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Diane Arthurs
Lyn, have you heard anything about this? It’s the first I’ve heard. Diane Info from another group Also wondering if people are downgrading their groups.io service now that the $20 a month charges are about to begin?
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Neil Yo
I always figured groups.io would make more to pay on their site
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On Thursday, October 15, 2020, Diane Arthurs <dianearthurs7@...> wrote:
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My signature A Group Of Mine. Veg Friendly to All!!!!!!!!!!!
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Lyn Townsend <townsend297@...>
I knew it was coming, yes. I haven't moved any groups to io. We started a couple on Facebook instead.
On Fri, Oct 16, 2020 at 10:08 AM Diane Arthurs <dianearthurs7@...> wrote:
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Diane,
Also wondering if people are downgrading their groups.io service nowThat price change was last October. If your group paid for a year at the old $110/yr price you can stay at that price - but only if you renew before your plan expires. Shal
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Andy
re: "If your group paid for a year at the old $110/yr price you can stay at that price - but only if you renew before your plan expires."
I wish they had things like that clearly documented somewhere. It's a struggle trying to figure out which features you have or don't have or might have if you change your plan. Andy
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Hi Shal, I moved our group to Groups io recently. I haven't been asked to pay for anything and thought there was a basic free service (that we were using) that would remain free. Have I got this wrong? Jill
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I only had one paid-for group, and we’ve downgraded that because we don’t need the Premium features.
I fear that, unless Mark has a lot of Business customers, his income could nose-dive this autumn. David 1/2d
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On Fri, Oct 16, 2020 at 04:19 AM, Jill Ingle wrote:
I moved our group to Groups io recently. I haven't been asked to pay forIf you've started a free group recently, it will remain free indefinitely, until you decide to upgrade. Mark could always change things, but so far, he has been grandfathering in groups with features and plans that existed when they were created. The cost with respect to moving from Yahoo was to port the usernames and archives (if available). A one-year commitment to premium features at a cost was required for that. If you didn't care about moving archives and trusted your members to join independently (or invited them all yourself), then you could start a free group, as you can today. JohnF
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Andy
As far as I know, the Free level is still there, and it is still free (AFAIK). However, services have been reduced over time, so that the Free level doesn't have as much capability as it once had. For example, if you start a NEW group today under the Free plan, you don't get Files and Photos sections anymore in the current Free plan. But if you started your group before that change (a few months ago), you will have Files and Photos, I guess indefinitely. If what Shal wrote is correct, then this new "$20 a month" charge that they're talking about here, happened already in October 2019, and nothing is about to change. There is still a Basic (Free) plan too. I always wondered where Mark Fletcher (Groups.io) was getting his income. When he started Groups.io, pretty much everything was free (though I think you could subscribe for a Pay service where you got more immediate customer support). Over time I think he realized it was a bad business plan, and he has been adding costs. I THINK all these added costs were applied ONLY to new groups that are created after certain dates, and if your group started before those dates, the old rules still apply. I think. I'm managing three (well, four) groups now on Groups.io now. Each has a different create-date and different services available to it. It's still not clear to me what those services are because it has been a moving target, and it's not documented on their plan Pricing page. Andy
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Hi Jill,
I moved our group to Groups io recently. I haven't been asked to payNot at all. As others mentioned, groups on the Basic plan are free (and have always been). Unless you use the Premium free trial (a new thing), any newly created group starts out on the Basic plan. You can use the Upgrade page if you want more features or more storage (in the Admin part of the column of links on the left). https://groups.io/static/pricing There is a certain amount of confusion afoot because Basic groups created before August 24th of this year have more features than those created later. The earlier groups are "grandfathered" with the features they had when created. So if you visit Sanctuary while logged in you'll see a bunch of features in the left column (Polls, Chats, Subgroups, Directory, Calendar, Photos, Files, Databases, Wiki) that a newer Basic group won't have. https://mmsanctuary.groups.io/g/main Shal
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Andy,
