How best to educate about the 'Removed for SPAM' problem
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This problem affects all email List users, because if not solved, Groups.io becomes less effective when subscribers/members unexpectedly are unsubscribed.
The responsibility to educate individual email List users should not be on individual groups owner, who will not all do so (if at all) in a clear and rational way. The fact that questions about this keep coming up on GMF, says that many groups owners and subscribers/members aren¡¯t clear about this. I say in my Welcome Message to new subscribers (although this is probably not enough): If [groupname] messages are misdirected (probably by your Email Provider) into your Spam and/or Junk folders: DO NOT DELETE THEM, MOVE THEM TO YOUR INBOX - Marking and/or deleting [groupname] messages as SPAM or JUNK can send an automatic "Unsubscribe" command - this is a new anti-Spam mandate that is being adopted by Email Providers. Email List group providers, such as Groups.io, are in the best position to do it well and for all Groups.io users. Groups.io could send a monthly (probably more frequent) Special Notices asking users for their help (including explaining WHY) and telling users to be sure to (and HOW): -Not to mark any Groups.io message as SPAM or JUNK (even if it is a SPAM post and/or from a hacked email address, but to report to their group owner). -Check their SPAM / JUNK folders regularly (daily or weekly) - just as you would your US mail box for physical, ¡®postal¡¯ mail. -Not to delete any Groups.io message marked as SPAM or JUNK. -Not to let their Email Provider automatically delete any Groups.io message marked as SPAM or JUNK -That they may get Unsubscribed for this -What to do if they get Unsubscribed Groups.io should be sure to explain WHY and HOW (in non-computer savvy language), not just refer what seems to many to be a cryptic Wiki. Pictures and/or videos might be useful. The test is not ¡®does it make sense to those in the know¡¯ but does everyone (who doesn¡¯t know about this) understand WHAT and HOW it is said. (I suggest non-computer savvy people should proof read this and be assessed for their understanding). |
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Michael, This problem affects all email List users, because if not solved, Groups.io becomes less effective when subscribers/members unexpectedly are unsubscribed. The flip side of that is that Groups.io becomes much less effective if members experience non-delivery of the messages for which they are subscribed. Indeed, delays and non-delivery of messages is one of the factors often cited here by group managers moving from Yahoo Groups. From a ruthless point of view, perhaps it is better to lose the members that can't or won't deal with this problem than to inflict message delay and loss on the rest of the group's membership. The fact that questions about this keep coming up on GMF, says that many groups owners and subscribers/members aren¡¯t clear about this. It is reasonable to suggest that Groups.io should have more detail in the Removed Because of Spam section of the Help page. Especially if you can suggest wording that passes muster for clarity to non-technical readers. Groups.io could send a monthly (probably more frequent) Special Notices ... No. Just no. I believe those messages would be likely to cause more harm than good by themselves being diverted to spam or marked as spam. And they would annoy the bulk of my group members unnecessarily. At the very least, I'd ask Groups.io to exclude members using email services that don't have an FBL mechanism, or that don't use it this way. If such an education campaign were to be done system-wide I'd strongly advocate that it be targeted only to users who've been unsubscribed for spam at least once. Groups.io should be sure to explain WHY and HOW (in non-computer savvy language), not just refer what seems to many to be a cryptic Wiki. If you mean GMF's wiki page Removed for Marking Messages as spam, help us improve it. But as far as I know Groups.io itself doesn't refer users to it. ?(I suggest non-computer savvy people should proof read this and be assessed for their understanding). Good idea, for all help pages actually. But that takes time and effort. Is it a suitable project for a volunteer? Anyone here volunteering to undertake it with your own group members? Shal -- Help: /static/help More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list |
