Posts in OnlineGroups.Net Administrators

From time to time, I am asked whether group members can change the way
that they receive emails when others post to a group.

If you visit your profile and then "Change Email Settings" you are able
to add all the email addresses that you wish to use with your
OnlineGroups.Net sites, select those you wish to receive emails at
(Preferred Delivery Addresses) and remove those you no longer wish to
associate with your profile.

You can also view your email delivery settings for the groups that you
are a member of -- and find a link to the page that enables you to
change those.

You can configure email settings for each group that you are in. You can
choose the email address that you receive email with. And you can choose
to receive one email per post, a topic digest (maximum of one post per
day) or no email at all.

You can also access the Email Settings page for a group from the home
page of that group.

Dan

--
@danrandow +64-27-431-4928 +64-3-377-5377
Chief Wrangler http://onlinegroups.net

Thanks for your feedback, Siraj and Karen
<http://onlinegroups.net/r/post/2eCGHxChjsm2JbELV9Mpdj>,

I have edited the Pricing page <http://onlinegroups.net/sites/pricing/> to
clarify that the number of site members referred to is a maximum.

I expect we will consider a discounted annual fee at some stage.

Karen, as most of our customers are not-for-profits, the pricing you see *is*
the not-for-profit rate :).

Dan

Hi Dan,

I am curious as to exactly how your "break points" work in your
pricing scheme.  Are the member sizes figures the low threshold that
determines the category?

For example, does "100 Member Site" mean "100 - 999 members,"  so
that a 90 member site would cost $20 per month, and a 100 member site
would be in the "250 Member Site" category and cost $50 per month?

If that's the way it works, I suggest you state your membership
figures in terms of ranges: 1 - 9 /  10 - 24 /  25 - 99 / 100 - 249 /
250 - 999 / 1000+,  just to avoid having to answer future questions
about this.

Also, it seems that you would do well to institute an annual fee at
some discount from the monthly pricing, as is common practice for web
hosted services.  Perhaps 12 months for the price of 11 months, for
example.

Thanks,
Siraj al-Haqq


On Dec 6, 2011, at 12:33 AM, Dan Randow wrote:

Thank you for your excellent questions. I am glad your site is going
well!

> 1./ Is the pricing based on only those who have accepted invitations
> or will it be based on all the members?

Pricing will be based on "size site" which determines the maximum number
of "site members" which include those who have accepted invitations and
those who have themselves joined public groups.



# 10 Member Site  US$2 per month.

# 25 Member Site  US$5 per month.

#  100 Member Site  US$20 per month.

# 250 Member Site  US$50 per month.

# 1,000 Member Site  US$200 per month.

Hi Dan,

Our groupsite we have is gaining momentum fast and our members are liking it a
lot. I have a couple of questions on the pricing model:

1./ Is the pricing based on only those who have accepted invitations or will it
be based on all the members?

2./ What happens when payment is not received on time?

3./ Any discounts for 1 year or multiple payments made upfront?

4./ What timeline are you looking at for phasing in old sites?

Would also love to hear about the sponsorship opportunities.

Kind regards,
Benjamin Bett
Professional Development Coordinator
Association of International Schools in Africa (AISA)

-----Original Message-----
From: <email obscured> <email obscured>] On
Behalf Of Dan Randow
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 2:04 AM
To: <email obscured>
Subject: [OGN Admins] Online Groups Site Charges


Hi All,

As I am sure you are aware, your online groups site is currently
provided free of charge.

As from the beginning of 2012, OnlineGroups.Net is introducing monthly
charges for online groups sites. The charges will be introduced for new
sites first. Following that, we will phase in charges for existing sites.

The monthly fees are based on the number of members of the site. You
will be able to start as many public, private or secret groups as you
like. Site members will be able to join as many of those groups as they
like.

Special features like a custom domain and custom site style will be
included depending on the site size, in terms of the maximum number of
members. This means, for example, that you will need a 25 member site,
in order to have a custom domain.

Details of the pricing are at <http://onlinegroups.net/sites/pricing/>.

In some cases, we will be willing to negotiate a sponsorship arrangement
involving lower charges.

We will let you know the exact schedule for this closer to the time.

cheers,

Dan

--
@danrandow +64-27-431-4928 +64-3-377-5377
Chief Wrangler http://onlinegroups.net

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Hi All,

As I am sure you are aware, your online groups site is currently
provided free of charge.

As from the beginning of 2012, OnlineGroups.Net is introducing monthly
charges for online groups sites. The charges will be introduced for new
sites first. Following that, we will phase in charges for existing sites.

The monthly fees are based on the number of members of the site. You
will be able to start as many public, private or secret groups as you
like. Site members will be able to join as many of those groups as they
like.

Special features like a custom domain and custom site style will be
included depending on the site size, in terms of the maximum number of
members. This means, for example, that you will need a 25 member site,
in order to have a custom domain.

Details of the pricing are at <http://onlinegroups.net/sites/pricing/>.

In some cases, we will be willing to negotiate a sponsorship arrangement
involving lower charges.

