'd be very surprised if it hasn't been discussed extensively before).

Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sharon Villines
Sent: 21 November 2017 00:31
To: [email protected]
Subject: [GMF] Requiring email addresses

I can¡¯t imagine a list with anonymous members posting. I have a 3,000 member neighborhood list and it starts a big row if people don¡¯t sign their emails and indicate the street on which they live. (We have government agency posters who list titles and offices.)

I think if people want to lurk, that¡¯s fine, but if they post we should know who is posting. Many members have been living here for 40 years and know everyone. If someone sets up a gmail address and starts posting things as Patsy on 5th, it doesn¡¯t last long. Particularly if they are snarky or endorsing political candidates.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
[email protected]
 

Richard,

... (unless there is a private messaging facility, which groups.io
sadly lacks ...
There is, sort-of, for a loose meaning of the word private.

If you click on Reply under a member's post there is a "Private" button over to the right. Clicking that will change a default "Reply to Group" into a "Reply to Sender".

A member can use that without knowledge of the other member's email address, but one caveat and one loophole:

1) The replying member's email address is exposed in the From field of the message sent to the original poster. Same as it would have been in a group message. With an anonymity feature I'd have to assume some other address would be there.

2) The loophole: if the replying member checks the "BCC me" box, the BCC they get will expose the original poster's email address in the To field. With an anonymity feature I think the BCC field would need to be used for both addressees, to avoid revealing the original poster's email address to the replying member.

... though I'd be very surprised if it hasn't been discussed
extensively before).
Right you are, it was extensively discussed in beta@.

Shal
 

I have that disabled for my groups. You are only allowed to post to the group on the website, you may not reply to all, or do a private reply. Now in the email interface you can as you can see the people who are in the thread. This actually came in handy as someone forgot to put their email in the mesage and I needed to write to them to get a voiceover script to work on this weekend for a project they need by Sunday so that came in handy. But no, if you are using the website like a forum, all other options are disabled. As I want to see everybody who replies.

Take care and have a happy wednesday

On Nov 21, 2017, at 1:27 PM, Shal Farley <shals2nd@...> wrote:

Richard,

... (unless there is a private messaging facility, which groups.io
sadly lacks ...
There is, sort-of, for a loose meaning of the word private.

If you click on Reply under a member's post there is a "Private" button over to the right. Clicking that will change a default "Reply to Group" into a "Reply to Sender".

A member can use that without knowledge of the other member's email address, but one caveat and one loophole:

1) The replying member's email address is exposed in the From field of the message sent to the original poster. Same as it would have been in a group message. With an anonymity feature I'd have to assume some other address would be there.

2) The loophole: if the replying member checks the "BCC me" box, the BCC they get will expose the original poster's email address in the To field. With an anonymity feature I think the BCC field would need to be used for both addressees, to avoid revealing the original poster's email address to the replying member.

... though I'd be very surprised if it hasn't been discussed
extensively before).
Right you are, it was extensively discussed in beta@.

Shal

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