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Adding Multiple Files using the Web From: Michael JasonSmith Date: Jun 22 05:25 UTC Short link

Hi all!

At OnlineGroups.Net, we aim to make it easy to hold conversations and share
information using email and the web. You probably know that you can post
multiple files to a topic by attaching them to an email. Now you can also add
multiple files via the web.

The interface for posting messages and files on the Web looks much the same as
it did before. However, when you select a file to post it is added to a list of
files, and the "browse" input is cleared so you can add another file.

I hope you and your group members find this new feature useful,
  Michael JasonSmith

Deleting a site and cancelling account From: Dan Randow Date: Jun 11 23:31 UTC Short link

Hi there,

> i want my account deleted isnt there just some way i can delete it
> immadiately


As with posts,
   http://onlinegroups.net/r/post/5732JCniyWE1yojqKSqx4R
we don't actually delete sites and accounts on OnlineGroups.Net.

If you leave your site unused however, it will be archived in a routine
process within a few months. In the meantime, if you make the groups on
the site "private" (or they already are), there will be almost nothing
visible to the public on the site. User profiles created on the site
will also be invisible to the public.

If that is not acceptable to you, please let me know.

Deleting a site and cancelling account From: purplequeen242 Date: Jun 11 23:25 UTC Short link

i want my account deleted isnt there just some way i can delete it immadiately

Group Participation Statistics From: Dan Randow Date: Jun 11 23:06 UTC Short link

Hi Anna,

> Is there also a way of finding out who the authors are and what the
> topic of the posts without manually going through and collating the
> information?

The default Topics page
   http://onlinegroups.net/groups/ogn_admins/messages/topics.html
shows you topics data ordered by the date of the latest post to each
topic. Hint" by using the "earlier" and "later" topics links, you can
display more than twenty topics at a time, as in the following example.

http://onlinegroups.net/groups/ogn_admins/messages/topics.html?start=0&end=50

On the Topics page, you'll see a link to "Posts in…" your group. From
there, you can access a Summary of Posts, which shows headers for all
posts. You could export that data and manipulate it in a spreadsheet.

Group Participation Statistics From: Anna Jacob Date: Jun 11 22:42 UTC Short link

Hi all,

Is there also a way of finding out who the authors are and what the
topic of the posts without manually going through and collating the
information?

Group Participation Statistics From: Dan Randow Date: Jun 11 22:30 UTC Short link

How many people are actually posting to your online groups? And how many posts
do they make?

On the home page of your group, you will find a link that says "View the
posting statistics". This shows you the number of posts, and the number of
authors per month, since your group started.

Here is an example.
  http://dataversity.org.nz/groups/dataversity_public_discuss/stats.html

Adding existing site members to a new group From: Dan Randow Date: Apr 02 05:38 UTC Short link

Hi Thomas,

> When I add an existing member to a new group, they don't appear under manage
> members, you can't see if you have invited them or not.I'm not even sure if
> they get an invite email?

Unfortunately, you are correct. There is no way to confirm that the
invitation was sent, until the invitee accepts the invitation. At that
time, the group admin and participation coach will get an email to
confirm that the group member has joined.

Even more unfortunately, the problem you mention is only one of many
problems that we are aware of with Manage Members.
   https://svn.iopen.net/projects/groupserver/ticket/253

I apologise about this.

Adding existing site members to a new group From: Thomas Stephens Date: Apr 02 05:06 UTC Short link

When I add an existing member to a new group, they don't appear under manage
members, you can't see if you have invited them or not.I'm not even sure if
they get an invite email?
Please help.


Regards,
Thomas Stephens
Mount Olympus

Electronic Engineer

Southern Technology Ltd
P o Box 32 042
61 Nursery Road
Linwood, Christchurch
New Zealand
Ph +64 3 3899 258
A/h +64 3 3892163
Fax +64 3 3892162
Ph  021 91 91 08

This electronic message, together with any attachments, is confidential and
may be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient:

(i) do not copy, disclose or use the contents in any way

(ii) please let us know by return e-mail immediately and then destroy the
message.

Southern Technology Ltd is not responsible for any changes made to this
message and/or any attachments after sending by Southern Technology. Before
opening or using attachments, check them for viruses and defects. Southern
Technologys liability in respect of attachments is limited to re-supplying
any affected attachments.

