All posts in the topic Feedback About OnlineGroups.Net (Short link)
Summary
- There are 12 posts — by 5 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Dan Randow at 2008 May 13 03:07 UTC
Hi there, If you are reading this by email, that's probably because you started an online groups site with OnlineGroups.Net. http://onlinegroups.net Whether you are using your site or not, we'd like to know what you think about our service. Please let us know your feedback, or questions, by replying to this email. What do you like about OnlineGroups.Net sites or groups? What don't you like about them? What do your group members like and not like about OnlineGroups.Net? What improvements would you like to see with your site or groups? By the way, if you have started a site, but can't find it, you'll find it on the list of sites. http://onlinegroups.net/sites/all_sites/
Hi Dan, I've just started using OnlineGroups.net for my Family and Business Inner Circle (Silver Level). To date, I have been very pleased with the service. I was looking for something comparable to Yahoo groups. However, I was looking for more professionalism in the presentation. OnlineGroups.net seems to provide this. I look forward to seeing how OnlineGroups will continue to meet my needs. Thank you, Julie Watson Smith Family and Busines Lifestyle Coach Speaker Award-Winning Author <http://www.inspiredimaginations.com/> Inspired Imaginations LLC <email obscured>> <email obscured> | 877.485.5222 ******************************************* Discover simple strategies to align family and business while attracting more income, more freedom, and more fun with the smart and savvy ezine <http://www.inspiredimaginations.com/> For Your Inspiration, Sign up today and receive the f'ree special report "7 Money Making Insights Revealed and a complimentary Life Perspective Plan. <http://www.inspiredimaginations.com/> Subscribe now!
Hi Julie,
Thanks for your feedback.
> I was looking for something comparable to Yahoo groups.
> However, I was looking for more professionalism in the presentation.
> OnlineGroups.net seems to provide this.
That's great to hear, because this is one of the exact things we try to
achieve. Actually, we are in the middle of making some tweaks to the
presentation of our sites, so you should see it looking even better in
the next few days.
I'm the regional coordinator of a non-profit association of language
teachers in Japan. We currently run about half a dozen yahoogroups. The
largest group has about 8000 members and the smaller local groups range in
size anywhere from 20 to 100 members. Yahoogroups is free, so has been
working great for us, as our budget is zero. Recently, however, we've been
experiencing an increase in Japanese members who have been having difficulty
registering with Yahoo (all in English). In addition to this, there has
been some demand from existing members to move to a more typical web-based
forum.
We're looking at onlinegroups.net and Google groups as possible alternatives
to our existing arrangement. Something that would provide the convenience
and ease of use of an email-based system (but without having to go through a
lengthy registration process in a foreign language) with the power of a
traditional online forum.
Kaj Schwermer
Regional Coordinator, ETJ (English Teachers in Japan)
Hi Kaj,
With our service, all the ETJ groups would be on a single site. Would
that be an advantage to you?
If your groups were all public, then your OnlineGroups.Net site would be
free.
Registration is a challenge on any system, but we have recently improved
our registration so that it is fairly simple (we think). I'd be very
interested to hear non-native English-speakers get on with it.
> We're looking at onlinegroups.net and Google groups as possible alternatives
> to our existing arrangement. Something that would provide the convenience
> and ease of use of an email-based system (but without having to go through a
> lengthy registration process in a foreign language) with the power of a
> traditional online forum.
Looks like you've been reading our design goals! Please let me know if I
can help you with this.
By the way, do you have any requirement to support Japanese character
sets? While we do not yet offer a multi-lingual interface, our sites do
support Unicode, which makes it possible to display a wide range of
character sets. (If you are interested in testing this, try posting some
Hiragana ひらがな, Kanji 漢字 or Katakana カタカナ to this group, and
viewing it on the Web.)
Hello Dan, Having all the groups on a single site would be great. Having all the groups public may or may not be a good thing. Some of the groups are limited to certain segments of our membership (for example school owners, coordinators, etc.) and the discussions, especially for the administrative group, need to be kept private. Having advertising on the site and in messages isn't a big concern, so if something could be worked out in this regard, that might work. >I'd be very > interested to hear non-native English-speakers get on with it. > I've set up a small local group on onlinegroups.net and will run it by some of the Japanese members to see how they manage the registration process. >our sites do > support Unicode, which makes it possible to display a wide range of > character sets. Most of the posts so far have been in English, but having the ability to post in Japanese would be great. Again, I'll do a test run with some of the Japanese members and see what happens. >Looks like you've been reading our design goals! Please let me know if I > can help you with this. You've been plenty of help so far, Dan. Thank you. Not sure exactly how to proceed, to be honest, so any help would be appreciated. What I'll do is get moving on the local group I've set up, test it out with our local membership (about 90 members) and see how it works, then, once we establish a workable system, I'll make a proposal to the national group. One issue that will probably come up is what to do with the archive of posts on the yahoogroup. The archives are a great reference for newer members. Not sure if there's any way to export from yahoo and import into onlinegroups.net Regards, Kaj Schwermer Ps. For more information on ETJ as a whole, please have a look at our website: http://www.eltnews.com/ETJ/
Hi Kaj, You would need a premium site to have private groups, and we are going to start charging for those in September. http://onlinegroups.net/sites/ If the private groups that you need are quite small, then may find that you do not need a large number of private members. The budget for that, however would be more than zero. We don't offer an advertising-supported option for premium sites, I'm sorry. We also don't currently offer an option for importing message archives yet, but this is something we will look at some day. For now, you could keep the old message archives where they are, and (by editing your Site Intro ) link to them from the home page of your online groups site.
I am not using the site much.
I prefer the printed list I have of names, addresses, e-mail and phone.
So it comes as a surprise when someone tells me they are a member, of which
I was not aware.
