开云体育

Hi All,

We continue to test groups.io as a replacement platform for Y!G. At this point we are pretty happy with most of it, but subgroups aren't ready for us just yet. The inability to cleanly move a thread to the "right place" is a problem, so we're probably going to avoid them for now. But that lead to an interesting discovery. ?I went to delete a subgroup I created and got a confirmation message telling me that the action cannot be undone (which is fine with me) but also that the subgroup name cannot be used for "some time".

Does anyone know what "some time" is and why that is the case at all? If I delete this group now - to avoid confusion for our members when we transfer - and we decide to add a subgroup of the same name in 6 months, will we be able to, or is this name gone indefinitely? If the latter I'll just lock it up and leave it against future need, but if we'll be able to get it back, then I'll delete it against accidental discovery.

Thanks for any and all advice on this.

--jeffp

In the absence of any reply here, I just submitted this to [email protected]. If I get an answer back I'll share it here just in case it is interesting to anyone else.

--jeffp

Mark answered my submission to [email protected]. His answer was very concise:

We don't currently recycle group names except when asked. If you run into this, you can email us and we're recycle a given name for you.

So that's the answer. I'll keep the subgroup around for now and lock it down.

--jeffp

Mark answered my submission to [email protected]. His answer was very
concise:

We don't currently recycle group names except when asked. If you run
into this, you can email us and we're recycle a given name for you.

jeffp,

Mark answered my submission to [email protected]. His answer was very
concise:

We don't currently recycle group names except when asked. If you run
into this, you can email us and we're recycle a given name for you.

That's not at all the answer I would have expected. Or rather, I would have expected that answer for the primary group names, but not the names of subgroups.

However I just verified it in my test group.

I don't see a reason for this restriction on subgroup names. I think it must be just an artifact of the subgroup implementation being largely the same as primary group implementation.

Shal

I agree that it is a bit of a surprise. And as I work with the group we're planning on transferring soon, I keep thinking that having that subgroup around - but locked down - is going to cause confusion for our members. I need to talk with the other moderators about it, but we may delete it and then ask Mark to make the name available to us again in the future.

It seems that - at least in most cases - subgroups would be created only by owners or moderators, not regular users. In such a case, the deletion of a subgroup should be a relatively rare thing, and not something done lightly. Making the names available again in that case seems rational, but maybe it's a challenge in the system as it is implemented.

In any case, we'll get by. It's just not a place where this system follows the principle of least surprise.

having that subgroup
around - but locked down - is going to cause confusion for our members.

Lena wrote:

Can you rename the subgroup before deleting it?

jeffp,

Lena wrote:

Can you rename the subgroup before deleting it?

That's a good point, and I should have thought of it. In Yahoo Groups (and no doubt Groups.io) renaming a group does not reserve the old name.

If the same holds true for Groups.io subgroups then you could rename the subgroup to something arbitrary before deleting it. That way you can pick any arbitrary name to make non-reusable, leaving the desired name free for reuse.

Shal

That is a good point, but it's too late in our case. We deleted the group already, with a series of consequences that we didn't anticipate (and which I have documented in another post here on GMF, soon to be approved, I hope). Those consequences have completely convinced me that the use of subgroups - at least as currently implemented - will not work for us, and thus the renaming issue isn't one I have to worry about, even though we should have thought of it.

That said, I'd need to look to see if there is even a way to rename a subgroup. Honestly not sure of that. ? :)

--jeffp