This problem affects all email List users, because if not solved, Groups.io becomes less effective when subscribers/members unexpectedly are unsubscribed.I see the problem as being one of insufficient and ineffective education - that¡¯s why I believe it should be done by Groups.io itself, to be done well for a change. From a ruthless point of view, perhaps it is better to lose the members that can't or won't deal with this problem than to inflict message delay and loss on the rest of the group's membership.Rather than the current ¡®If you don¡¯t understand what is not clear to you, tough luck¡¯ policy (which creates negative experiences and ill-will for quite a number of would be subscribers/members), why not try something to do a better of education. I see the reason subscribers ¡°can¡¯t or won¡¯t¡± not as an unwillingness, but as a failure to be properly enlightened. I¡¯m not convinced that the best way to teach it is to let people 'get burnt by touching the hot stove¡¯ rather than good education by qualified professionals. The fact that questions about this keep coming up on GMF, says that many groups owners and subscribers/members aren¡¯t clear about this.This hidden knowledge strategy has not succeeded. I don¡¯t think you get ¡®horses to drink by hiding the water¡¯. Sometimes the best relief comes from ¡®not continuing to bang your head against the wall¡¯. Groups.io could send a monthly (probably more frequent) Special Notices ...There should be an effective way to ¡®show horses where the water is', so that they are 'likely to drink¡¯. The question is how to do that. I favor too much over too little explanation, after all ¡°Education may be costly, but the results are often better than the cheaper Ignorance¡±. I believe those messages would be likely to cause more harm than good by themselves being diverted to spam or marked as spam. And they would annoy the bulk of my group members unnecessarily.Maybe the wording needs to be something like ¡°PLEASE READ: How to ensure you are not unsubscribed¡±, rather that using the word SPAM in the title... At the very least, I'd ask Groups.io to exclude members using email services that don't have an FBL mechanism, or that don't use it this way. If such an education campaign were to be done system-wide I'd strongly advocate that it be targeted only to users who've been unsubscribed for spam at least once.I agree that it is desirable to target only those who it applies to and need it, however I do advocate ¡®an ounce of prevention¡¯ over a ¡®pounds of cure¡¯ approach. Perhaps it should be presented in an ¡®opt-out form¡¯ such as ¡°Terms of Use agreements¡± are. These notices should be clear (in non-computer savvy language) and brief enough so they are likely to be read, with the ¡®opt-out (from receiving repeated notices)¡¯ being an ¡°I understand¡± button. Groups.io should be sure to explain WHY and HOW (in non-computer savvy language), not just refer what seems to many to be a cryptic Wiki.That's part of how the information is 'hidden from', versus ¡®provided to¡¯... (I suggest non-computer savvy people should proof read this and be assessed for their understanding).Agreed. Perhaps the best way to get it started is to post the text here (not a link), and ask for comments and suggested edits¡ |
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Michael, Rather than the current ¡®If you don¡¯t understand what is not clear to you, tough luck¡¯ policy ... That is not a Groups.io policy, of course, just your interpretation of my comments. I suspect Mark would never have put it quite that bluntly. In fact Mark has solicited and taken advice in improving the messages sent to moderators and members when a member is "removed for spam". I don't happen to know if anyone has helped him craft the brief Help page section. ... why not try something to do a better of education. I'm never against better documentation. This hidden knowledge strategy has not succeeded.
There should be an effective way to ¡®show horses where the water is', What do you suggest? Instructions are emailed to the member upon
unsubscription, and to the moderators of the group. It is also on the
Help page. The complaint has been raised that the members often don't receive that instruction; if that's true then we need a mechanism other than email to get it to them. Perhaps it should be presented in an ¡®opt-out form¡¯ such as ¡°Terms of Use agreements¡± are. I'm leery of any extra steps that complicate the sign up process. There had been no "you must check this box to agree to our terms" in Groups.io's sign-up flow. That may have changed recently with the GDPR requirements, I'm not sure. And then we have the many email-only members who never visit the site to educate as well. > If you mean GMF's wiki page Removed for Marking Messages as spam, help us improve it. GMF is not in a position to "provide to" (in an active sense) anyone except our members; but we do not "hide from" anyone - our messages and Wiki are public for all to read. We can aspire to provide information which Groups.io might take up in official communications and documentation; and have achieved that in the past. > Good idea, for all help pages actually. But that takes time and effort. Posts here are fine. Ultimately a copy (or a link to the discussion here) will need to be posted to the beta group to get it in front of Groups.io (Mark). There's also a place for suggested help page text here: the Help Page Mock-up: That can be used as a staging area to submit any proposed help page text; some of the current official help page originated there. Looks like ours needs an update from the current official Help page though to get this effort started -- Mark's gotten ahead of me. Shal -- Help: /static/help More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list |
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On 2018/09/28 05:58 AM, Michael Pavan wrote:
The responsibility to educate individual email List users should notI think the best way to "educate" users about a problem such as this one is not to try to teach them about the problem beforehand or to try to give a long explanation afterwards, but to lead them in the most appropriate course of action at the time that the problem occurs. This means that what happens when the user (victim) gets unsubscribed must help the user to get resubscribed as painlessly as possible. In other words, what happens to the victim must be fair and the victim must be treated with compassion. When the victim gets unsubscribed, he should be informed in a compassionate (possibly apologetic) way, and told how to undo the bad thing that had happened to him. To my mind, the current wording of the notification sent by Groups.io to victims is more suitable for users who would find it merely curious that they have been unsubscribed (instead of upsetting), as if it is just an odd thing that had happened and for which the rational explanation is interesting to know. The notification sent to group moderators does not need to exude the same level of commisseration, but I personally find the current wording more suited for someone who has always been aware of the problem and needs just a gentle reminder, as opposed to a warning that something bad had just happened that requires the moderator's urgent attention. I say in my Welcome Message to new subscribers (although this isYes, users tend to forget information that they were told at the start of their participation, if it isn't something they encounter often during their participation. This is why I send a biweekly FAQ in all of my Yahoogroup groups, but even that may not be sufficient: if a message repeats itself too often, you tend to ignore it eventually. Groups.io couldNo solution that involves users having to actively patrol their mailboxes will be successful. Users just want to participate. Samuel (newbie jumping into the fray here but I think I have read enough about the issue to be allowed to speak) |
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Okay, for fear of getting stomped on, again, since I've been a vocal proponent of changing this function on Groups.io, here is my experience with my large groups:
1.? I have tried to educate before hand, all of my list members, about this unusual policy (don't know any other forum/chat group that has this policy).? I have this policy explained in my Welcome letter that new list members receive.? It's in? my groups' Wiki page, and all list members get a monthly reminder message.? We also talked about this policy in general discussion on all my lists.? Folks still are getting themselves unsubbed.? Not at the rate in the beginning of our transfer, thankfully, but it still happens about 1-2 list members (NOT spammers) a week. 2.? The Welcome letter that gets sent to all new list members is probably read by maybe 50% of the recipients at best.? Same with monthly message reminders (that's probably even lower).? Doubt many of my list members read our Wiki page, but it's in there. 3.? The general Groups.io Help files would be the most logical place for subscribers/members to go, to find out about Groups.io.? There should be a very robust explanation of why this policy is in place, how it can happen, and how to fix your membership, if you are unsubscribed due to marking a Groups.io message as spam.? In detail.? With photos, and in non-technical language.? My list members' average age is probably around 60-65. Mostly women (do not go there, please.? I am in that age group, I was one of the minority of women my age that became educated with computers, I worked for IBM when the 088 chip was invented in the early '70's, I was IN THE MINORITY at IBM).? Most who missed the "computer age" and struggle with technology.? Some are really sharp, some are retired software engineers, coders, etc.? Vast majority, however, really struggle to use even the basic functions of a computer, which is actually why they are list members on my lists - to get help with the technology learning curve with their computerized and complex embroidery machines and embroidery software.? They need the explanations to be detailed, but clear and simple.? They appreciate the "why" behind the explanation.? Groups.io should provide this - after all, this is Mark's policy, no?? Not group list owners (who are trying to do their best with their individual groups as I have done.) 4.? Sending the resubscription email is ineffective at best, worthless at it's worst.? Why?? Because guess where it goes, now??? To the unsubscribed person's Junk/Spam folder.? So, they don't see it.? And, by the time we list mods send our unsubbed list members a notification email from our PRIVATE email addresses (yes, I have instructed all my list members to check the auto notifications so they get a notification of list members who are approved, leave or are unsubbed, and they MUST use their private email address to notify that list member of their unsubscription, so the list member actually gets that notification in their INBOX and not their SPAM folder), it's possible that the unsubbed list member will miss out on that 3 day window they have, to restore themselves.? That window should be set to 7 days.? That would give list mods a little more time to alert unsubbed list members using a private email that won't get routed to that list member's spam folder, and a couple of days for the affected list member to read the email, try to find that restore email, and get themselves restored. 