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Hi all.

I just signed up to set up a list for parents in the school our sons go to.

Everything there now happens with big nasty CC or BCC lists, and there is a strong "gravitation" towards starting a Facebook group, which I'm trying to forestall.

However I'm starting to doubt whether groups.io is a suitable tool for what I want to do.

I have a few requirements:

• The group must be private and closed, invite or import only.
• The use of a web-interface should be optional, and not actively encouraged.
• ( the exception could be a unsubscribe form, which under NO circumstances should require you to log in, get a password or consent to anything. )
• Ideally mail clients should reply to sender when clicking "reply", and sender+group when clicking "reply all".

The reason for this is to make the experience as simple and "frictionless" as possible. There are some very non-techy people in our group, that would be perfectly happy if all the Internet existed inside their FB app. Many have probably never participated in a mailinglist before and are already in a half-panic about all the email they get at work. If they click on something that asks them to create an account it will never happen, and the FB group will be created.

After spending an hour testing groups.io it seems that only the first of my point can be satisfied here.
Considering the press that groups.io has been getting, this is a bit surprising to me, and so I would be happy if someone more knowledgeable can confirm my understanding.

Regards
Gaute Amundsen

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Gaute --

Subscribers are not forced to create a groups.io account, with associated login credentials or anything like that. Their email address IS their "account." This has both benefits and a few downsides.

There is also no ability to completely disable subscriber web access to the group message archive, as one could do in Y!G. We have had a few people who didn't want groups.io to save the messages, only to relay them. As a group settings option this idea hasn't [yet] gotten any traction.

So...groups.io can function as mail-only (similar to Mailman or a listserv) if that's what a subscriber wants.?I'd estimate that about 3/4ths of the people in my primary group interact exclusively via email and seem entirely content with groups.io. I believe they're missing out on a few things that way but it's entirely their choice.

Hope this helps,
Bruce
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Bruce Bowman wrote:

There is also no ability to completely disable subscriber web access to the group message archive, as one could do in Y!G. We have had a few people who didn't want groups.io to save the messages, only to relay them. As a group settings option this idea hasn't [yet] gotten any traction.

Supporting this would be in the spirit of GDRP
Whether or not groups.io feels the need to be GDPR compliant, I will leave to others.

-e.

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Thanks everybody for the good responses :-)

I'm aware of all the points you bring up.
That you can have a private group, and you are not strictly forced to use the web-interface.
The problem is that it's encouraged, and kind of breaks down, when the group is private.

The reply-to: issue is separate matter, and of course dependent on client behaviour, but from my, admittedly limited, experience hand crafting mailheaders, what I want should be entirely doable. But all that is s secondary at this point.

I guess it mostly boils down to the links in the footer.

An example.
When I click the Unsubscribe link, it's not a mailto link with +unsubscribe but a link to a login page.
Not only that, but when you read all the fine print it asks you to "Use the Email me a link to log in button above", which is not above, but rather hiding under the "forgot password" link. There is no way I can ask my users to jump through hoops like this to unsubscribe. I'd end up doing it manually, and with loss of goodwill.
The same goes for the New Topic link, etc.
I expect this behaviour may be partially because the group is private, but I can see at least one way this could have been made much smoother regardless.

Yes you can do without the webinterface, but you have to know all these things or read the docs, and there is no way I can expect that to work with 40 random parents of 6 year olds.

I seem to remember a time when mailinglists were big and freemium listservs must have been plentiful, before yahoo and googlegroups made the territory a wasteland :-(
Now its looking like I might end up having to sign up for some cheap hosting with cpanel and gnu mailman to get what I want.
I'd much rather pay someone a little to avoid setting up and maintaining all that, but who..?

Gaute

PS. I'm in the UTC+1 timezone, so that's why the latency :-)

That you can have a private group, and you are not strictly forced to use the web-interface.
The problem is that it's encouraged, and kind of breaks down, when the group is private.

I don't understand this. It certainly doesn't happen with my groups. They are private and the web interface requires authentication.

Best,

Glenn


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The problem is that it's encouraged, and kind of breaks down, when the group is private.

Yes Web Access is encouraged - the non ‘mailto’ unsubscribe link is one instance

I think the technically savvy just don’t get how intimidated non-technically savvy ‘civilians’ are.
Many feel very awkward with email
(Think of US President Calvin Coolidge not wanting to touch light switches when the White House was electrified)
Even more fear screwing things up if they try to use websites (touch the third rail of an electric railroad)

These people want to just be Subscribers (email only), rather than Members (email and web access)
NOTE; Groups.io ambiguously interchanges Subscriber and Member as if no one has difficulty with doing more than email…
Technology is more accessible when advances are ‘backwards compatible’, i.e. do not remove the most basic options of the most basic users.

