responding to someone accidently/maliciously deleting entries in a 'database'
Hello,
our group had a problem on April 24 where someone deleted all the entries in a 'leaderboard' database listing progress made on a very hard puzzle since about 2008/2009.? All that you see when you look at the database is the date April 24 when changes were made and the empty database with headings of columns but no rows.
Asking for anyone who knows how filies are handled:
1. Are any of the files/photos/databases backed up in any sense at groups.io -- do they have the files from a week ago, for example, and if so who would I contact?
2. I don't know how these databases work but I was wondering if possible there is an "undo" feature like in Excel -- I am first just thinking of scenarios to recover the data.
3. Is there a way to make the databases "write only" or "read only" for the future?
4.? Is there a way to determine the member who did this or to definitively determine the members who logged in on April 24th?? ?Sometimes files say who edited or uploaded something but in database section it just shows the date the way I'm looking at it.
My priority first is 1 & 2? if there are suggestions for data recovery which probably has come up before in this forum.
Thank you all for your patience with all the questions.
John Abbott
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
Duane and all . . . On Fri, 28 Apr 2023 10:50:58 -0700, "Duane" <txpigeon@...> wrote:
And when you suggest that on beta, you might also suggest that the message to the member include a link to the FAQ topic ( /helpcenter/faq/1/group-member-faq/q-i-got-a-message-that-i ).
That's a great idea. I have a keyboard macro that has a brief explanation and another with a detailed explanation of how this can happen (for when the member asks about it), but putting the link there in the email would be better. Also, whoever suggested this SHOULD bring this up in Beta so it gets Mark's eyes on it. This would not require much coding so should be a quick hitter for him. Donald ---------------------------------------------------- Some ham radio groups you may be interested in: /g/ICOM /g/Ham-Antennas/g/HamRadioHelp /g/Baofeng/g/CHIRP
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
This has not been a problem with all of my lists for many months.
They get back on real quick.
David S
On Fri, Apr 28, 2023 at 11:51?AM Duane < txpigeon@...> wrote: On Fri, Apr 28, 2023 at 12:14 PM, Malcolm Austen wrote:
I suggest that the email should say ... from the " system"
And when you suggest that on beta, you might also suggest that the message to the member include a link to the FAQ topic.
Duane
--
Lots of detailed information can be found in the Owners Manual and Members Manual.
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
On Fri, Apr 28, 2023 at 12:14 PM, Malcolm Austen wrote:
I suggest that the email should say ... from the "groups.io system"
And when you suggest that on beta, you might also suggest that the message to the member include a link to the FAQ topic. Duane -- Lots of detailed information can be found in the Owners Manual and Members Manual.
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
I suggest that
the email should say not that it came from a moderator, nor from a team but
from the "groups.io system" to clarify that it was auto-generated and not
at the whim/decision/choice of a
person.
Malcolm.
On 28 April 2023 15:42:44
(+01:00), Chris Jones via groups.io wrote: On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 04:08 PM, Duane wrote:
Either way could be confusing to some.
Undoubtedly true; the way in which the matter of spam is dealt with is, and
will be, a permanently recurring theme. However, I'm sticking to my belief
that the current wording is more likely to confuse than what went
before...
The ejected member receives an email ostensibly
from a moderator of the group in question; in fact it has been sent by "The
Groups.io Team"?as previously signed off. The moderator(s) of the
group in question receive a notification still signed by Group.io, but may
well not realise that the notification received by the member has
apparently
been sent by a moderator of the group. (will not
realise is more likely!) There is now an immediate area of confusion
between the moderator(s) and the member concerned should they make contact
via the "owner" address. ("You sent me this email..." "Oh no I
didn't...")?
To make matters worse while the notification
to the group moderator(s) includes the sentence Note that this may have
been done by their email service provider, not by the individual member
personally while the notification to the member still does
not.?
I can easily see why the present
situation leads to so much head - scratching! :)
Chris?
--?
Malcolm
Austen -- malcolm.austen@...
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Re: Screening members before they join
Thank you, Bruce, that was very helpful¡ it would have taken me a long time to find that in the manual!
Thank you, Jan, that was very helpful.
Donald, thank you for all that information. The group I run is for people with a specific disease, where they may be talking about private medical information, so the reason I was thinking of screening is to ask potential members to state their relationship to the disease (that they have it, or are a loved one of someone who has it) in an effort to eliminate random people trying to join.
This group is a great resource!
