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Good Morning - Participation or non-participation in my case - is becoming a real issue in my group. In "settings" and then onto "message policies" If you select the tab which takes away the "no email" selection by members, the message policy? then defaults to "special notices only" so a member remains not receiving any normal message update. The default then becomes the recipt of only a (Special Notices Message) from the owner/moderator. To me this amounts to as good as a selection of "no email" by a member in the first place - therby allowing for little or no participation by the member. Is there an easy way therefore - to monitor the participation rate across the whole membership, to highlight those that hardly ever partcisipate or never at all. barry

On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 11:01 AM, Barry wrote:

Is there an easy way therefore to monitor the participation rate across the membership, to highlight those that hardly ever partcisipate or never at all.

Even if your members select Individual Messages in their subscription settings and Groups.io sends them an email for every message, you have no way of knowing if they have read it or just deleted it.? If, by 'participation' you mean that they reply to messages or otherwise respond to RSVP events or upload files etc then you could look on the Activity Log and select the Member Activity filter which will show some details. You could further filter the log by entering a member's email address in the search field and then use the Search button.

Regards
Andy

On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 05:01 AM, Barry wrote:

therby allowing for little or no participation by the member

It's not as simple as that.? I've chosen No Email when allowed, otherwise Special Notices Only, for all of the groups I'm on.? I prefer to do everything online, so the messages sent to a member really have no bearing on their participation.? Since Groups.io doesn't do any tracking, there's no way for a group owner to know whether I'm reading, downloading files/photos, etc.? Only when I post do they know that I'm even there.

Duane
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Lots of detailed information can be found in the Owners Manual and Members Manual.

On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 06:01 AM, Barry wrote:

The default then becomes the recipt of only a (Special Notices Message) from the owner/moderator. To me this amounts to as good as a selection of "no email" by a member in the first place - therby allowing for little or no participation by the member. Is there an easy way therefore - to monitor the participation rate across the whole membership, to highlight those that hardly ever partcisipate or never at all. barry

This doesn't address your core issue about monitoring, but I wanted to remind you that you can have a monthly reminder go out automatically as special notice (you must tick the special notice box). That's what I do in my groups. At least all group members are getting a promo or whatever you choose to write up in Settings, Member Notices.
/helpcenter/ownersmanual/1/managing-member-notices/monthly-reminder-notice

Frances
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Help available from Groups.io help and GMF wiki.

?

Aside from whether members are reading what is going on etc - many of them are leaving all the creativity to a very small group of 5-6 members max and paticipants in threads number about a dozen only. This is out of a membership of 185 members or thereabouts - not good - barry.

You could try that to liven it up.
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Help available from Groups.io help and GMF wiki.

?

Thank you - given me some thing to think about here - barry

I guess I would be considered one of those deadbeats.? I have "notifications only" configured for all the groups I belong to, and I do all my reading, replying, and composing replies on the groups.io website.? I basically treat groups.io like an online forum.? Looks like you can't easily track activity of members like me.? You might be able to just search the message archives for my name to find how active I was in the group.

Peteski

Peteski - at least you are reading/replying and composing replies. No - you are not one of those deadbeats. These are people who join up/never get past the moderate first message flag/ set their subscription to "No email" and at best look into the forum 3 weeks on tuesday. These people never contribute - all they do is increase your member count. On the otherhand 3-4 people create all the input and about 12-15 join in at best out of 180 plus members.

Some people treat it like watching the TV and never join in - sometimes you wonder whether it is worth it.
Such is life - but it is always said "that you never know what you are missing until its gone" !! This is what the people I am referring to are asking for ........

barry?

Barry,

Consider any 'public meeting' of '180 plus members, I think your observations of 'participation' in not untypical.?
(Even if all were present in the same room, you can't be sure they are all 'paying attention'...)

I want to believe that all Group members care and are interested in my Groups as I am, but realistically I know I'm not as interested in everything anybody else is.