I guess it mostly boils down to the links in the footer.

Agreed

See also Your Friend, the Footer.

Good info, shows the results of various options, as well as which links are ‘mailto'

And comment on it or update it as needed, if you're so inclined.

This is your best bet - unless/until Groups.io makes the footer ‘Email Subscriber only’ friendly (no web interaction required).
Maybe there should be ‘Email Subscriber only’ and Advanced (email and web) Member sections of the footer...

When I click the Unsubscribe link, it's not a mailto link with +unsubscribe but a link to a login page.
Not only that, but when you read all the fine print it asks you to "Use the Email me a link to log in button above", which is not above, but rather hiding under the "forgot password" link.

‘Loginlinks’ (temporary passwords) cross the line between ‘Email Only’ and ‘Web Access’.

In the early days a lot of effort went in to making the unsubscribe link as streamlined and simple as possible - many of the early adopters had run Yahoo Groups whose memberships were also largely email-only. It is possible that changes have crept in which make it no longer so.

Apparently creep has occurred.

Specific problems, like having the text conflict with the layout of the page, should be reported to [email protected] as bugs.

Anyone wishing to test the Unsubscribe link should be aware of a couple of things:
? If your browser has a Groups.io login cookie (that is, if you are logged in on some tab or window) then you will have a different presentation than an "email only" member who has never visited the site.
? The unsubscribe link contains your account ID (the number just after the word "leave"). This identifies who to unsubscribe. The prompt to use a login link may be a defense against you trying to unsubscribe someone else - it serves the same purpose as the confirmation email sent after a +unsubscribe command.

Serves the same purpose, but not in a friendly to all manner (techies forgot about ‘Email Subscriber only’ users)...


Too bad all the footer email links are not 'mailto' links.

You could add a custom section to the footer,
[in Admin: Settings: Message Formatting: Message Footer ]
such as:

====================================================================================
====================================================================================

TO UNSUBSCRIBE BY EMAIL (ignore the other "unsubscribe" link, SEND AN EMAIL TO:
[email protected]
(NOYE: YOU WILL HAVE TO REPLY TO A ‘CONFIRM YOU UNSUBSCRIPTION' EMAIL, TOO)

====================================================================================
====================================================================================


Some Subscribers and Members tell me that the messages they get have no footers. I haven't seen that happen with Groups.io, but often found the footer missing with YahooGroups when there was an attachment. Unfortunately, I believe many people overlook or ignore footers.

Good day sir, I wanted to put my two cents in here. D footer can be edited 20 extent. Meaning if you want to, you can put the unsubscribe email address in the footer of an email. That way when they ask how to unsubscribe you can tell them to look at the very first message that comes out that is also showing the footer below it. It was normally up here the main folder. Which has all the links that you don't want. If you use what's up messenger, or anything of that nature, I would not mind speaking with you and guiding you to assist you and fixing up your it with want. I think there is one things that we may have to ask Mark to do and that would be to make a setting so where Eminem somebody work to request to join the group it would automatically get the message that says that this group cannot be joined without having an invitation to join at it first. I would look into those types of things and you talked about possibly paying somebody to commands the Interface for you. As a manager for cervical list, I do this sort of thing for free. So if you needed or wanted an extra hand no problem.

On Sep 5, 2018, at 10:24 AM, Gaute Amundsen <gaute@...> wrote:

Thanks everybody for the good responses :-)

I'm aware of all the points you bring up.
That you can have a private group, and you are not strictly forced to use the web-interface.
The problem is that it's encouraged, and kind of breaks down, when the group is private.

The reply-to: issue is separate matter, and of course dependent on client behaviour, but from my, admittedly limited, experience hand crafting mailheaders, what I want should be entirely doable. But all that is s secondary at this point.

I guess it mostly boils down to the links in the footer.

An example.
When I click the Unsubscribe link, it's not a mailto link with +unsubscribe but a link to a login page.
Not only that, but when you read all the fine print it asks you to "Use the Email me a link to log in button above", which is not above, but rather hiding under the "forgot password" link. There is no way I can ask my users to jump through hoops like this to unsubscribe. I'd end up doing it manually, and with loss of goodwill.
The same goes for the New Topic link, etc.
I expect this behaviour may be partially because the group is private, but I can see at least one way this could have been made much smoother regardless.

