Hi Herbert,
json files can be imported into Excel for example, or opened with any text editor or web browser. They‘re basically a special type of XML .?

But - even when opened in Excel the result isn‘t particularly useful for the type of exercise you‘re thinking of. Don‘t forget that these exports are meant to export the complete group contents, for transfer to another system or other purposes, not really for creating statistics from the export files.?

There are many converters around, some for online conversion, some for offline by installing a program first.

I haven‘t tried them yet.

Thomas

On 30 Apr 2025, at 09:59, Thomas Gruber via groups.io <computerhusky@...> wrote:

Hi Herbert,
json files can be imported into Excel for example, or opened with any text editor or web browser. They‘re basically a special type of XML .
But - even when opened in Excel the result isn‘t particularly useful for the type of exercise you‘re thinking of. Don‘t forget that these exports are meant to export the complete group contents, for transfer to another system or other purposes, not really for creating statistics from the export files.
There are many converters around, some for online conversion, some for offline by installing a program first.

On Tue, Apr 29, 2025 at 08:47 AM, Thomas Gruber wrote:

What do you mean by ?must be an admin“ ?

An Owner, or Moderator with sufficient permissions.

I looked at a group where I‘m the owner, that‘s obviously not the same as ?admin“ as I didn‘t find an export option when showing the hashtags used.

Go to Admin=>Preferences=>Export Group. You can download the hashtags there.

?

Regards,

Bruce

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Check out the groups.io Help Center?and?groups.io Owners Manual

Hi Herbert, Did you see the options for hashtags

… 1) Messages can be tagged with new hashtags… Messages from members can only be tagged with existing hashtags, … 2) … - otherwise the message is bounced 3) … - new hashtags will be removed <<<<< I believe options 2 and 3 mean that members can only use existing hashtags, new hashtags can only be added by moderators/owners. This would mean that any new hashtag must be requested from the group moderators, something you tried to avoid. It‘s a bit tedious, but would help to avoid a flood of hashtags. Maybe an additional option would help - saying messages with new hashtags will be moderated? Could be useful for groups like your‘s where hashtags are mandatory, and option 3 wouldn‘t work. Kind regards Thomas

On Tue, Apr 29, 2025 at 03:16 AM, Herbert Eppel wrote:

I note that this group also has a list of top 10 hashtags listed at /g/GroupManagersForum, although it isn't clear to me how this list came about

The list is automatically created by the site as hashtags are used/created.

?

It's not as clear cut as you might like, but you can actually see how many times each hashtag has been used.? As an example, go to the GMF home page, scroll down to the hashtag section, then click on See All.? That should take you to the list of hashtags available on the group.? For the next step, I find it easier to use the List View, though you can see the same information in the Gallery View.? Next to each hashtag, you'll see a number for how many topics use that tag, so you could make a list, say in a spreadsheet, that you could sort on this number.? You may also see some that have the NO symbol (slashed circle) that means it's not available to regular members, only admins.? In the GMF list, there are a couple that have aliases (hashtag, right arrow, hashtags is an example) where any topics that used #hashtag have been changed to #hashtags.? See the manual, then click on the Alias link.? You might want to use something like this to limit the number of hashtags on your group.

?

Another option would be to Export only the hashtags of your group (must be an admin).? This will be a zip file that contains the hashtag info in json format.? One of the entries for each is "topic_count".? You'd need to write a small program to read/sort that data.? It does include the alias info, but I haven't quite figured out how it's stored.

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Duane

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Lots of detailed information can be found in the Owners Manual and Members Manual found in the Help Center.

On Tue, Apr 29, 2025 at 09:16 AM, Herbert Eppel wrote:

I note that this group also has a list of top 10 hashtags listed at /g/GroupManagersForum, although it isn't clear to me how this list came about

The top 10 hashtags are listed on each group home page (assuming the group uses them) so it's just part of the system as it stands. It's not a feature you can turn on or off (Enterprise groups can customise more details so may well be able to do so).

?

As you said, there must be some functionality in the system that produces this list so you may wish to post in beta to request it be extended in some way.? I suspect many people who use the Groups.io site to view messages just go straight there via a bookmarked link rather than view the group home page so they would bypass the information. Other members, of course, just communicate with Groups.io via email so they wouldn't see the details either.

?

Regards

Andy

In one of the groups I manage we recently introduced mandatory hashtags, although members can create their own hashtags, rather than having to choose from a predefined list.

The assumption was that the most common hashtags would prevail, while odd ones would fall by the wayside. In reality we ended up with more than 300 hashtags, many of them not particularly meaningful and only used once.

I assumed there would be an option to list hashtags by frequency, but this doesn't seem to be the case, as evidenced by the attached screenshot. In other words, the only sorting options I can see are "Name" (i.e. alphabetical or reverse alphabetical) and "Duration" (not sure what this actually does).

Without an option to list the chaotic plethora of hashtags by frequency, the system doesn't seem particularly useful for our group. Am I missing something?

Thank you.

Herbert Eppel