How frequently do you want to receive (and presumably read) 180 plus posts? Daily? Weekly? Monthly?
GMF has 3,497 Members - imagine if everyone posted once a day (week or month)!
It's Human Nature, that some will never speak up, a core group will be 'regulars', and a few post the most - some more than once a day (although it could be good if that were less frequent).

You'll need to inform your members of your 'participation' expectation/requirements,
and do it regularly, such as an automatic monthly Special Notice reminder, as Frances suggested.

How would you enforce this? Threaten removal?
Are you concerned about keeping your Group under 100 members to avoid Groups.io fees?
If so, perhaps fees based on Group activity, rather than number of members, would be more appropriate (and still raise the revenue Groups.io needs).

Michael

Micheal - you make some good points which I can relate to. On participation - I perhaps need to back track from the idea of widespread threathening removal etc and have a bit more tolerance. On joining however - you never know who you are dealing with so moderating first message is your only safe guard in my view of people whose aim is to disrupt. Where I am at odds on this is when you get people who set their subscription to "No email". Who wants a group full of those people. In our group we have "3-4 creaters" and about "15 joiners in" and today we need everyone of those. With a membership of 180 plus - I feel if we had a few more participators - it would place less weight on the few?currently doing the work of keeping it going.

We are a legacy basic group (so 180 members OK) and we manage easily space wise below the threshold of fees.

Thanks for your input ......

Barry??

On Fri, Mar 18, 2022 at 12:15 PM, Barry wrote:

Where I am at odds on this is when you get people who set their subscription to "No email".

I think you need to explain your reasoning for this; my own first reaction to it is somewhat hostile.

And why that hostility? Because you associate "No email" with "No activity". I have "no email" in this group, along with the others I belong to bar that where I am a co - owner, but it does not mean I am inactive. It means that I prefer to use the web UI rather than email for my transactions with groups. IMHO your automatic assumption that "no email" equates to "I will not participate" is a too large a leap unless you have proof positive that there is a definite connection between the two.?

FWIW IMHO your "activity rate" of about 10% is not all that bad. I suspect that it is actually better than this groups's (i.e. GMF) with its approximately 3500 members. It is certainly better than the rate for the group I co-own and its just over 1800 members, many of whom are on "individual emails" but still don't join in!

Chris

On Fri, Mar 18, 2022 at 07:15 AM, Barry wrote:

With a membership of 180 plus - I feel if we had a few more participators - it would place less weight on the few?currently doing the work of keeping it going.

There are a lot of things to consider about participation.? Being retired, I spend a lot of time (too much? ;>) monitoring the groups that I'm a member of.? Others are still working, but all have a 'real' life.? Some don't have time to reply immediately and someone else posts the same information before they can.? I've found that if the constant contributors will hold back a few hours, except in urgent situations, others are willing to assist when they can.

It also depends on the nature of the group and the personalities involved.? On a social group, everyone is encouraged to jump in.? On a technical group, we ask that only those that know the answer to a question or alternative solutions respond.? There are folks that only post once a month or less because they don't feel comfortable doing so for some reason.

As others have said, a group is just a virtual community, so it's not unusual to find the same level of participation that you would in an actual meeting.? There are active and passive members in both.

Duane
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Lots of detailed information can be found in the Owners Manual and Members Manual.

Chris . . .

On Fri, 18 Mar 2022 06:00:38 -0700, "Chris Jones via groups.io"
<chrisjones12@...> wrote:

FWIW IMHO your "activity rate" of about 10% is not all that bad. I suspect that it is actually better than this groups's (i.e. GMF) with its approximately 3500 members.

10% membership participation is indeed a good number.

I have a group of 1300 that probably has 50 or so actively participating.
Another group of 2200 with no regular participation at all; sometimes a month
goes by with no messages posted to the group. That latter group services its
purpose though when someone asks a question, which is not often, and springs to
life for a few days with people helping the person who posted the question.

