Post in Feedback About OnlineGroups.Net

May 13 03:07 UTC

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.