Yes you can do without the webinterface, but you have to know all these things or read the docs, and there is no way I can expect that to work with 40 random parents of 6 year olds.

I seem to remember a time when mailinglists were big and freemium listservs must have been plentiful, before yahoo and googlegroups made the territory a wasteland :-(
Now its looking like I might end up having to sign up for some cheap hosting with cpanel and gnu mailman to get what I want.
I'd much rather pay someone a little to avoid setting up and maintaining all that, but who..?

Gaute

PS. I'm in the UTC+1 timezone, so that's why the latency :-)

[excess quote trimmed by moderator]

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On 05. sep. 2018 17:48, Glenn Glazer wrote:

On 9/5/2018 08:24, Gaute Amundsen wrote:

That you can have a private group, and you are not strictly forced to use the web-interface.
The problem is that it's encouraged, and kind of breaks down, when the group is private.

I don't understand this. It certainly doesn't happen with my groups. They are private and the web interface requires authentication.

It doesn't break "technically", just "conceptually".
You are promised "unsubscribe" but are led on a merry chase of small print and misnamed links.
There could have been some kind of one-time token on that link to avoid the login prompt, but there isn't.

Gaute

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On 05. sep. 2018 18:24, Shal Farley wrote:

Gaute,

The problem is that it's encouraged, and kind of breaks down, when the group is private.

I'm not clear on what you mean by this. I run a couple of Restricted Membership groups, most of the membership of those are "email only" - I suspect they've never visited the site.

They must be seasoned malinglist users then :)
If there is a link in the footer, somebody will click it, and then the "email only" experience breaks badly.

I guess it mostly boils down to the links in the footer.

See also Your Friend, the Footer. And comment on it or update it as needed, if you're so inclined.

I found that :)
Quite helpful, but I notice some discrepancies now.
It says "leave", while my footer says "unsubscribe".
It also claims the url is on the format of /g/<groupname>/leave/some/codes while my source clearly contains only /g/<gropname>/unsub.

When I click the Unsubscribe link, it's not a mailto link with +unsubscribe but a link to a login page.
Not only that, but when you read all the fine print it asks you to "Use the Email me a link to log in button above", which is not above, but rather hiding under the "forgot password" link.

In the early days a lot of effort went in to making the unsubscribe link as streamlined and simple as possible - many of the early adopters had run Yahoo Groups whose memberships were also largely email-only. It is possible that changes have crept in which make it no longer so. Specific problems, like having the text conflict with the layout of the page, should be reported to [email protected] as bugs.

I shall make a point of that, if I can actually make this work as I want it :-)

Anyone wishing to test the Unsubscribe link should be aware of a couple of things:

• If your browser has a Groups.io login cookie (that is, if you are logged in on some tab or window) then you will have a different presentation than an "email only" member who has never visited the site.
• The unsubscribe link contains your account ID (the number just after the word "leave"). This identifies who to unsubscribe. The prompt to use a login link may be a defense against you trying to unsubscribe someone else - it serves the same purpose as the confirmation email sent after a +unsubscribe command. n
  

Ah, there you say it again. But it doesn’t!
The links are of the /unsub and not /leave kind, and there is no account ID. This goes for the text/plain mime part as well, so it's not just some clever javascript acting up or something.
Changes have clearly crept in I'd say :-)

Gaute

PS. For testing and general control of privacy online, I can warmly recommend Firefox in combination with the plugins "Firefox multi account containers" and "cookie autodelete".
Makes it very simpe to be admin in one tab, and a completely blanc user in another one.

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On 05. sep. 2018 20:05, Michael Pavan wrote:

The problem is that it's encouraged, and kind of breaks down, when the group is private.

Yes Web Access is encouraged - the non ‘mailto’ unsubscribe link is one instance

I think the technically savvy just don’t get how intimidated non-technically savvy ‘civilians’ are. 
Many feel very awkward with email 
(Think of US President Calvin Coolidge not wanting to touch light switches when the White House was electrified)
Even more fear screwing things up if they try to use websites (touch the third rail of an electric railroad) 

These people want to just be Subscribers (email only), rather than Members (email and web access)
NOTE; Groups.io ambiguously interchanges Subscriber and Member as if no one has difficulty with doing more than email…
Technology is more accessible when advances are ‘backwards compatible’, i.e. do not remove the most basic options of the most basic users.

Ah! That's interesting. Are Subscribers and Members different things?
I might have to look things over again with that distinction in mind.

And thanks for articulating so well what I was also trying to say about "civilians" :-)

I guess it mostly boils down to the links in the footer.

