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We migrated our non-profit organization?from another group mail management system to groups.io and have been very happy with the reliability and feature set.
There does seem to be one thing that we have not been able to set up, though.? One, just one, of our lists has always been a "reach out for help" list.? It needs to be unmoderated and open to the public.? I know, I've read that this is not the "sweet spot" for groups.io, but this is a real need for this one list (out of the many lists our org uses).? We do not want to have a different email paradigm/address for just this one list.
Is there a way to configure this that we are missing in the interface?? If not, why is this prohibited?? I understand that it opens that list up to spam but a) the people on the list are savvy enough to handle spam if it happens -- they are problem solvers by definition, and b) in the 12 years we ran our nonprofit on a prior system we averaged less than 2 spam messages per year.? Why can't we choose to take that risk for one of our lists?? I'd hate to move our whole organization off to another system just because we can't figure out hot to set up our help line.
Am I the only one with such a need?
Thanks for reading.
Bill
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Here's my understanding of your question:
- You have a group or subgroup, let's call it "expertlist", of which the members are your helpful experts - You want members of the public to be able to send a message to "expertlist" without having to join it - You want the experts to receive that message, and be able to reply directly to the person in need
I believe you can do that like this: 2. Make all your helpful experts OWNERS of that subgroup. Making your experts owners of the "expertlist" subgroup will not make them owners of the main group or grant them any additional rights over the main group. However, it will allow them to do absolutely anything with the expertlist subgroup. Presumably, though, these are trusted experts. 3. Have each expert log in to their account and? a. select "expertlist" from the "Your Groups" dropdown b. select the "Subscription" option in the left navbar.? c. set the very last setting in the list, "Owner Email" to "All Emails" (Receive every message that is sent to expertlist+owner@...) if it isn't already 4. Publish the address "expertlist+owner@..." (or whatever is the appropriate address for the group you create...) and have members of the public write to it with their questions.?
The experts can than use expertlist to discuss amongst themselves who will reply to the petitioner, and then respond to the petitioner from their personal email address. (My understanding from recent correspondence on this list is that it's not possible to send outgoing mail from the expertlist+owner address.)
That's how our main group and subgroups are set up -- and so far, we have received zero spams in a little over a year of using Groups.io. However, we have never published the?+owner address beyond its default appearance on the page for our group.?
Hope that helps.?
Regards, -- Peter
On Fri, 11 Jan 2019 at 15:47, Bill Sherman < bgsherman@...> wrote: We migrated our non-profit organization?from another group mail management system to and have been very happy with the reliability and feature set.
There does seem to be one thing that we have not been able to set up, though.? One, just one, of our lists has always been a "reach out for help" list.? It needs to be unmoderated and open to the public.? I know, I've read that this is not the "sweet spot" for , but this is a real need for this one list (out of the many lists our org uses).? We do not want to have a different email paradigm/address for just this one list.
Is there a way to configure this that we are missing in the interface?? If not, why is this prohibited?? I understand that it opens that list up to spam but a) the people on the list are savvy enough to handle spam if it happens -- they are problem solvers by definition, and b) in the 12 years we ran our nonprofit on a prior system we averaged less than 2 spam messages per year.? Why can't we choose to take that risk for one of our lists?? I'd hate to move our whole organization off to another system just because we can't figure out hot to set up our help line.
Am I the only one with such a need?
Thanks for reading.
Bill
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Bill, One, /just one/, of our lists has always been a "reach out for
help" list. It needs to be unmoderated /and/ open to the public. By "open to the public" I assume you mean unrestricted membership. Is there a way to configure this that we are missing in the interface? No. The closest you can get is New Member Moderation, which will require that at least one post from the new member be approved before the member is automatically unmoderated. Alternatively, you can set the group to allow posts by non-members, but such messages are always moderated. If not, why is this prohibited? I understand that it opens that list
up to spam ... That's the reason. It would be an unusual setup, but you could promote an arbitrary number of the more active group members to be moderators with minimal privileges, and they can receive immediate notification of the new-member posts requiring approval. The "message approval needed" notices include a full copy of the pending message. Why can't we choose to take that risk for one of our lists? Because it potentially affects other Groups.io groups if the service gains a reputation for delivering spam messages. Shal -- Help: /static/helpMore Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wikiEven More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list
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Shal,
Thank you for taking the time to lay it out for us, though I am not really sure how "if the service?gains a reputation for delivering spam messages" could happen -- WE would be the ones allowing unmoderated emails to this list, and WE would be the ones to take action (such as adding in moderation or changing the address or whatever we needed to do) if we were ever to be hit with spam.? And, as I indicated, we haven't been spammed more than a couple of times in our 12 years of operation on prior systems.