User Profiles Can Have Multiple Email Addresses From: Dan Randow Date: Mar 14 02:16 UTC Short link

An OnlineGroups.Net site administrator recently asked me the following
question.

> Is there a way to get people on the listserv without requiring them to
> have an account? Something as simple as a subscribe and unsubscribe
> option using email addresses? Same for emails sent individually or as
> a daily digest.
>
> examples: subscribe@site_id.onlinegroups.net
> unsubscribe@site_id.onlinegroups.net
> digeston@site_id.onlinegroups.net
> digestoff@site_id.onlinegroups.net

GroupServer is different from other list servers, in that it creates an
account for each user, who can then associate multiple email addresses
with that account, and choose to use them in different ways. In
addition, users can view and make posts via the web, which are all
associated with a single user, regardless of the email address they use
— or of changes they make to the email address they use, over time.

We think of these things as advantages.

Because of the above, we believe it makes sense for a use to have a
chance to customise their profile, and set up a password so that they
can access the web interface, when they register. At the same time, we
recognise that users may not care about doing these things at the time
that they register. We therefore try to keep the signup process as
streamlined as possible.

Despite all of the above, however, we do allow for the signup process to
be initiated by email, using something similar to what you suggest. To
sign up, an email address is sent to the group email address, with the
text 'subscribe' as the subject line.

To leave a group, the email has the subject 'unsubscribe'. Instructions
for unsubscribing, and a 'mailto' link are at the bottom of every post
made via OnlineGroups.Net.

The digest mode can even be enabled and disabled using email commands
(again, with the command in the subject line). We do not promote these
widely because we consider that they are somewhat arcane for use by most
people. We believe that the 'email settings' web interface makes setting
up digest mode much easier.

Dealing with Unwanted Posts From: Dan Randow Date: Dec 15 02:04 UTC Short link

From time to time, we are asked if there is a way to delete posts from
an online group.

Unfortunately, we do not yet have a feature that enables this.

The best way to handle the problem of unwanted posts is prevention, and
switching on moderation in your group is a good way to do that.

When we do have a feature to handle unwanted posts in the archive, it
will enable the author of a post, and a group administrator to hide a
post so that it does not appear in the web interface for a group. The
system will also create a clear record of what has been done, visible to
the author and administrator. It will also enable posts to be
"un-deleted", if they are deleted in error.

Unfortunately, this will not solve the problem that all posts are
emailed to group members, and there is no way to delete those emails.

Those who are interested can view and comment on the item relating to
this in the GroupServer development issue-tracking system.
   https://svn.iopen.net/projects/groupserver/ticket/316

How to change the 5 member limit for posting privileges From: Gloria Willadsen Date: Dec 08 22:51 UTC Short link

No problem, thank you.
Gloria

How to change the 5 member limit for posting privileges From: Dan Randow Date: Dec 08 22:35 UTC Short link

Hi Gloria,

I'm sorry you had trouble with that.

The first group that you started was an announcement group. These are
designed to have a small number of posting members. As you discovered, a
discussion group suits your purposes better.

Unfortunately, the system does not allow you to change a group from
'announcement' to 'discussion' (yet).

How to change the 5 member limit for posting privileges From: Gloria Willadsen Date: Dec 08 22:19 UTC Short link

Never mind, I switched to the other type of group, and hopefully now everyone
will be able to post.

How to change the 5 member limit for posting privileges From: Gloria Willadsen Date: Dec 08 22:06 UTC Short link

I did not realize I had chosen the type of group which had this retriction. How
do I lift this restriction from my group? I would like everyone to be able to
post.
Thank you,
Gloria

Deleting a site and cancelling account From: Dan Randow Date: Dec 06 00:48 UTC Short link

Hi IceAngelWolf,

> How does one delete an entire site they created and cancel their account from
onlinegroups.

If you leave your site unused, it will be deleted in a routine process
in a few months. In the meantime, if you make the groups on the site
"private", there will be almost nothing visible to the public on the
site. User profiles created on the site will also be invisible to the
public.

If that is not acceptable to you, please let me know <email obscured>).

with regards,

Deleting a site and cancelling account From: IceAngelWolf Date: Dec 05 19:27 UTC Short link

How does one delete an entire site they created and cancel their account from
onlinegroups.