Agreed

See also Your Friend, the Footer.

Good info, shows the results of various options, as well as which links are ‘mailto'

And comment on it or update it as needed, if you're so inclined.

This is your best bet - unless/until Groups.io makes the footer ‘Email Subscriber only’ friendly (no web interaction required).
Maybe there should be ‘Email Subscriber only’ and Advanced (email and web) Member sections of the footer...

If Members and Subscribers are different classes, that would make a lot of sense.
I don't mind inviting people to explore, the "power user" possibilities in the web interface, just don't surprize them and make it an obstacle to doing what you want.

When I click the Unsubscribe link, it's not a mailto link with +unsubscribe but a link to a login page.
Not only that, but when you read all the fine print it asks you to "Use the Email me a link to log in button above", which is not above, but rather hiding under the "forgot password" link.

‘Loginlinks’ (temporary passwords) cross the line between ‘Email Only’ and ‘Web Access’.

Ah, yes. I was expecting to see something like that, but so far there are none.
Perhaps that's where the explanation for my disappointing experience is hidden.

In the early days a lot of effort went in to making the unsubscribe link as streamlined and simple as possible - many of the early adopters had run Yahoo Groups whose memberships were also largely email-only. It is possible that changes have crept in which make it no longer so.

Apparently creep has occurred.

Specific problems, like having the text conflict with the layout of the page, should be reported to [email protected] as bugs. 

Anyone wishing to test the Unsubscribe link should be aware of a couple of things:
	? If your browser has a Groups.io login cookie (that is, if you are logged in on some tab or window) then you will have a different presentation than an "email only" member who has never visited the site.
	? The unsubscribe link contains your account ID (the number just after the word "leave"). This identifies who to unsubscribe. The prompt to use a login link may be a defense against you trying to unsubscribe someone else - it serves the same purpose as the confirmation email sent after a +unsubscribe command. 

Serves the same purpose, but not in a friendly to all manner (techies forgot about ‘Email Subscriber only’ users)...


Too bad all the footer email links are not 'mailto' links.

You could add a custom section to the footer,
 [in Admin: Settings: Message Formatting: Message Footer ]
such as:

====================================================================================
====================================================================================

TO UNSUBSCRIBE BY EMAIL (ignore the other "unsubscribe" link, SEND AN EMAIL TO:
[email protected]
(NOYE: YOU WILL HAVE TO REPLY TO A ‘CONFIRM YOU UNSUBSCRIPTION' EMAIL, TOO)

====================================================================================
====================================================================================

Yeah, I experimented with that, but it just creates way to much text.
Especially when this middle bit is in Norwegian .-)

Some Subscribers and Members tell me that the messages they get have no footers. I haven't seen that happen with Groups.io, but often found the footer missing with YahooGroups when there was an attachment. Unfortunately, I believe many people overlook or ignore footers.

It used to be that many mail clients would snip away anything after a line stating with " --" or was it "-- ".
Or perhaps it could be the "put it in a separate mime part" option? I might remember that wrong. I did not test that :-)

Gaute

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Thanks for you good will :-)
I have tested out most of the options for customizing the footer and reply-to without finding what I want.
However it now seems there is something strange about the URLs I am seeing, which is possibly related to a "secret" distinction between Members and Subscribers, so perhaps I'm on the path to figuring something out.

Now however, it's well beyond bedtime here, so good night to you all :-)

Gaute

Michael Pavan wrote:
"I think the technically savvy just don’t get how intimidated non-technically savvy ‘civilians’ are."
and
"Technology is more accessible when advances are ‘backwards compatible’, i.e. do not remove the most basic options of the most basic users."


This is so very true, especially with older members who I describe as 'in the right hand lane of the information highway, driving slowly.' But in a historically-oriented group such as most of mine, these members are the very ones we want to hang onto most. They have the best remembrances and can tell some of the best stories.

This is good advice that should be framed and put on the wall where people can be constantly reminded of it.

Dano

Gaute,

Ah! That's interesting. Are Subscribers and Members different things?

No.

I've suggested carefully using forms of "subscribe" when discussing email things, and forms of "member" when discussing web things, however Mark has not taken that advice. He seems to treat the words as synonyms.

And in practice there's no distinction; there's only whether you happen to be logged in at the moment or not.

This differs slightly from the situation in Yahoo Groups, where there's an account ID (aka Yahoo Profile) that is distinct from one's email address. There members without an account ID listed for their subscription are considered "email only". They must add an account to their membership before they have "web access" to the group's pages as a member.