"We" would never contribute to a gaining reputation for allowing spam delivery that we had deliberately?risked allowing...? I understand caution, but it seems like it is caution for fear of something that could not happen.? I sure wish we had discovered way, way in advance of moving all of our hundreds of families over to that there was no way to support this "experts list" kind of address.? It is an absolute showstopper for us, and one which will now cause us to uproot the organization (a Boy Scout unit with hundreds of addresses) and move off of to a different system.? Sigh.
If I could put in my $0.02 as a suggestion that might save other organizations this hassle in the future -- please consider allowing this option.? There really is no downside risk, if it is appropriately caveated. You could shroud it in all kinds of warnings about ill-advised configurations and such -- but a hard and fast rule that protects my expert list from what they need is enough to drive them away.? And it is too bad because in every, and I mean every other way this system was perfect for us.
Thanks, Bill; ?
On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 11:31 AM Shal Farley < shals2nd@...> wrote: Bill,
?> One, /just one/, of our lists has always been a "reach out for
?> help" list.? It needs to be unmoderated /and/ open to the public.
By "open to the public" I assume you mean unrestricted membership.
?> Is there a way to configure this that we are missing in the interface?
No.
The closest you can get is New Member Moderation, which will require
that at least one post from the new member be approved before the member
is automatically unmoderated.
Alternatively, you can set the group to allow posts by non-members, but
such messages are always moderated.
?> If not, why is this prohibited?? I understand that it opens that list
?> up to spam ...
That's the reason.
It would be an unusual setup, but you could promote an arbitrary number
of the more active group members to be moderators with minimal
privileges, and they can receive immediate notification of the
new-member posts requiring approval. The "message approval needed"
notices include a full copy of the pending message.
?> Why can't we choose to take that risk for one of our lists?
Because it potentially affects other Groups.io groups if the service
gains a reputation for delivering spam messages.
Shal
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On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 11:00 AM, Bill Sherman wrote:
"We" would never contribute to a gaining reputation for allowing spam delivery that we had deliberately?risked allowing...
You really wouldn't have control of this.? All it would take would be a few members receiving one of the posts, then marking it as spam.? FYI, way back when this was possible, but the requirement for at least one anti-spam choice was needed to protect the site. Duane -- Help: /static/helpGMF's Wiki: /g/GroupManagersForum/wikiSearch button at the top of Messages list A few site FAQs: /static/pricing#frequently-asked-questions
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re: "You really wouldn't have control of this.? All it would take would be a few members receiving one of the posts, then marking it as spam."
Of course we would have control over this -- the "members" you refer to are the few of us that want to risk this in order to accept the emails.? And we know to just delete a spam message if it should happen rather than to mark it as spam.
On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 12:04 PM Duane < txpigeon@...> wrote: On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 11:00 AM, Bill Sherman wrote:
"We" would never contribute to a gaining reputation for allowing spam delivery that we had deliberately?risked allowing...
You really wouldn't have control of this.? All it would take would be a few members receiving one of the posts, then marking it as spam.? FYI, way back when this was possible, but the requirement for at least one anti-spam choice was needed to protect the site.
Duane
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We had a list on Yahoogroups that allowed unrestricted posting (posts by non-members and unmoderated), for that same reason, to allow folks to ask questions.? Now, we simply allow non-members to post to our IO list, but then each of those posts have to be approved.? It's not that big a deal, of course we don't get a ton of non-member postings either.? Any of the moderators or owners can simply go to Groups.io and approve it.? One click.? It's worked fine for us, and I still would move from the dysfunctional Yahoo lists to IO in a heartbeat, if I had to decide again.
Barb
?
?
On 2019-01-11 11:54 AM, Bill Sherman wrote:
Shal,
?
Thank you for taking the time to lay it out for us, though I am not really sure how "if the service?gains a reputation for delivering spam messages" could happen -- WE would be the ones allowing unmoderated emails to this list, and WE would be the ones to take action (such as adding in moderation or changing the address or whatever we needed to do) if we were ever to be hit with spam.? And, as I indicated, we haven't been spammed more than a couple of times in our 12 years of operation on prior systems.
?
"We" would never contribute to a gaining reputation for allowing spam delivery that we had deliberately?risked allowing...? I understand caution, but it seems like it is caution for fear of something that could not happen.? I sure wish we had discovered way, way in advance of moving all of our hundreds of families over to that there was no way to support this "experts list" kind of address.? It is an absolute showstopper for us, and one which will now cause us to uproot the organization (a Boy Scout unit with hundreds of addresses) and move off of to a different system.? Sigh.