I always wondered where Mark Fletcher (Groups.io) was getting hisInitially Mark was thinking that eventually Groups.io Basic plans would be ad-supported, and Premium would be ad-free. https://beta.groups.io/g/main/topic/1157 In the early going when people asked him about the funding for Groups.io he said (perhaps not in public) that he had set aside what he figured to be five years' worth of operating expenses to give himself a bit of "runway" to get Groups.io off the ground. That was a bit more than six years ago... But as he started to investigate the practicalities of how accepting ads would work he decided that it wouldn't really be sustainable and it would really be a lot of work to implement and manage. So he switched to a "freemium" model instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium If what Shal wrote is correct, then this new "$20 a month" charge thatYup. October 22nd, 2019, at 9 am Pacific time (16:00 UTC). In the midst of Yahoo's "October Surprise", to the dismay of many. https://beta.groups.io/g/main/message/22528 The reason the topic is hot right now is that a lot of groups bought in to Premium for one year just before the price change. So they are concerned about what happens when their plan expires. Hint: if you want to keep the old price renew it -- don't let it expire. I'm managing three (well, four) groups now on Groups.io now. Each hasIf you go to the Upgrade page of your groups it will show you which features are "legacy enabled". That's a relatively new thing. I think someone mentioned the possibility of compiling a list of features that annotates during which dates they were available to groups on the Basic plan. GMF's wiki would be a good place for for such a list, but I don't know if anyone has put in the effort to create it. https://groups.io/g/GroupManagersForum/wiki I don't think that information will ever be on the Groups.io pricing page. Apart from the difficulty in formatting the information in a clear and concise way, it is likely to cause hesitation and questioning on the part of people who are wavering. Not a good thing for Groups.io or those of us who rely on it. Shal
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Diane Arthurs
Shal, seems to me that basic groups.io is now only good for email. There's no point to it if we can't have files and downloading of pictures to albums.
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Diane in Canada
-----Original Message-----
From: main@MMsanctuary.groups.io [mailto:main@MMsanctuary.groups.io] On Behalf Of Shal Farley Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2020 3:48 AM To: main@MMsanctuary.groups.io Subject: Re: [sanctuary] question Hi Jill, > I moved our group to Groups io recently. I haven't been asked to pay > for anything and thought there was a basic free service (that we were > using) that would remain free. Have I got this wrong? Not at all. As others mentioned, groups on the Basic plan are free (and have always been). Unless you use the Premium free trial (a new thing), any newly created group starts out on the Basic plan. You can use the Upgrade page if you want more features or more storage (in the Admin part of the column of links on the left). https://groups.io/static/pricing There is a certain amount of confusion afoot because Basic groups created before August 24th of this year have more features than those created later. The earlier groups are "grandfathered" with the features they had when created. So if you visit Sanctuary while logged in you'll see a bunch of features in the left column (Polls, Chats, Subgroups, Directory, Calendar, Photos, Files, Databases, Wiki) that a newer Basic group won't have. https://mmsanctuary.groups.io/g/main Shal
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Diane,
Shal, seems to me that basic groups.io is now only good for email.That depends upon the nature of your group. There are many for which the emails, with an online archive, are the point and the rest of the features unneeded. Even if your group thrives on sharing files and photos, there are other places online where you can upload your stuff, then share links in the group. Groups.io is entirely supported by its Premium and Enterprise groups. No ads, no tracking of what you look at, no selling of your personal information. If those factors are worth something to you then maybe it is appropriate to find a way to fund an upgrade of your group. Shal TANSTAFL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch
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lawrence rayburn
I moved my SurvivingTheDayAfter group from YG to Groups.io in 2018 and was grandfathered as part of the first wave of moves. We have all the options and don't pay anything for full service. Lawrence Rayburn lawrencerayburn@... list owner: STDA@groups.io
On Saturday, October 17, 2020, 12:59:24 PM CDT, Diane Arthurs <dianearthurs7@...> wrote:
Shal, seems to me that basic groups.io is now only good for email. There's no point to it if we can't have files and downloading of pictures to albums. Diane in Canada -----Original Message----- From: main@MMsanctuary.groups.io [mailto:main@MMsanctuary.groups.io] On Behalf Of Shal Farley Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2020 3:48 AM To: main@MMsanctuary.groups.io Subject: Re: [sanctuary] question Hi Jill, > I moved our group to Groups io recently. I haven't been asked to pay > for anything and thought there was a basic free service (that we were > using) that would remain free. Have I got this wrong? Not at all. As others mentioned, groups on the Basic plan are free (and have always been). Unless you use the Premium free trial (a new thing), any newly created group starts out on the Basic plan. You can use the Upgrade page if you want more features or more storage (in the Admin part of the column of links on the left). https://groups.io/static/pricing There is a certain amount of confusion afoot because Basic groups created before August 24th of this year have more features than those created later. The earlier groups are "grandfathered" with the features they had when created. So if you visit Sanctuary while logged in you'll see a bunch of features in the left column (Polls, Chats, Subgroups, Directory, Calendar, Photos, Files, Databases, Wiki) that a newer Basic group won't have. https://mmsanctuary.groups.io/g/main Shal
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I can see what you mean, Diane, but in a way I prefer photos as Attachments because they stay with the relevant description, which is important for creative activities.