Kristin
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Apr 25, 2023, at 8:22 PM, Donald Hellen <donhellen@...> wrote:
Kristin . . .
On Tue, 25 Apr 2023 13:27:46 -0700, "Kristin Semmelmeyer"
<kristins1@...> wrote:
Hi, I'm wondering if there's a way to require that people interested in joining our group write to me, the moderator, and answer a few questions before they can join. The short answer is yes, you can. See Bruce's post for a link to how to do that.
Before you do that, you should ask yourself if that's what you really want to
do. If it's just for spam prevention, there's another method that works well for
my 20 groups. What I refer to below is for spam prevention. If it's to keep the
group private, see my last paragraph only.
By requiring the prospective member to answer some questions, you will find out
if they're interested enough to bother answering the questions. You will lose
some interested people just because they don't like bothering with that (some
might see you as a heavy-handed group owner who micromanages the group, even if
you don't do that. Personally, if I'm interested, I will answer the questions,
but I do go into the group thinking it might be micromanaged.
There's not much benefit in just letting them click the join button and you
immediately approving their joining the group, so we let people join and they're
immediately members.
For spam control, we have our groups set to new member moderation (NMM), and you
can choose how many messages they need to have moderated and approved before
they go off NMM. After those 1, 2, 3, or 4 first posts that get approved, they
can post directly to the group without moderation. (Of course, you can moderate
ALL posts but in anything but a very small group, it can make you pretty busy
unless you have enough moderators to do that.)
Spammers won't likely want to bother with a questionnaire, nor will they likely
go learn enough about the group to make multiple coherent posts until they are
unmoderated. So we use the NMM as a spam prevention tool. Even with this, in our
larger groups of 2,000+ members, and our small groups too, we've only had a
couple of spammers try. They joined, made one attempt to make a post pertinent
to the group which was feeble, then tried to spam us, and they got banned, since
they were still on NMM. We had one join and immediately try to spam the group.
Because of NMM, they didn't get their post to the group.
What none of these measures will do, except moderating every post, is prevent
spam to the group when a hacker hijacks someone's email account (one who is not
NMM) and send spam to the group. It's very rare when that happens, and we put
that email account on full moderation, of course. We then try to contact the
person whose account was hijacked and work out the problem.
So there you have it, a few different ways of preventing spam, if that's your
intent. One thing a set of questions might do is, in a totally private group,
allow you to verify the person in some way that they are say, a victim of some
crime, or a patient with some disease, where you wouldn't want someone from the
general public to just join and see all the posts. In that case, a set of
questions, or some back and forth emails, might be the best way to handle a
prospective member.
Best wishes for you and your group,
Donald
----------------------------------------------------
Some ham radio groups you may be interested in:
/g/ICOM /g/Ham-Antennas
/g/HamRadioHelp /g/Baofeng
/g/CHIRP
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
On Fri, Apr 28, 2023 at 11:09 AM, KWKloeber wrote:
Are you/the member SURE that the member isn't inadvertently sending an email to the spam box, them emptying it, this triggering the removal from the group?
...or even intentionally, without any thought to the consequences. Subscribers should expect to receive everything sent by the list, even the occasional message that seems off-topic or boring. If you signed up for it, then by definition, it is not spam. This is a fine point that too many people struggle to understand. There are other factors, too. I have 12 Comcast people in my group, but only one of them repeatedly gets kicked off. I suspect his phone has the "delete" and "spam" buttons adjacent to each other, and he's simply fat-fingering it. Quite a number of mail clients are guilty of this poor design. Regards, Bruce
Check out the groups.io Help Center?and?groups.io Owners Manual
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
Steve
Are you/the member SURE that the member isn't inadvertently sending an email to the spam box, them emptying it, this triggering the removal from the group?
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 04:08 PM, Duane wrote:
Either way could be confusing to some.
Undoubtedly true; the way in which the matter of spam is dealt with is, and will be, a permanently recurring theme. However, I'm sticking to my belief that the current wording is more likely to confuse than what went before... The ejected member receives an email ostensibly from a moderator of the group in question; in fact it has been sent by "The Groups.io Team"?as previously signed off. The moderator(s) of the group in question receive a notification still signed by Group.io, but may well not realise that the notification received by the member has apparently been sent by a moderator of the group. ( will not realise is more likely!) There is now an immediate area of confusion between the moderator(s) and the member concerned should they make contact via the "owner" address. (" You sent me this email..." " Oh no I didn't...")? To make matters worse while the notification to the group moderator(s) includes the sentence Note that this may have been done by their email service provider, not by the individual member personally while the notification to the member still does not.? I can easily see why the present situation leads to so much head - scratching! :) Chris?