It used to be that many mail clients would snip away anything after a
line stating with " --" or was it "-- ".

The latter. That's still supported by many email interfaces, though some merely grey the text below the "sig" marker. It is defined in RFC 3676

Or perhaps it could be the "put it in a separate mime part" option? I
might remember that wrong. I did not test that :-)

Some email interfaces don't show the separate mime part. And groups that enable that option receive only the "plain text" format of footer, at least in individual mails. Unless Mark has fixed that (haven't checked lately).

Shal


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Gaute,

You are promised "unsubscribe" but are led on a merry chase of small print and misnamed links.

It really shouldn't be that bad.

Well, I might be exaggerating just a _little_ for effect ;-)
You are however not given _quite- what the link promises.

I may have to go create some new email addresses so I can test it as a new user would see it. It is possible that some support requests or beta suggestions will result.

There could have been some kind of one-time token on that link to avoid the login prompt, but there isn't.

There really couldn't be.

That option was discussed heavily, but the problem is that email footers tend to get passed around. Someone forwards a group message, someone replies to a group message in a Reply-To sender group, someone replies to a group message and the site's footer-stripping code fails to catch it... You get the idea.

Some thought that spontaneous unsubscription might be a suitable punishment for letting your footers get away from you, but more sympathetic heads prevailed.

Well, what about the part after the /leave/ part of the url? It's not quite a login token I guess, but it would possibly be enough for me if it worked like the /wiki/Footers page describes.
I have not seen it "in the wild" yet, so its hard to know :-/

Also a spontaneous confirmation mail about unsubscribing, would be quite acceptable to me.
I get the issue about such links not being quite "airtight" from a security standpoint, but if the token was limited to performing just those actions that are linked to, and not general account changes, then I'd find that a good tradeoff for usability. ( there has to be a step after the link, requiring a POST request of course, to avoid robots triggering the links )

Regarding footer stripping, my strategy would be "belt & suspenders". Strip footers yes, but also look for the actual urls with tokens. Those should be much easier to catch reliably.
One could also employ various tricks with the tokens: let them contain a timestamp and revert to manual login after a few days. Let them be opaque one-time keys stored serverside for some days only, and revert to manual login after that. Not 100% airtight still of course, but its always a tradeoff..

Gaute

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Hey!? I figured out one mystery :)
I guess you said as much in a way as well:

If your browser has a Groups.io login cookie (that is, if you are logged in on some tab or window) then you will have a different presentation than an "email only" member who has never visited the site.

If the website thinks you are logged in, (it has an active backend session, I guess), then the mail it sends you contains a different url!
The "groups.io/g/<group>/unsub" url is sent to logged in users, and the other one "groups.io/g/<group>/leave/defanged"? to those who are not.
Clever :-/
Perhaps adding a remark or two about that to the /wiki/Footers would be a good idea.

Ok, with that cleared up I can see that the unsubscribe function would be quite fine for most people.

So that leaves the other footer links then.
I see those do not differ between logged in or not, and they all lead to a login screen if you are not.
Even the new post link. ( why not a mailto? )


<snip>

The links are there for convenience, and logging in has been made about as convenient as it can be -- no password required, no setup required, just "Email me a link to log in". And you don't have to do that again for 30 days (unless you log out or delete browser cookies).

Hm.. I see what you are getting at now, but I still find it missleading.
Where is the "Email me a link to log in button above"? Its not there.



I had to read twice before I decided to try the "Forgot your password, or don't have one yet?" link, and found it hiding under there.
I'd say there is considerable room for improvement here.

At the moment I'm also forced to concede that this is a "deal breaker" for my use case.
I can not demand of my only halfway willing "facebook natives", that they have to wrap their heads around this :-(

If there was one short sentence and maybe two links or buttons, that would work.
Even a section of small print below would be ok, but not this.
This is the first experience my users would have of the webpage, and on first glance what is says is "Pleas log in", "Or you can" and "Not sure".
Half of my users would hit the back button within 5 seconds of opening this page on Android.

You could suggest an "email-only" Subscription option which would provide only mailto: links in the footer. (oh great, yet another variation of footer!). That would eliminate many of them, but could still leave you with Reply to Group, Reply to Sender, New Topic, Contact Group Owner, and Unsubscribe.

With all due respect, I think I will leave that to somebody with more invested in this system than I.
It's good to contribute and all, but I have a task to accomplish, and don't really need a new hobby :-)

It has to be said though, that it's a pleasure to interact with a forum like this.
Thoughtful replies, inline, point by point, with proper quoting and all! :-)

Gaute