Inviting People to Join a Group From: Dan Randow Date: Dec 05 04:09 UTC Short link

Hi Walter,

I am sorry that I did not address all the points you raised. I'll do that now.
I did not intend my response to mean "no" or "case closed" at all, and I
welcome further discussion. I am particularly interested in hearing from you or
anyone who can provide data as to _why_ some people are not accepting
invitations. We can not solve this problem until we know what it is.

Walter, the points that you raise all seem to relate to case #2 in my list. You
do not mention people who don't get the invitation email, or people who don't
want to join. I'll assume you are solely referring to people who want to
participate but not enough to cross the technical barrier of accepting an
invitation. To be clear, for users with no existing profile, that process is as
follows.

  Open an email from the Group Admin
  who sent the invitation.

  Clicking the accept invitation link
  in that email.

  View a "Set Password" web page.

  Enter a password twice.

  Click "Set".

It could be that the complexity of this process is the problem. Perhaps we
should remove the "set password" step. (Walter, you make no mention of
introducing new group members to the web interface. The above process lands
them logged in on the group home page with a list of the latest topics, who has
posted, and the keywords. Even Yahoo! "strongly recommends" that you use the
invitation process rather than the "add".)

We just don't know what to fix yet because we don't know enough about who is
having trouble, and where.

Now, back to your original post.

In "Its all in the warm-up", I think you are saying that "just add" gets people
to participate because they immediately see welcoming messages and interesting
content. I agree that messages like that do warm people up to participating.
Welcoming and interesting messages, however are by no means guaranteed.
Admitting that I don't have data on this, I suspect that in as many if not more
cases, a lot of email simply overwhelms a novice Internet user. We do have data
that the most commonly used feature in Outlook is "Delete". "Mark as Junk" is
often right next to "Delete".

In "Welcoming a member when joined" you say that you like to welcome a user
when they are "hot". What I would like to understand is why a user who is hot
to join the group does not click the link to accept your invitation. You go on
to say that you like to welcome them when you choose for them to join, not when
they choose to join. I understand that this makes your job easier (I share this
challenge), but do not understand how welcoming the person in your time, and
not theirs warms them up to participation. Welcomes from other group members
are going to arrive in their own good time, in either case.

"In the case of new groups", "Starting time for the new group" and "Preventing
spill over into reply-to all" all relate to the delay in starting a new group
that is caused by the fact the people enter the group over time, or don't enter
at all. This is a really difficult problem that affects all group-based social
media when n-1 is not a viable number of group members. In fact this problem is
not unique to online media, the word "quorum" was invented for it. If some
people are not joining the group, when there is one simple step required, then
maybe the group is not viable. I do not see how technology can actually solve a
social problem like this.

Again, the solution you propose for people whose motivation to participate is
dubious, yois to make them start receiving emails from the group. While I can
see that this will work in some cases, I am concerned that in a far greater
number of cases, it will have a negative effect. The current system of
invitations does not prevent people from seeing the posts made before they
join. It also doesn't prevent the group admin keeping in touch with the group
members by email or phone, and helping them engage with the group. I do a lot
of this work myself.

You say that "Asking people to agree twice is an irritant." I agree, but it is
a relatively small one, and one that emphasises respect for the right to
choose. It also serves the other purposes mentioned above.

As you say, in some cases, it is an organisational requirement to join certain
groups. In cases where online group participation is explicitly mandatory, we
do fail to support this. Within organisations, however, surely members would be
more likely to accept an invitation than in other cases? And if they do not,
then surely that is a matter either for performance management, or for
improving the engagement and launch process? And if they do not have the chance
to accept or decline an invitation, then how does joining them anyway warm them
up to participating?

Walter, you raise the matter of Trusted Admins. We removed that when we
introduced the current registration system, which removed most of the barriers
to joining sites and groups. Support requests relating to registration have,
since then, fallen to almost nothing. Trusted admins is possible but not
trivial to administer. If we really need it, we'll have to bring it back. The
audit trails that we are in the process of introducing will help to measure
"trust" by showing users exactly what has been done to their profiles, but
we're not there yet.

You are right that Yahoo! provides a "just add" feature but have you seen their
registration process? Because they have so many services linked to a Yahoo! ID,
it's not trivial. We have the luxury of being able to make our registration
process much simpler. We do not have the luxury of being able to take the risk
of a "trusted until proven guilty" policy. The impact of being falsely
identified as a source of spam is simply too high to take risks with.

Finally, we are not alone in requiring explicit acceptance of invitations.
Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn and many others all do.