As you said, in any group, you can't assume that people set to no mail are not
participating. Just as people who receive email posts can't be assumed to be
participating. I'm not sure where some get the idea that nomail means the member
isn't participating and those receiving posts by email are participating, but
that isn't the case.

Some like to use the website interface to post new messages and read posts
online. Perhaps they want to keep their email inbox clean. They may have some
other reason for wanting no email.

There are some who might be set to nomail for now, and not be a regular
participant unless they need to ask for help in a post, at which time they may
interact with others while they try to get the help they need. They may even
switch to email while they get the help they need, then switch back to nomail.

I don't understand why a group owner wants to try to force people to participate
unless there's some serious reason to do so that has to do with the group's
purpose. In some cases it seems that the group owner who wants to force
participation when there's no overriding reason to do so has some control
issues. (I can understand there are some situations where group participation
might be necessary and mandatory but these would be the exception rather than
the rule for most groups.)

We need to accept that we will have many lurkers and fewer actively
participating. I'd like to see more participation in some of my groups but as
long as the group is there and members are willing to help when someone has a
problem others can help with, then the group serves a purpose.

Donald


----------------------------------------------------
Some ham radio groups you may be interested in:
/g/ICOM /g/Ham-Antennas
/g/HamRadioHelp /g/Baofeng
/g/CHIRP

Hi everyone,

I agree that you can't expect a very high participation rate.

However I do want members to remember my groups!
I have an automated monthly reminder to members. It is a good idea to take a look at it from time to time and jazz it up a bit!
/helpcenter/ownersmanual/1/managing-member-notices/monthly-reminder-notice

Check out your homepage. Edit it, if needed. I am amazed at the number of groups who still ?use the default grey scale elephant banner photo! They haven't personalized it.

Also are you listed in list of publicly accessible groups? If appropriate, you can list it there, even groups with a private archive.
/search?p=SubsCount,,,20,2,0,0

Perhaps I am preaching to the choir here! If so, sorry.

Frances


--
Help available from Groups.io help and GMF wiki.

?

Frances . . .

On Fri, 18 Mar 2022 13:00:56 -0700, "Frances" <frances@...> wrote:

However I do want members to remember my groups!
I have an automated monthly reminder to members. It is a good idea to take a look at it from time to time and jazz it up a bit!

I send one out every month for all of my amateur radio related groups (about 20
of them). I "advertise" my other groups in the monthly reminder, and I find it
brings in new members every month to most of the groups I run. It also seems to
remind some who no longer want to be members and I see a few leave some of the
groups.

The number of new members overall far exceeds those leaving, and I have no
problem with losing members when it's because they're no longer interested in
the group.

Donald

This message transmitted on 100% recycled electrons.

Barry,

Previous comments on participation are consistent with my experience. Cultivating widespread, meaningful participation is hard work. Fortunately, you seem to care about your group and that is an invaluable resource. Keep the faith.

Have you thought about sending a survey to your members?
Simply assessing who responds may be illuminating; and their answers may give you ideas about topics that may prompt further discussion. Don't assume all members share your precise interests and mindset.
Also, when sending a summary of survey responses to members consider it as another opportunity to foster discussion.?

Chris

As many others have said, 10% participation is GOOD!

and yep, people who get no-email often are reading on the groups.io site (which means they can access more of the group) --

Lurkers may be learning a lot, just reading and not posting.?

Of course, it depends on what the purpose of your group is -- What are you trying to do with your group?

The spectrum can run from something like the old wild-west alt.rec groups, where often everyone posted whether they had any knowledge to share or not -- and people wanting serious groups pretty quickly moved away from that platform.? To technical/teaching groups, where fewer people will respond to posts, more will ask questions/ask for advice.

Further to monitoring participation - a question please in relation to issuing discrete monthly reminders. Can a monthly reminder be sent out as a special message - which will therefore reach the complete membership including those members who have elected "NO email" as part of their subscription ? Secondly does such a message show up on the message page every month or does it just show on the monthly (message count) on the homepage ? To show up in the message section each and every month could be a bit of a pain .......barry