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
Chris,
Thanks for the suggestion.? I'll pass it on to the member.
One thing worth trying is for the member concerned to put the group address (in this case [email protected]) into his or her Mail Service Provider's Contact List (not that available in a Mail Client) as its presence there may dissuade the MSP from declaring posts from that address to be spam.? -----Original Message-----
From: Chris Jones via groups.io <chrisjones12@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thu, Apr 27, 2023 10:04 am
Subject: Re: [GMF] Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 02:32 PM, Steven Springer wrote:
For the record, here's the email the member received:
There seems to have been a small but potentially significant change in the wording of this message since the GMF wiki on this subject was written. The sample email above has been signed off Regards, the [email protected]?Moderator whereas the sign off used to be The Groups.io Team.? IMHO this change is likely to cause confusion when received by a group member as the responsibility for sending the email has (on the face of it) been changed from Groups.io as an organisation to a moderator of a specific group.. Not helpful... One thing worth trying is for the member concerned to put the group address (in this case [email protected]) into his or her Mail Service Provider's Contact List ( not that available in a Mail Client) as its presence there may dissuade the MSP from declaring posts from that address to be spam.? It is something that I had to do with my service provider some years ago... Chris?
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 09:15 AM, Chris Jones wrote:
IMHO this change is likely to cause confusion when received by a group member as the responsibility for sending the email has (on the face of it) been changed from Groups.io as an organisation to a moderator of a specific group.
Either way could be confusing to some.? Previously, when it was The Groups.io Team, people thought that Groups.io was kicking them off for the spam.? I believe it was changed to show the group moderator so, hopefully, they'd be contacted by members with questions. Duane -- Lots of detailed information can be found in the Owners Manual and Members Manual.
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 02:32 PM, Steven Springer wrote:
For the record, here's the email the member received:
There seems to have been a small but potentially significant change in the wording of this message since the GMF wiki on this subject was written. The sample email above has been signed off Regards, the [email protected]?Moderator whereas the sign off used to be The Groups.io Team.? IMHO this change is likely to cause confusion when received by a group member as the responsibility for sending the email has (on the face of it) been changed from Groups.io as an organisation to a moderator of a specific group.. Not helpful... One thing worth trying is for the member concerned to put the group address (in this case [email protected]) into his or her Mail Service Provider's Contact List ( not that available in a Mail Client) as its presence there may dissuade the MSP from declaring posts from that address to be spam.? It is something that I had to do with my service provider some years ago... Chris?
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
Thanks Frances.? That's what I've told the member before, but i thought it was worth asking this group to confirm it.??
?
For the record, here's the email the member received:
?
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 08:34 AM, Steven Springer wrote:
I'm the owner of a group, and one member has a recurring issue, in that some of his posts get marked as spam, when they clearly are NOT spam.? It says the request to block the post comes from the group moderator, but I haven't requested anything.? I'm trying to figure out whether there's some way to prevent this from happening again.? Any advice is appreciated.
You need to re-read the email report of spam. It doesn't say that the group moderator requested it. Ask your member to forward it to you. It says that your member's email provider reported a message marked spam. /helpcenter/membersmanual/1/working-with-group-messages/responding-to-a-you-have-been-removed?single=trueSample spam automated message (as of 2020): /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki/5115? It is easy for your member to resubscribe from the notification email. What is harder is getting it stopped since often the issue is the member's service provider. Lots of threads about specific ISP's in our message archive. Frances -- Help available from Groups.io help and GMF wiki.
?
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Re: Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
I think a
screen-shot might help to clarify what is going on. I am unclear whether
you are talking of an email coming in to groups.io and being classed as
spam or whether this is a message going out from groups.io being classed as
spam on delivery to a subscriber.
Malcolm.
On 27
April 2023 12:54:58 (+01:00), Steven Springer via groups.io
wrote: Hi...
I'm the owner of a group, and
one member has a recurring issue, in that some of his posts get marked as
spam, when they clearly are NOT spam.? It says the request to block
the post comes from the group moderator, but I haven't requested
anything.? I'm trying to figure out whether there's some way to
prevent this from happening again.? Any advice is
appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve
--?
Malcolm Austen --
malcolm.austen@...
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Posts Marked as Spam That Aren't Spam
Hi...