Walter, I hope this helps to demonstrate that we care about this problem and
think about it. We have got lots of priorities for improving our interface but
we're always open to altering those, if it makes it easier to start sites and
groups, invite people and start posting.

Inviting People to Join a Group From: Walter Logeman Date: Dec 05 00:49 UTC Short link

Hi Dan,

I presume that means no.  It does sound like the case is closed. I
don't think you quite got my points and we have not yet heard from
others.

More discussion needed IMO.

Warm wishes Walter


On 5/12/2008, at 1:06 PM, "Dan Randow" <email obscured>> wrote:

> Walter,
>
> I'll add to Michael's post about adding existing sites members to
> new groups, and respond to the points you raise about the invitation
> process vs a "just add" feature.
>
> INVITING EXISTING SITE MEMBERS
>
> Michael is right that the invitation process works well for existing
> site members
>  http://onlinegroups.net/r/post/4G3cVWh6YOqwGkXq434kL1
> but there is more to this. Unfortunately, there are problems with
> the members page, manage members page, and email notifications that
> affect the joining process from a group admin's point of view. We
> are painfully aware of these problems. Unfortunately they are
> symptoms of bigger problems that we do not expect to have solved
> until February next year.
>
> In the case of inviting new users (those who do not have existing
> profiles on any of the sites on our servers), the group Members page
> is broken in that it shows these people as group members, even when
> they have not yet accepted an invitation. The Manage Members page
> shows these people as "unverified" which is closer to the truth. As
> group admin, you will get two emails to say that the group member
> has joined (the first of which is incorrect as all that has happened
> is that they've been invited).
>
> In the case of inviting existing members of your site (and those who
> have a profile on any of the sites on our servers), the group
> Members page functions correctly by not showing shows these people
> as group members, until they have accepted your invitation. The
> Manage Members page is broken in that it does not show these people
> at all, until they accept your invitation. As group admin, you only
> get the email to say that the group member has joined when they have
> accepted your invitation.
>
>
> INVITING VS JUST ADDING USERS
>
> Our business is helping you to start a site and start groups where
> people join and post.
>
> The reason we don't "just add" people to a group is (1) that we
> don't know that it will make it easier for people to join and post,
> and (2) we do know that it can cause problems. Before we can solve
> this problem, we need to know more about the cause. Can you give us
> some data on _why_ people are not accepting your invitations?
>
> I can think of three reasons for people not accepting invitations.
>
> 1: They don't get the invitation email, because either there was
> error in the email address, the email got trapped in a spam filter,
> or they did not check their email. In this case, regardless of their
> motivation, they simply can't join.
>
> A "just add" feature would not help, except perhaps in the "I'm away
> but join me up and I'll look through all the email when I get back"
> case. This last case is addressed by the web archive. Not only does
> it support catching up on email you missed while away (plenty of
> people turn email _off_ while they're away), it also enables
> catching up on posts and files added before you even joined. In
> cases where the participant is not sufficiently "hot" to
> participate, this feature can easily backfire, by creating an off-
> putting amount of email or worse, by increasing the risk of the
> posts being marked as spam.
>
> In the more general case, you as admin may think that the group
> member has joined and is getting posts when they are not. I think
> that in this case, it's better that you know they are not getting
> the posts.
>
>
> 2: They get the invitation email, but do not have the technical
> ability (I'll include confidence and affinity in that) to know what
> to do with it. For people who do not have the skills to click a link
> and set a password, online groups are probably not a useful way of
> interacting. No matter how motivated they are to participate, they
> are going to need some help other than getting a lot of email (a
> frequent cause of "get me out of here" posts to a group).
>
>
> 3: They get the invitation email, and know what to do with it, but
> don't want to join. In this case, they are simply not "hot" enough
> to join the group, so it's better that they don't. Again, there is
> the risk that people will mark posts from your group as spam.
>
>
> Posts marked as spam in services like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail
> put the integrity of our servers at risk, potentially affecting
> everybody on our system.
>
> Dan
>
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Full text of this topic in OnlineGroups.Net Administrators:
> http://onlinegroups.net/r/topic/3XfcGpl6kL2XUfju0PeebR
>
> To leave OnlineGroups.Net Administrators, email
> <email obscured>?Subject=unsubscribe
>
> Start your own free groups and site with
> OnlineGroups.Net http://onlinegroups.net

Resource Page From: Dan Randow Date: Dec 05 00:22 UTC Short link

Hi Walter,

> I have a Resource tag on the site, (KTHT) but am not sure how I can
> edit that page.  I have options to edit the Introductory page but not
> the Resource page.

