The only reason I ask people to put down a reason for wanting to join our groups, is to know they are real people, and not a Spam bot. When we were actively using YG on a rare occasion a member's computer would get infected, and send out Spam to our members in our group. On those occasion I would tell the infected person on the side what was coming from their computer, and they needed to do something about it before sending any more posts to the group. If anymore Spam came from their computer, then they knew they were going to get kicked off the group. Once they got clean again, they could join the group again. I can't really remember a time when a person joined the group with the intentional purpose of Spamming the members or the group, so I think the practice of asking prospective members why they want to join a group is a good idea. I had to rely on YG to protect the group from bad things as much as they could, and I did what I could to help out the cause.

Don

On Feb 13, 2018, at 8:35 PM, Richard Carlson <rich@...> wrote:

Cherrill is right, while allowing anyone to join and using the moderation status to vet them works for you we prefer to make sure they are willing to follow our rules and procedures and are going to participate properly for our group.

My question is how do you really know that by answering the questions — the answers are very easy to fake — that you are really screening out undesirables. You might also be screening out desirables. Or putting everyone to work that isn’t really producing the effect that you think it is — attributing success to a feature that doesn’t produce it.

It’s a research question. Have you tried it both ways?

Sharon
———
Sharon Villines, Washington DC
"Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.” Dorothy L Sayers

Sharon's method leads me to channel my inner Groucho: “I wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have me as a member”. It might work for you but not for us.

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everyone has the right to do what they want in their own groups.? Our shih tzu group has been going for 14 years and is a small select group of people who are truly interested in this breed.

Cherrill? 
Be kinder than necessary; 
for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

On Feb 13, 2018, at 6:38 PM, toki <toki.kantoor@...> wrote:

If the migration is done using the YahooGroups2Groups.IO software/method
Mark developed, you probably will be able to skate by.

I don’t know what the message is that is sent to transferred members is very clear about what is happening and apparently has a link for people to opt out of the transfer. We lost 2-300 people in the transfer but when I asked a sample why, they said they had moved out of the area and just not bothered to unsubscribe. It’s a neighborhood list.

The message was remarkably clear, however, because I received NO questions about it. No one was confused.

Sharon
——
Sharon Villines, Washington DC
“It’s not writing that is so hard; it’s all the thinking it requires."

On Feb 13, 2018, at 3:13 PM, Richard Carlson <rich@...> wrote:

We want to discourage potential spammers and group collectors and keep it to people who would be willing to take an extra step to prove they are worthy of our group.

I was joining a bunch of timebank lists to day to invite people to join my new [email protected] list. I found myself not joining any list that wanted to approve of me. I don’t think you can determine whether someone is worthy by asking them to answer questions. And why ask them just to be asking or to see if they are “serious.”

For years I’ve used "moderate new members" so I can approve messages from new members. That way I can catch spam but also advise new members if they send messages that are possibly offensive or off topic. But on Yahoo this was a great pain because it took about 5 clicks and waiting in between to take them off moderation. It was easier to approve all their messages than to take them off moderation.

Groups has a wonderful option which is to moderate a certain number of messages (1-5, I think). When the set number have been approved, the member is taken off moderation automatically. I find this is enough to determine if the person is there to spam or to make trouble. No need to question their intentions or qualifications.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines, Washington DC

"Give someone a book, they'll read for a day. Teach someone to write a
book and they will spend a life-time mired in paralyzing self doubt."

we want our group to be as safe as possible.? If a person is not willing to give us a bit of background info before we approve them, then we have no way of knowing whether they are truly interested in the group or whether they just want to get a bunch of email addresses.? If they don't have a shih tzu and are wanting to get one to find out what their nature etc is, then all they need to do in the questionnaire is tell us that.? We would prefer to have this information before hand rather than have to unsub them after they have been approved and had a chance to see our entire membership info.

Cherrill 
Be kinder than necessary; 
for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

As an email groups fan, why do you need to know this before approving the membership? Why not just ask them to introduce themselves in their first message and address these questions. And do you save this information?

[excess quote trimmed by moderator; quote format altered by moderator]

I sent to +help for one of my groups and I received the list of links below that is essentially an expanded view of the message footer.

I was expecting it to return information about groups.io. This address appears on the group homepage that also has a real help button in the upper left corner. I would delete this. I think it’s confusing and frustrating.

Sharon

On Feb 13, 2018, at 4:54 PM, Cherrill <cdjamieson@...> wrote:

In our pending membership, we send a questionnaire to the pending subscriber asking about 5 questions: one of them being exactly what your question is; along with 'how did you hear about our group', do you own or have you previously owned a shih tzu', what is the age of your shih tzu'... then we say 'once we hear from you, we will approve your membership.