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David
On 17 Oct 2020, at 18:59, Diane Arthurs <dianearthurs7@gmail.com> wrote:
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D1/2d
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Diane Arthurs
David
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The group I was trying to change to groups.io has up to now been thanking their card swapping partner in email and attaching a picture of the card they received to the thank you email so that all members can see the card. This is eating up our email space. Diane
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From: main@MMsanctuary.groups.io [mailto:main@MMsanctuary.groups.io] On Behalf Of David Halfpenny via groups.io Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2020 3:20 PM To: main@MMsanctuary.groups.io Subject: Re: [sanctuary] question I can see what you mean, Diane, but in a way I prefer photos as Attachments because they stay with the relevant description, which is important for creative activities. David On 17 Oct 2020, at 18:59, Diane Arthurs <dianearthurs7@gmail.com> wrote:There's no point to it if we can't have files and downloading of pictures to albums. Diane in CanadaBehalf Of Shal Farley Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2020 3:48 AM
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On 17 Oct 2020 at 13:59, Diane Arthurs wrote:
Shal, seems to me that basic groups.io is now only good for email. There's noIt's still a lot better than YahooGroups, which was limited to 100 Mb, while gows 1Gb. -- Steve Hayes E-mail: shayes@dunelm.org.uk Blog: https://methodius.blogspot.com/ Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm Phone: 083-342-3563 or 012-333-6727 Fax: 086-548-2525
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Diane,
The group I was trying to change to groups.io has up to now beenThere are two controls in the Message Policies panel of your group's Settings page that may help: | Max Photo Size In Email | Automatically resize photos that are larger than a specific size in | emails. Setting this to a small-ish size like 488 x 488 will likely produce acceptable results, yet save a lot of space in your group's storage. Even the larger selections are likely to save considerable space compared to an image straight out of the member's camera (which are often very large image files). | Storage Limit Reached | What to do when the group is out of space. Setting this one to "Delete Old Attachments" will spare you the effort of clearing room for new message attachments. The downside is that there's no way to protect a particularly important or desirable attachment from deletion. We also use tables to sign up participants to specific card themedI don't see an solution for this within the features of a newer Basic group (lacking the Database feature). Since you're already a Gmail user maybe Google Sheets can do what you need. You can make a link to share a sheet with your group, and set the link to allow anyone who has the link to edit the sheet. That way your group members don't need Google accounts. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/ Shal
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Diane Arthurs
Thank you Shal. Lots of helpful info in your email.
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Diane in Canada
-----Original Message-----
From: main@MMsanctuary.groups.io [mailto:main@MMsanctuary.groups.io] On Behalf Of Shal Farley Sent: Sunday, October 18, 2020 1:38 AM To: main@MMsanctuary.groups.io Subject: Re: [sanctuary] question Diane, > The group I was trying to change to groups.io has up to now been > thanking their card swapping partner in email and attaching a picture > of the card they received to the thank you email so that all members > can see the card. > This is eating up our email space. There are two controls in the Message Policies panel of your group's Settings page that may help: | Max Photo Size In Email | Automatically resize photos that are larger than a specific size in | emails. Setting this to a small-ish size like 488 x 488 will likely produce acceptable results, yet save a lot of space in your group's storage. Even the larger selections are likely to save considerable space compared to an image straight out of the member's camera (which are often very large image files). | Storage Limit Reached | What to do when the group is out of space. Setting this one to "Delete Old Attachments" will spare you the effort of clearing room for new message attachments. The downside is that there's no way to protect a particularly important or desirable attachment from deletion. > We also use tables to sign up participants to specific card themed > card swaps. I don't see an solution for this within the features of a newer Basic group (lacking the Database feature). Since you're already a Gmail user maybe Google Sheets can do what you need. You can make a link to share a sheet with your group, and set the link to allow anyone who has the link to edit the sheet. That way your group members don't need Google accounts. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/ Shal
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