I'm the owner of a group, and one member has a recurring issue, in that some of his posts get marked as spam, when they clearly are NOT spam.? It says the request to block the post comes from the group moderator, but I haven't requested anything.? I'm trying to figure out whether there's some way to prevent this from happening again.? Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve
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Re: Quick question. How to change the message?
On Wed, Apr 26, 2023 at 09:27 AM, Duane wrote:
You can edit the second part on the Invite page (or change the Member Notice of type Invite).? Any changes you make while on the Invite page will be immediately reflected in the top area showing exactly what will be sent.
And remember you can use the formatting toolbar to highlight your message. Be sure to save the Member Notice.
Frances
?
--
Help available from Groups.io help and GMF wiki.
?
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Re: Quick question. How to change the message?
On Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 07:08 PM, Gisela Dawson wrote:
the first is the template (in black) where the two top sentences are redundant. ?
The second (in blue) is what I want to send.
You can edit the second part on the Invite page (or change the Member Notice of type Invite).? Any changes you make while on the Invite page will be immediately reflected in the top area showing exactly what will be sent. Duane -- Lots of detailed information can be found in the Owners Manual and Members Manual.
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Re: Quick question. How to change the message?
On Wed, Apr 26, 2023 at 01:08 AM, Gisela Dawson wrote:
I've copied the two messages that appear?
when I want to send out an invitation to a new member.
Thanks for that. Now Bruce has explained about the "boilerplate" text that Groups.io adds as a matter of necessity, so I will not repeat that. Let us look at your existing message in detail; the following is what Groups.io adds to top and tail your message customisation:?
The following message was included by Gisela Dawson: ... and
To accept the invitation, please reply to this email, or you may?accept the invitation?on the website. This link will expire in 14 days, on 05/09/2023 at 11:04am PDT.?If you are not interested, or if [Invitee Email Address] is not your email address, please ignore this email.
The above are "fixed" (as already explained) and any change can only be done by Mark Fletcher; you would have to negotiate with him via the beta group.?
Now let us look more closely at your customisation:?
You have been invited by Catalinas of Santa Monica Bay to join??group?catalina-fleet.
Please accept this invitation so that you will be able to receive emails and notifications?
of upcoming meetings, cruises and events and be apprised of all that is going on.??
This is our only means of communication to the Catalina group.
It also allows you to participate in any discussions on-line.
Why is the first sentence there? It is a nearly word for word copy of the text added by Groups.io.? ?
Next; is there a good reason for the next line to be a different font? As well as a different typeface it has the appearance of being a different font size, although that is not strictly the case. IMHO it makes the whole thing rather harder to read.
The sentence continues: "...upcoming meetings, cruises and events and be apprised of all that is going on".? The phrase I have underlined is redundant because of the words that precede it - having mentioned "meetings, cruises, and events" you have more or less covered everything that is going on!?
Your next sentence then reads:?This is our only means of communication to the Catalina group. As far as I can see that sentence is completely unnecessary.
You then add (in your final sentence) "It also allows you to participate in any discussions on-line". Why not combine that fact immediately after the comment about "meetings, cruises and events"??
If I may take the liberty of rewriting your customisation for you I suggest the following:
If you accept this invitation to join us you will be able to receive notifications about meetings, cruises and other events, and be able to take part in the Group's on-line discussions, using either email or the web interface.
That has reduced the word count rather significantly and IMHO is much easier to read. In fact it is perhaps just a bit short, so why not preface it with a slightly modified quotation from your Home Page, thus:
We are a group of enthusiastic owners of Catalina sailboats. We own about 75 boats, sailing out of Marina del Rey, California. We started as all C36 owners, but now have boats in the range of 28' to 47'.
If you accept this invitation to join us you will be able to receive notifications about meetings, cruises and other events, and be able to take part in the Group's on-line discussions, using either email or the web interface.
You mentioned not being able to change any wording; you can change your customisation by going to Admin > Settings > Member Notices and then clicking on the existing "Invite" notice.? If you make any changes don't forget to click on Update Notice when you have finished.?
Chris
PS: sorry the above rather long... :)?
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Re: Filtering Out of Office replies?
On Wed, Apr 26, 2023 at 07:59 AM, Kenneth Sharp-Knott wrote:
I'm disappointed?that this is still the case.
As I noted earlier, I don't think it's a problem.? Have you tried setting up an auto response to see what happens? Duane -- Lots of detailed information can be found in the Owners Manual and Members Manual.
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Duane
Kristin Semmelmeyer
Bruce
KWKloeber
Frances