I presume that you are referring to a "Resources" main menu item that links to
one or more web pages, all probably only visible to you.

The system that runs OnlineGroups.Net can be used to build all sorts of
websites. Here are a couple of examples.
  http://dataversity.org.nz/
  http://remotehuts.co.nz/
  http://groupserver.org/
As you suggest, we plan to implement the content editor that you currently use
to create a site introduction and bio in your profile so that you can add other
pages and content to a site. We are actually working on this feature, as I
write (ETA TBA).

If you don't mind hand-coding HTML, and using a somewhat expert-only interface,
then let us know and we'll set you up "behind-the-scenes" access to create your
own site content.

By the way, I see that the KTHT online groups site
  http://ktht.onlinegroups.net/
looks almost completely blank to an anonymous visitor. Why not add links to the
KTHT blog and website you mention on the home page, and a public group where
people can get connected with the horse treks?

Inviting People to Join a Group From: Dan Randow Date: Dec 05 00:05 UTC Short link

Walter,

I'll add to Michael's post about adding existing sites members to new groups,
and respond to the points you raise about the invitation process vs a "just
add" feature.

INVITING EXISTING SITE MEMBERS

Michael is right that the invitation process works well for existing site
members
  http://onlinegroups.net/r/post/4G3cVWh6YOqwGkXq434kL1
but there is more to this. Unfortunately, there are problems with the members
page, manage members page, and email notifications that affect the joining
process from a group admin's point of view. We are painfully aware of these
problems. Unfortunately they are symptoms of bigger problems that we do not
expect to have solved until February next year.

In the case of inviting new users (those who do not have existing profiles on
any of the sites on our servers), the group Members page is broken in that it
shows these people as group members, even when they have not yet accepted an
invitation. The Manage Members page shows these people as "unverified" which is
closer to the truth. As group admin, you will get two emails to say that the
group member has joined (the first of which is incorrect as all that has
happened is that they've been invited).

In the case of inviting existing members of your site (and those who have a
profile on any of the sites on our servers), the group Members page functions
correctly by not showing shows these people as group members, until they have
accepted your invitation. The Manage Members page is broken in that it does not
show these people at all, until they accept your invitation. As group admin,
you only get the email to say that the group member has joined when they have
accepted your invitation.


INVITING VS JUST ADDING USERS

Our business is helping you to start a site and start groups where people join
and post.

The reason we don't "just add" people to a group is (1) that we don't know that
it will make it easier for people to join and post, and (2) we do know that it
can cause problems. Before we can solve this problem, we need to know more
about the cause. Can you give us some data on _why_ people are not accepting
your invitations?

I can think of three reasons for people not accepting invitations.

1: They don't get the invitation email, because either there was error in the
email address, the email got trapped in a spam filter, or they did not check
their email. In this case, regardless of their motivation, they simply can't
join.

A "just add" feature would not help, except perhaps in the "I'm away but join
me up and I'll look through all the email when I get back" case. This last case
is addressed by the web archive. Not only does it support catching up on email
you missed while away (plenty of people turn email _off_ while they're away),
it also enables catching up on posts and files added before you even joined. In
cases where the participant is not sufficiently "hot" to participate, this
feature can easily backfire, by creating an off-putting amount of email or
worse, by increasing the risk of the posts being marked as spam.

In the more general case, you as admin may think that the group member has
joined and is getting posts when they are not. I think that in this case, it's
better that you know they are not getting the posts.


2: They get the invitation email, but do not have the technical ability (I'll
include confidence and affinity in that) to know what to do with it. For people
who do not have the skills to click a link and set a password, online groups
are probably not a useful way of interacting. No matter how motivated they are
to participate, they are going to need some help other than getting a lot of
email (a frequent cause of "get me out of here" posts to a group).


3: They get the invitation email, and know what to do with it, but don't want
to join. In this case, they are simply not "hot" enough to join the group, so
it's better that they don't. Again, there is the risk that people will mark
posts from your group as spam.


Posts marked as spam in services like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail put the
integrity of our servers at risk, potentially affecting everybody on our
system.

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