Group Management

Ideas and concerns involving group creation and management

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Newmark on July 17, 2009 at 11:51pm

One thing I did in the creation of all of my groups that I have seen few others do is that I unchecked " Allow members to send messages to the entire group." Those messages get sent via email, and I know many people will think of them as spam - leading to arguments among participants on whether or not they are appropriate. So I figured if the option isn't there, that road won't be traveled.

At least I assume the button "Send Message to Group" doesn't exist in my groups. It's an automatic admin option, so as the admin I don't know how it looks to everyone else in the group.

Permalink Reply by GeneJ on July 21, 2009 at 6:05pm

Hope I'm not duplicating ...
Hoping for the ability to send a member specific email a group member from something other than the member to member email system. Would also like the ability to CC or BCC FamilyLinks.
Hoping such a system can be implemented. Ditto, that those emails will recall the message with both date and time. Perhaps remove the filter that limits you to only XXX number of words/characters.
Finally, when a message is sent, the current system doesn't allow us, as group administrators, to know if the message has been read. If we are dealing with sensative issues, I'd like to know the message has been received.
Thanks for listening. --GJ

Permalink Reply by GeneJ on July 18, 2009 at 12:19am

Hi John.
I opted not to turn off that feature. I think some members want to use that function because they are frustrated that the notifications sent out only contain a link back to the group page (rather than also including a snippet or the whole posting). If members use that broadcast method, the content will not have been captured to the page or archived.
While it is a different approach to somewhat the same problem, many members have started posting comments directly to someone's personal page rather than to the group page--just to cut back on the volume of notifications that are sent. I sure hope we soon get both a digest option and more full email notice soon. While our pages, and the whole community, loses some content in the process, seems to really does unclog the inbox. What do others think?
Speaking of archives and content. Has anyone confirmed that our group pages will show up on a Google, etc. search? GJ

Permalink Reply by John Newmark on July 18, 2009 at 9:24am

That the broadcasted messages don't appear in the group is another good reason to turn off the option, as people who join the group after the broadcast will never see what was said. Perhaps they have the answer to the broadcaster's query, but they'll never know the broadcaster was seeking.

A google search on "site:genealogywise.com" will list all the pages that have been indexed so far. Not many, but blog posts, group pages, and individual discussion threads have been indexed.

Permalink Reply by GeneJ on July 18, 2009 at 10:15am

Sorry to be such a "slow tech." Does this mean the pages will ultimately return as hits directly in a Google, etc. searc? For example, will a link or cached link return if someone searches/I use the right tags, keywords, etc.?

Permalink Reply by John Newmark on July 18, 2009 at 9:26am

Also, I should note that you can subscribe to any group's Discussion Forum through a news aggregator such as Google Reader or Bloglines. You will see the full text of the messages in the forum. Unfortunately, you can't subscribe to the Comment Wall.

Permalink Reply by M. Diane Rogers on July 19, 2009 at 9:14pm

Well, I got a message today that's spam apparently through a GenealogyWise Group. I only admin one GW group so I have opted to remove the 'messages to group' option for now.
Is this kind of format - getting a notification e-mail with no content - one of the limitations of using the .ning platform? .

Permalink Reply by GeneJ on July 20, 2009 at 7:54am

Ditto ... I rec'd the spam also, turned off "messages to group" option on several group pages, too. -GJ

Permalink Reply by Jill Muir on July 21, 2009 at 12:59am

I still got messages from a popular group and in the end I left the group. Jill

Permalink Reply by Dennis N. Partridge on July 21, 2009 at 7:46am

Yes it is. Ning does not grant many options for the admin yet concerning emails. I imagine as they get further feedback from community sites, they'll make the appropriate changes. But for now, we're stuck with what we have.

Permalink Reply by M. Diane Rogers on July 21, 2009 at 7:55am

GenealogyWise needs to address this spam issue. I know 'they' were reading some group discussions. Anyone 'official' here? Need some FAQ etc. for group creators/leaders. (Also for users, but that's another thing.)

Permalink Reply by John Newmark on July 21, 2009 at 8:13am

I believe there are two definitions of spam being discussed here.

The notification emails that have no content - these can be turned off easily by the individual in their settings. They don't have to leave the groups. And the group admin disabling the "Send Message to Group" feature will do nothing to stop these notification emails.

The emails that are sent to the entire group by clicking on the "Send Message to Group" link. These emails contain the entire message, and they don't appear anywhere on the site. Someone was using this 'feature' to send commercial spam - leading many group admins who hadn't already to disable the "Send Message to Group" link.

In both cases, I don't see what GW needs to address. They have addressed the issue of commercial spam - ultimately banning the individual who did it after they gave him a warning. Group Admins are learning that the "Send Message to Group" has pros and cons, and are making their own decisions on whether or not their group will have the feature.

While it might be nice for the notification emails to have content, it's not clear that Ning is flexible enough to do that. Since the individual can turn the notifications completely off though in their settings, its not really something GW needs to address. What they need to address is explaining how to do this -- which I suspect they will in the FAQ they have said they are working on.