5.? All of my list members in concert (without any prompting from me) felt this policy was "ruthless".? That is the best adjective I've heard to describe this puzzling policy.? Now - before you all launch in on why this policy needs to be in place, save your breath.? I understand why Mark put this in place.? BUT, I think there is a much better way to manage this:? Instead of completely unsubbing a list member for inadvertently marking a message as Spam (or WORSE, they didn't do ANYTHING, but their ISP/email service decided to do that for them), don't unsub them.? Suspend them and place them in a Suspension list.? Send out all the alerts as is being done now.? But, let the list mods be able to restore someone, and not force unsuspecting and confused (and angry) list members try to figure it out.? It IS hurting our list membership.? I've gotten nasty emails from unsubbed list members asking why "did you ban me??!!? I didn't do anything or post anything wrong!"? So, lots of emails having to go back and forth, explaining why it happened, list mods didn't do anything to the list member, it's a Groups.io policy, etc.? Huge waste of list mod/owners' time to try to placate the angry, unsubbed list member. Word of mouth bad will being spread as well about this odd and very unique policy.? Instead, place these offenders on a Suspension list so the list mod/owner can easily restore them, after assessing whether or not they are a spammer or a bona fide list member.? To date, since June, not one single unsubbed list member on my two very large groups were a spammer.? They were all list members.? -- Patty S. |
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I believe one source of information done well by Professionals (with non-computer savvy language help) is more efficient and likely to be more effective than 1000s of efforts of inconsistent quality.
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Exactly how is a good question... On Sep 28, 2018, at 10:26 AM, Dotty Bell <quiltsallday@...> wrote: |
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Well thought out and stated, especially a 7 day vs 3 day window.
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I respect Mark¡¯s mission to try to improve Groups.io¡¯s reputation with ISPs. I actually assumed it might be a new industry mandate (not universally implemented yet) to cut down on SPAM, which smaller ¡®new-comers¡¯ like Groups.io are not able to ignore. I believe the current unorganized method of ¡®educating' subscribers/members apparently is ineffective and hurts Groups.io reputation among its users. On Sep 28, 2018, at 10:38 AM, Patty Sliney via Groups.Io <hoosierquilt@...> wrote: |
On Sep 28, 2018, at 4:50 AM, Shal Farley <shals2nd@...> wrote:<snip> Perhaps it should be presented in an ¡®opt-out form¡¯ such as ¡°Terms of Use agreements¡± are.My ¡®opt-out¡¯ button suggestion is to opt-out of receiving the regular Special Notices reminders of ¡°How and Why not to get 'Removed for SPAM¡¯" - it would not be mandatory to choose not to receive these reminders, or even acknowledge receipt of them in any fashion. I realize that it is out of Groups.io¡¯s ability, but it would be great if when a post is marked as SPAM (either deliberately by the user, or automatically by the Email Provider) that a confirmation window (or notice) would appear (or be sent) to the user, which would inform about any ¡®unsub¡¯ consequence of confirming that SPAM marking and require a confirmation or not. Perhaps this could be a better Industry standard operating procedure to fight SPAM?¡ [I'm not holding my breathe on this] GMF is not in a position to "provide to" (in an active sense) anyone except our members; but we do not "hide from" anyone - our messages and Wiki are public for all to read. We can aspire to provide information which Groups.io might take up in official communications and documentation; and have achieved that in the past.By ¡®hidden¡¯ I only meant to recognize that the 'Removed for SPAM' information is not effectively reaching users proactively and rarely after the fact. <snip> |
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I like this approach, perhaps it could be the most workable and successful...
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On Sep 28, 2018, at 6:11 AM, Samuel Murray <samuelmurray@...> wrote: |
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Patty, Okay, for fear of getting stomped on, again, since I've been a vocal proponent of changing this function on Groups.io, here is my experience with my large groups: You still seem to have the cart before the horse:
When the email service sends a report to Groups.io, they are not saying "this person is a spammer". They are saying "this person doesn't want the messages you are sending". Let that sink in.
For this purpose it doesn't matter whether the message is or is not
"spam" by any given criteria. All that matters is that this person
didn't want it. A statement that carries the express or implied "so stop sending
messages like it".