?
If I could put in my $0.02 as a suggestion that might save other organizations this hassle in the future -- please consider allowing this option.? There really is no downside risk, if it is appropriately caveated. You could shroud it in all kinds of warnings about ill-advised configurations and such -- but a hard and fast rule that protects my expert list from what they need is enough to drive them away.? And it is too bad because in every, and I mean every other way this system was perfect for us.
?
Thanks,
Bill;
?
[excess quote trimmed by moderator]
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Thanks Barb.? I totally agree that is head and shoulders above yahoogroups which is more than dysfunctional these days -- in fact, I am amazed that anyone still uses yahoogroups.??
?
We are a Scout unit, and moved all of our many lists over to 4 months ago.? But that one list -- the "I need help fast" or "I don't know where to go, so I'm asking the leaders for help" list -- that one is ONLY there for maximizing responsiveness.? Rather than having scouts emailing to the Scoutmaster or any one person, the messages go to a small group of leaders and the first one to see it and who can answer, responds. All of us have 1-2 other jobs at least, and we cannot guarantee a fast response individually, but the scouts deserve our best so we came up with this collective solution.? So 5 years ago we moved over to this small-group approach and the person who gets to it first AND has the right info can answer.? Since moving to the moderated system, response lag has increased significantly.? The moderation process is additive to our time-until-response (the approver seldom is the one with the info for the response).? So the system we put in place for improving responsiveness doesn't work with .? We've been trying it for a few months now, and I know it doesn't sound like much to many, but it makes a difference to the scouts.? So this was a "hail mary" to figure out how to config to suit our needs.? I appreciate folks offering their perspectives ; we were just hoping for a solution that would work for us without moving to a different system.
?
Thanks,
Bill
On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 12:51 PM Barbara Byers < babmay11@...> wrote:
We had a list on Yahoogroups that allowed unrestricted posting (posts by non-members and unmoderated), for that same reason, to allow folks to ask questions.? Now, we simply allow non-members to post to our IO list, but then each of those posts have to be approved.? It's not that big a deal, of course we don't get a ton of non-member postings either.? Any of the moderators or owners can simply go to Groups.io and approve it.? One click.? It's worked fine for us, and I still would move from the dysfunctional Yahoo lists to IO in a heartbeat, if I had to decide again.
Barb
[excess quote trimmed by moderator]
?
?
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On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 11:27 AM, Bill Sherman wrote:
Of course we would have control over this -- the "members" you refer to are the few of us that want to risk this in order to accept the emails.
My mistake.? I had assumed (and we all know what that does ;>) that you allowed members other than those that would answer the questions. Duane -- Help: /static/helpGMF's Wiki: /g/GroupManagersForum/wikiSearch button at the top of Messages list A few site FAQs: /static/pricing#frequently-asked-questions
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Bill, Thank you for taking the time to lay it out for us, though I am not
really sure how "if the service gains a reputation for delivering spam
messages" could happen -- WE would be the ones allowing unmoderated
emails to this list, ... But if that option were available, YOU wouldn't necessarily be the only group to use it. And others may not be so careful. Too, the reputation accorded to Groups.io wouldn't only be a result of your members' actions. Their receiving email services will recognize spam messages without human intervention, and down-rate Groups.io accordingly. I sure wish we had discovered way, way in advance of moving all of our
hundreds of families over to groups.io that there was no way to
support this "experts list" kind of address. Peter and I have already suggested a work-around. Make your list of experts moderators - either in your primary group or a subgroup. Then the experts will receive the help-requests instantly, by way of the "Message Approval Needed" notice. You haven't addressed whether this would work for you, and if not why not. If I could put in my $0.02 as a suggestion that might save other
organizations this hassle in the future -- please consider allowing
this option. The appropriate venue for making that suggestion (or any other) is the beta group, Groups.io's official "suggestion box". No one at GMF works for Groups.io. In considering the option all anyone in GMF can do is help inform you about what we know of the site and its history. In answer to Barb you wrote: Rather than having scouts emailing to the Scoutmaster or any one
person, the messages go to a small group of leaders and the first one
to see it and who can answer, responds. That also sounds a lot like the group's +owner email address. Again, assuming you can give your small group of leaders the role of Moderator within the group. The primary disadvantage of using the +owner address is that the question doesn't then go to the broader group nor get stored in the group's Messages section, whereas a pending message, answered and also approved by an expert moderator, could. Shal -- Help: /static/helpMore Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wikiEven More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list
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Peter Sayer
Shal Farley
Duane