I don't know how many people read the events coming up. I have never had any
extra helpers through online groups.(Apart from this one person)
As I have not used the site lately I am not able to comment really.
The best improvement for me would be to go to admin. and be able to access
all details of members.
Thanks for your feedback, Annelies. > it comes as a surprise when someone tells me they are a member, of which > I was not aware. A "new group member" notification is usually sent to the Group Admin with someone joins a group. As you are group admin in your group, you should get those. The notification does not get sent when the Group Admin is also a Site Admin. This is a bug, that we expect to fix within the next couple of months. > The best improvement for me would be to go to admin. and be able to access > all details of members. Any logged in group member can in fact see people's profiles, so you you'll see whatever people have put on their profile. The only thing that even admins can not currently see is email addresses. This is currently necessary to prevent nefarious use of our system. It does, however cause problems, as discussed in "Editing Group Members' Email Addresses", http://onlinegroups.net/r/post/7rgWnaIgquqZ3np27j6egd so we are working on a fix for this.
Dan Randow wrote: Whether you are using your site or not, we'd like to know what you think about our service. Dan, I've been struggling for more than a year now with finding a way to use Online Groups in a powerful and collaborative way. I thought I had a solution many months back, but unless I DROVE the involvement with my own time and effort, nothing happened. Each of us only has limited TIME. What do you like about OnlineGroups.Net sites or groups? The email in my inbox is recognisable, and functional. There is a web site the pulls together topics, so if I'm behind in a discussion I can catch up on the back mail easily. I like the existence of the search function. I have not used it, but on Ryze where I've been active for 4 years, I often want to refer back to a previous post, and it's really useful to have a search function that can find it. What don't you like about them? If I'm trying to read a complex topic thread as I sometimes do on Canterbury Issues, I like the ability to highlight the whole thread and take copy it into my text editor. But now I have a problem: Some of the mail naturally forms paragraphs as it was written, and some of it makes each truncated line from the email a new paragraph. I think this is caused by people using different email systems and text editors. To save paper and the make the text readable, deleting the paragraph mark at the end of every line is a pain. What do your group members like and not like about OnlineGroups.Net? Group members find Online Groups confusing. It's a strange environment when they first enter. Talk about sites and domains confuses people who have previously only thought about Groups, and have never need to concern themselves about "where" that group resides. What improvements would you like to see with your site or groups? I think there is a market in offering PGP which can be turned on for certain types of business groups. We know that all email is searched by intelligence agencies in the USA and elsewhere. We can't be sure that in addition to intelligence about illegal activities, the same agencies are not collecting commercial intelligence. "Of course you can trust us never to pass such information on your competitors." Yeah Right. If I was any NZ software company, trying to negotiate a contract overseas, I'd be very reluctant to use unencrypted email as a communication system. By the way, if you have started a site, but can't find it, you'll find it on the list of sites. http://onlinegroups.net/sites/all_sites I think that's also a real problem. People are not used to thinking about "where" their group is. So lots of groups get fomed and "lost" I expect. John Signature John S Veitch Network Ambassador <email obscured> Work: + 64 3 352 8372 Mobile: + 64 21 053 3661 Web : Open Future Ltd. My letter to prospective clients Google Me:John Stephen Veitch IM: johnsveitch (Skype) John on Ryze John on Xing 164 Condell Avenue Papanui Christchurch New Zealand Step by Step - Social Networking Blog Read My Blogs: Open Future - Learning for Change In house Social Network Training for your CEO, the BOD, and for your senior staff?
Hi John, Thank you for taking the time to give us feedback. > I've been struggling for more than a year now with finding a way to > use Online Groups in a powerful and collaborative way. I thought I > had a solution many months back, but unless I DROVE the involvement > with my own time and effort, nothing happened. Each of us only has > limited TIME. Participation takes motivation and opportunity. Collaboration technology can only lower the barrier to participation, ie increase the opportunity. Actually, I think that OnlineGroups.Net saves people time compared with just using email for group collaboration. Even with the best technology, however, there is still a need for some input to overcome inertia. Even with that, people will not participate unless they have a clear and compelling reason to do so. If you were working with an existing group who are strongly motivated to participate, I would be surprised if you did not get good uptake using OnlineGroups.Net. If you were trying to bring together a group for the first time, I'd be surprised if you did. Most groups are somewhere in between, and the participation levels that occur are highly variable. > If I'm trying to read a complex topic thread as I sometimes do on > Canterbury Issues, I like the ability to highlight the whole thread > and take copy it into my text editor. But now I have a problem: Some > of the mail naturally forms paragraphs as it was written, and some of > it makes each truncated line from the email a new paragraph. Our goal with the display of messages on the web is to make it so easy to follow a topic using it, that you have no need to copy the text to another interface. Why is it easier for you to read in a text editor, than on the web messages interface, John? > Group members find Online Groups confusing. It's a strange > environment when they first enter. Talk about sites and domains > confuses people who have previously only thought about Groups, and > have never need to concern themselves about "where" that group > resides. I wonder where your group members are seeing information about sites and domains. The whole idea of giving you groups on a site of your own, is that your users don't have to see anything not relevant to your groups or organisation. Our own site http://onlinegroups.net is aimed at prospective and current site administrators. Your group members never need to visit it. Yes, I imagine you are right that there is a market for PGP on email groups. We could potentially implement that, along with SSL, and provide very secure groups. We have never actually been asked to provide that, however. Anyone interested in encrypted online groups? You are also right that losing groups and sites is a problem. You do get an email when you create your first group, telling you that you've joined it. We have a plan to implement a monthly status notification that will list the sites and groups that the recipient belongs to.
This site is provided by OnlineGroups.Net, where you can start your own free online groups site, using the open source web-based mailing list manager GroupServer.