We will let you know the exact schedule for this closer to the time.

cheers,

Dan

--
@danrandow +64-27-431-4928 +64-3-377-5377
Chief Wrangler http://onlinegroups.net

Hi Alan,

> I have been attempting to follow the instruction for "Bulk Group Member
> Creation" using a .CSV file, but I cannot seem to find the tabs or
> capabilities referenced.

I am sorry about that.

If you are wishing to *invite* members in bulk, please email me
(directly) a link to your group.

If you are wishing to add people to a group without those people taking
any action, unfortunately we do not support that. This is explained at
<http://blog.onlinegroups.net/2011/08/19/directly-adding-group-members-%e2%80%94-does-it-actually-help/>.

with regards,

Dan

--
@danrandow +64-27-431-4928 +64-3-377-5377
Chief Wrangler http://onlinegroups.net

The most important differences for our organization, when comparing this
service with Google groups were 1) no ads in group e-mails, 2) ability to post
documents, and 3) easier access to a real person when we need help.

Karen



________________________________
From: Dan Randow <email obscured>>
To: <email obscured>
Sent: Monday, November 7, 2011 1:53 PM
Subject: Re: [OGN Admins] Can't find the link to bulk subscription


Hi Antonio,

We do give consideration to the matter of directly adding members as
well as to improving the invitations system. As I mention in
<http://blog.onlinegroups.net/2011/08/19/directly-adding-group-members-%e2%80%94-does-it-actually-help/>
our main challenge is that it is hard to determine what is going wrong
when an invitee does not respond. We welcome insights into this and
suggestions about how the problems could be overcome.

One option we may consider in the near future is to provide the option
to add group members without requiring any action by the user as a paid
feature. It would be helpful to us to know what level of fee you would
be willing to pay for this feature.

You are right that our service is similar to that of Google Groups. They
have set a high standard for email lists with an integrated web
interface. While there are many small differences, the main differences
that we offer are simple multi-group sites and support.

With OnlineGroups.Net it is very easy to set up a site where you can
locate all your groups and establish the identity of your organisation.
Where you reach the limits of the system, you can contact us for help.
We do not do everything we are asked and some things we charge for but
there are many things we can easily tweak to help you get the best from
our system.

Alternatives that you could consider are:

* GNU Mailman -- works great via email. Easy to set up via
  hosting providers such as Dreamhost or Site5.

* Mailchimp -- great for email newsletters.

* GroupServer <http://groupserver.org> -- the software that
  OnlineGroups.Net runs on is open source and available free
  to download and install (requires server administration skills).

cheers,

Dan

--
@danrandow +64-27-431-4928 +64-3-377-5377
Chief Wrangler http://onlinegroups.net

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Full text of this topic in OnlineGroups.Net Administrators:
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Hi Dan,
I have the same need explained by Gary W. Palmer.
I'm searching for alternatives that don't constrain participants to create
accounts or perform other obscure operations, obscure for the need for which
the group is created.
This obligation generates a huge flow of messages asking for help, "I'm not
able to create the account", "what is the account?", "Do I have to create a
gmail account?", "I don't receive notification", or, most important, they don't
create the account and so aren't added to the list and loose the
communications.

I think that without this possibility to add participants directly your
proposal is quite the same of googlegoups, and so why one should change?
I'll be grateful if you will consider to change your policies about this
...or if other participants will share their findings about other
possibilities.
thanks for your time and attention

Hello Dan,

Was the issue of assigning site administration roles to someone else added as a
feature for the site?

Kind regards,
B. Bett

Thanks, Dan. I understand now what happened. When I posted the new topic I gave
it the same name as the hidden one. I've re-posted with a new name.


By the way, I got the same error message when I hid the second post of that
topic that I got previously (the one I e-mailed you about). After entering the
reason for hiding, I clicked "hide" and got the error message. The system did
still hide the topic, so I'm good on that, but wanted to make sure you knew
about this bug (at least that seems to be what it is).

Thanks,
Karen



________________________________
From: Dan Randow <email obscured>>
To: <email obscured>
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2011 4:58 PM
Subject: Re: [OGN Admins] Topic not showing up

Hi Karen,

> I posted three new topics in our group today, each with multiple
> files attached. I used the same process for all three (did it on the
> site, not by e-mail). Two worked fine, but something odd happened on
> one (actually the first one I posted). It is not showing up in our
> topic list, though you can see all the attachments in our files, and
> you can see there that they are under a different topic, so the
> topic's in the system somewhere, but just not showing up under
> "topics".

I have taken a look at your site and can see the problem you describe,
except that first post in the missing topic has been hidden.

Unfortunately, I think you have uncovered a second facet of the "Hiding
the Only Post in a Topic" bug
<https://projects.iopen.net/groupserver/ticket/708>.

We currently do not have a confirmed timeframe for correcting this bug,
but I can suggest a workaround to get the topic showing up.

1 Hide the second post in the topic that is not
  showing in the Topics list.

2 Repost the second post, starting a new
  topic with a different title to the original
  topic.

cheers,

Dan

--
@danrandow +64-27-431-4928 +64-3-377-5377
Chief Wrangler http://onlinegroups.net

-----------------------------------------
Full text of this topic in OnlineGroups.Net Administrators:
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