As an email groups fan, why do you need to know this before approving the membership? Why not just ask them to introduce themselves in their first message and address these questions. And do you save this information?

One of the great values of email groups is the ability to lurk, to watch a conversation until you want to jump in. In this case it might be someone who is thinking of acquiring a shih tzu’

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
[email protected]

On 02/13/2018 02:58 PM, Jim Betz wrote:

I am not a lawyer. So take what I say with a grain of salt.

? So I'm hearing that if you transfer a yahoo group with members in the E.U. that
you are "violating the rules related to privacy/spam".?

? 1) Is this really true?

Under the EU Data Privacy Rules, it is theoretically possible for one to
be in violation of the rules.

The big issues are:
* Where are you physically located;
* Where are the Groups.IO servers physically located;
* Where did the transfer from YahooGroups to Groups.IO physically occur?

If the migration is done using the YahooGroups2Groups.IO software/method
Mark developed, you probably will be able to skate by. (Consult a lawyer
in your local EU jurisdiction (^1), to ensure that this is the case.)

? 2) If it is true - has anyone suffered any legal consequences due to transferring someone's user who lives in the E.U.?

Whilst I haven't read anything along those lines, that absence means
absolutely nothing.

In general, the way to avoid liability, is to ask permission:
* If granted, do the action;
* If denied, do not do the action;
* If neither denied nor granted, do not do the action;

I see no way to find out which members of a yahoo group are in the E.U.

Basically, the only reliable way to find out if any members are in the
EU, or in a territory of a country within the EU, is to ask each member,
where they are physically located. Then go through the list of countries
and territories in which EU directives apply.

#####

The bigger legal risk is a copyright violation.
A user claiming that their original content was not licensed for display
on Groups.IO.

Again, you need to talk to a lawyer in your specific legal jurisdiction,
to determine what is appropriate procedures for the migration to talk place.

#####

I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.


^1: The EU includes countries and territories in the Atlantic Ocean,
Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Caribbean Basin, Africa, North America,
South America, Africa, Asia, Australasia, and of course Europe.
Furthermore, there are countries and territories that incorporate EU
directives, as a matter of policy, even though they are not part of the
EU.

jonathon

As Dave Sergeant said earlier, this is all about the GDPR EU regulations that come into force on 25 May 2018.? As they are from the EU legislation, they are extremely complex and are of the classic "sledgehammer to crack a nut" variety.

Loads of practical guides will appear on the internet as the date approaches, and I guess we are all going to have to read whichever of those we trust and take a view on whether we risk breaking the law for a low level complexity members' group, or we just say "stuff it" and carry on with life using Groups.io as it helps us run our groups so well.

I know where my vote lies!

In many cases I’ve resorted to admitting the member and resending the questionnaire afterwards. It seems to have a better chance of reaching them that way. Our group is NuM so there’s not much risk.

Thanks, Shai. I had created it in Member notices rather than as a New topic. Problem solved. Now I just have to reset them all to no email!

Elizabeth

On 13 Feb 2018, at 04:14, Shal Farley <shals2nd@...> wrote:

Elizabeth,

I am somewhat confused by the special notices thing too. I wanted to
use it to make sure all the people that have been transferred to
groups from yahoo actually knew about it. So I changed all the no
email people to special notices, and wrote an email explaining the new
situation.

So far so good.

Except you could have spared yourself some effort (I think) by checking "Disable No Email" in the Message Policies section of your group's Settings.

But I have no idea how to send this. I’m obviously missing something.

The "New Topic" page ought to have a "Send this message as a special notice." checkbox.

Alternatively, maybe I’ve messed up the whole list, since there don’t
seem to have been any messages sent or received today!

That's a little harder to guess at. Have you (or anyone else) tried to post any messages? Via web or by email?

And where are you looking? Your email Inbox? The group's Messages section? The group's Pending page?

One way to learn if messages have been attempted is to look in the Activity page. Click the "Message Activity" tab at the top to limit the list to message-related entries. Do you see any activity? Do the items give you a clue about why nothing has posted?

Shal

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In our pending membership, we send a questionnaire to the pending subscriber asking about 5 questions: one of them being exactly what your question is; along with 'how did you hear about our group', do you own or have you previously owned a shih tzu', what is the age of your shih tzu'... then we say 'once we hear from you, we will approve your membership.

Cherrill? 
Be kinder than necessary; 
for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.