Another aspect of the problem is that many sources of advice have for years confounded marking something as spam with unsubscribing. Including the email services themselves. Yahoo Mail, for example, says:
o Unsubscribe from mailing lists
At the bottom of any subscription based email there is an option to unsubscribe. If you're not sure the email is legit, mark it as spam. 3.? The general Groups.io Help files would be the most logical place for subscribers/members to go, to find out about Groups.io.? There should be a very robust explanation of why this policy is in place, how it can happen, and how to fix your membership, if you are unsubscribed due to marking a Groups.io message as spam.? In detail.? With photos, and in non-technical language.? We (GMF) have an opportunity to have an impact on the help pages. Mark has proven receptive to adopting sections of our Mock-up into the official help. All it takes is someone with the skill, time and gumption to write it. Admittedly, all three are in short supply... 4.? Sending the resubscription email is ineffective at best, worthless at it's worst.? Why?? Because guess where it goes, now??? To the unsubscribed person's Junk/Spam folder. ... it's possible that the unsubbed list member will miss out on that 3 day window they have, to restore themselves.? That window should be set to 7 days. That seems reasonable to me, even 10 days. I suspect there are many group members who don't pay much attention to personal email during the work week, or vice-versa. Suggest it on beta and see if Mark agrees. Instead of completely unsubbing a list member for inadvertently marking a message as Spam (or WORSE, they didn't do ANYTHING, but their ISP/email service decided to do that for them), don't unsub them.? Suspend them and place them in a Suspension list.? That's been discussed in beta, I've advocated for it. I think it needs the additional feature that after some reasonable time (a year, say) in suspension the subscription should ultimately be removed. Because sometimes marking a message as spam was intended by the member as an unsubscribe. But, let the list mods be able to restore someone, This I disagree with. If the member doesn't figure it out it then it doesn't get resolved. I'm reasonably certain that's why Mark hasn't relented on the existing policy. Shal -- Help: /static/help More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list |
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Michael, My ¡®opt-out¡¯ button suggestion is to opt-out of receiving the regular? Special Notices reminders of ¡°How and Why not to get 'Removed for SPAM¡¯" - it would not be mandatory to choose not to receive these reminders, or even acknowledge receipt of them in any fashion. Ah, that's better than what I thought you meant. Still, I'm concerned that those messages would themselves be perceived (and even marked) as spam, because people who receive such boilerplate tend to do that, even the first time. Perhaps this could be a better Industry standard operating procedure to fight SPAM?¡ [I'm not holding my breathe on this] There is out there for (what looks like) a better standard: One-Click Unsubscribe. But I still wouldn't hold my breath for widespread adoption by email services. Or perhaps more to the point, it won't necessarily replace FBLs, just (hopefully) make them less used for the purpose of unsubscribing. However, those email services that cause trouble by using their own filters to instigate FBL reports will likely continue to do so. Shal -- Help: /static/help More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list |
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Samuel, I think the best way to "educate" users about a problem such as this one I certainly agree with that, it is what Groups.io already attempts to do. When the victim gets unsubscribed, he should be informed in a That speaks directly to to Patty's issue. In her experience that information doesn't reach the member even though emailed direct to the member by Groups.io. So one of the questions we're struggling with is how and when to inform the member. Shal -- Help: /static/help More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list |
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On Fri, Sep 28, 2018 at 01:32 PM, Shal Farley wrote:
For this purpose it doesn't matter whether the message is or is not "spam" by any given criteria. All that matters is that this person didn't want it. A statement that carries the express or implied "so stop sending messages like it".I have had some of my subscribers actively do this. They decided that they really didn't want any more group messages. Rather than bother figuring out how to unsub, a message was marked as spam, and they were unsubbed. I did my usual follow-up, and was surprised to find that they really didn't want to be added back. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that sometimes the FBL mechanism works exactly the way it's supposed to. So the question is: Do we really want groups.io to ignore such requests, at the cost of possibly being labeled a spammer site??Think really hard about that. Back in late February, Norton Internet Security blocked the entire groups.io domain. AVG soon followed. You can read all about it . The problem persisted for nearly a week. I had moved my group(s) a little over a week prior to that. I had a very difficult time convincing everyone that we hadn't just made a horrible mistake. Compared to that, an occasional "false alarm" strikes me as a minor inconvenience.? Assuming we are in agreement to this point (and I suspect we're still far from unanimous), anything we can do to educate our subscribers is helpful. Some good tools are already available, if not well-known. Perhaps the unsub notification sent to the subscriber could include a link to the GMF wiki entry, or its equivalent in the system Help (/static/help#fbl). I could support that as a suggestion in beta. However, as group owners, we should know our subscribers. We should know if the wiki entry needs to be beefed up or dumbed down for the people in our respective groups. We should know how prevalent the problem really is in each group, and take action accordingly.?We, individually, should take ownership of this and other things, to make everything as smooth as possible for our members. That is the job we signed up for. Just my opinions, Bruce -- The system Help is your friend.??/static/help |
On Sep 28, 2018, at 3:54 PM, Bruce Bowman <bruce.bowman@...> wrote:This points out that some subscribers/members recognize that it is easier to unsubscribe by mis-marking Groups.io messages as SPAM, than to find and go through the unsubscribe process of requesting and confirming Un-Subscription. It should be easier to find and use the 'unsubscribe process' than to ¡®mark a message as Spam¡¯. I was suggesting that there should be an additional ¡®confirm this is Spam¡¯ step which includes the warning that this also includes an automatic ¡®unsubscribe me¡¯ command. As long as the ¡®unsubscribe process¡¯ has a equal number or more steps than the ¡®mark it as Spam¡¯ process, users are encouraged to mis-mark messages as Spam, which also makes Groups.io look more like a Spam source. The FBL mechanism has the unintended consequence of unsubscribing them and making Groups.io look bad, because Email Providers also mark messages as Spam without their clients (our subscribers/members) knowing - not to mention the frustration it also causes group owners. So the question is: Do we really want groups.io to ignore such requests, at the cost of possibly being labeled a spammer site? Think really hard about that.I think the question is how to inform users how to unsubscribe AND what is Spam, that their Email Providers may be mis-marking messages to them as Spam, and what it means when a message is marked as Spam. Back in late February, Norton Internet Security blocked the entire groups.io domain. AVG soon followed. You can read all about it here. The problem persisted for nearly a week. I had moved my group(s) a little over a week prior to that. I had a very difficult time convincing everyone that we hadn't just made a horrible mistake. Compared to that, an occasional "false alarm" strikes me as a minor inconvenience.Better education = less ignorance = less ¡°false alarms¡±. Assuming we are in agreement to this point (and I suspect we're still far from unanimous), anything we can do to educate our subscribers is helpful.Agreed, but I favor prevention over repairs. Some good tools are already available, if not well-known.Unknown tools are rarely used. Perhaps the unsub notification sent to the subscriber could include a link to the GMF wiki entry, or its equivalent in the system Help (/static/help#fbl). I could support that as a suggestion in beta.This is still 'putting the horse behind the cart¡¯. Success requires reducing and eliminating unwanted un-subscriptions. I do agree that a more effective unsub notification should remain as a ¡®last line of defense¡¯. However, as group owners, we should know our subscribers. We should know if the wiki entry needs to be beefed up or dumbed down for the people in our respective groups.I not convinced that 1000s of wiki rewrites are the best answer - if multiple versions of the same information is required, perhaps user selected menu options should be included for "beefed up or dumbed down¡± language. Again professionally written information seems more likely to effectively communicate than many amateur notes. I recognize that this would cost money. Not to scare anyone away by suggesting 'opening Pandora¡¯s Box', but Mark¡¯s recent survey asked what would you be willing to pay for. I have 11 groups, all under 100 members, I¡¯d be willing to pay something nominal - maybe a penny a member a month (to a maximum of $5 or $10) - for no additional features, but to rewrite information, better organization, and eliminate ambiguities of terms e.g. subscriber (email only) vs member (web access) users. Would it be worthwhile for Groups.io to collect these small fees? I pay Apple 99 cents/month for additional cloud storage... We should know how prevalent the problem really is in each group, and take action accordingly. We, individually, should take ownership of this and other things, to make everything as smooth as possible for our members. That is the job we signed up for.It would be great if Parents could take care of every problem of their Children, but most people realize Professional help is more effective and efficient for some things... |
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On Fri, Sep 28, 2018 at 08:10 PM, Michael Pavan wrote:
It would be great if Parents could take care of every problem of their Children, but most people realize Professional help is more effective and efficient for some things...There is no groups.io staff to do what you want. I would rather have Mark doing technical things than documentation things. We in GMF can do the latter...if we're willing to. I hire others to do things that I'm not competent to do. I consider myself competent as a group owner. It comes down to that. Bruce -- The system Help is your friend.??/static/help |
You still seem to have the cart before the horse: Don't understand how I have the cart before the horse, here.? We may be wrangling with semantics, here, but the end result (whether we say the action is telling groups.io the list member doesn't want the message, or, the list member is marked as a spammer, whatever), the list member in the end is ruthlessly unsubscribed. ? I find this action excessive, extremely unusual, and frankly off-putting to those who are understandably unfamiliar with this severe action.? It just doesn't happen on any other forum or chat list I am aware of.? So, my list members are shocked when it does.? Poor customer service in my mind that can be much better managed by my suggestion of putting list members in "suspension".? This I disagree with. If the member doesn't figure it out it then it doesn't get resolved. I'm reasonably certain that's why Mark hasn't relented on the existing policy.Nope, not at all.? Especially if an auto notice is sent to a an unsuspended list member that they were restored by their list mod, and their suspension was due to marking a Groups.io list message as spam.? This is easy peasy to set up, coding-wise.? You solve all problems here:? You stop putting off list members by the severe unsub action, you make it easy peasy for list mods to restore someone, and you serve up some list member education.? I think this is a much better option. We (GMF) have an opportunity to have an impact on the help pages. Mark has proven receptive to adopting sections of our Mock-up into the official help. All it takes is someone with the skill, time and gumption to write it. Admittedly, all three are in short supply...I hate to say this, but is applies:? NOT MY JOB.? This is Mark's job.? This is his product.? Many are paying for the product.? Provide a high quality product, and that should be created by the owner of the product.? Sorry, Shal, but if I were to sell a product, I would not ask for my customers to spend their time developing it, themselves. Providing feedback, sure.? Writing the Help files?? That's Mark's job.? You know I love you to pieces, and you are our stalwart Groups Managers List Mod/Owner, with the patience of Job, but this is preposterous in my mind.? Make your product good. Make it better.? Make it outstanding.? YOU need to make it, not your customers. Oy.? 4.? Sending the resubscription email is ineffective at best, worthless at it's worst.? Why?? Because guess where it goes, now??? To the unsubscribed person's Junk/Spam folder.
I have had multiple list members reply to our private emails that we send, when we get the auto notice a list member was unsubbed due to marking a message as spam.? We warn them to look in their Spam folder as well as their Inbox for the auto restore message from Groups.io.? We've gotten several "thank you's" from list members to tell them to look in their Spam folder, as that's exactly where the auto restore message went.? Hence why I mentioned it.? It has happened frequently with my unsubbed members.? And, of course, it's going to go there, as they've just told their email program and/or ISP that messages from Groups.io are spam.? That has been my experience.? I don't think this has anything to do directly with the age of the list member, but more to do with how email programs/ISP's respond to this action.? Some are Johnny on the spot to blacklist Groups.io, others not so much. Lastly, thanks for letting me vent.? Again.? I hate this function of Groups.io if you can't tell.? I love just about everything else about Groups.io, which is why I left Yahoo Groups, and moved my two large lists over.? I loved Yahoo Groups original structure, and when I found that Mark was the originator of Yahoo Groups, that bolstered my decision.? There are a few bells and whistles I'd like to see added, such as being able to individually set your Sort function for Photos, Files, LInks, etc., add the ability to add Comments for photos, add a Photo enlarge option, so you can click on a photo and it will enlarge, but those are minor things.? This unsub function really needs to be modified.? It is such a pain, and I think it creates bad will with Groups.io members.? My 2 cents, and I promise I'll stop griping about it, said my piece. -- Patty S. |
Michael Pavan
Shal Farley
Samuel Murray
Patty Sliney
Bruce Bowman