I remember reading one post on EL-M concerning Grouply which I would like to pick up on right now. The question was asked, why hadn't Grouply somehow fixed all these security issues right at the beginning. In response I quipped, or wanted to quip, that perhaps the reason was that it would take a massive budget to fix ever bug in advance, and one that is not easily available to a startup company.
However there is a deeper reason. Firstly let us look at the marketplace of services similar to Yahoo groups. Well, there is Google Groups which after some years is a close parallel. Is there anything else that's close?
And what is so unique that makes Yahoo Groups continue to grow apace? It is its flexibility (in terms of being usable from email and from a website) and its almost unique security & moderation controls.
And so Grouply enters the fray. Initially it has focused its development on getting the thing working. By that I means that it has provided an alternative platform that is something between email and the Yahoo Groups website. On top of that it adds a so-called Web 2.0 interface.
Where Grouply was a week or two ago was a running service from a user perspective. Rightly or wrongly they had hardly any features aimed at moderators. And so we come to the question.
Who knows what moderators want? Who knows what moderators need? The only possible answer to that is moderators. Right now moderators are pumping ideas into Grouply that they want and need.
Could Grouply have pre-empted these thoughts? Well I consider myself a guru in my own little way on owning and moderating my own groups. But if there is one thing I have learnt over the last few days is that other people have very different ideas.
Am I deluded in my own knowledge? I think not. One key to Yahoo Groups is the very flexible security model. That flexibility has resulted in vastly different ways in which groups are controlled, from very hands-off to very hands-on. From groups that have public archives and anyone, even non-group members can post, through "sensibly" controlled groups where membership requires approval and posts are moderated to groups where only the owner posts.
The moderator community is saying that it will dictate its terms on the security to be implemented and Grouply is then negotiating around that agenda. Could that have been done up-front? Good question.
For me the answer is that no matter how many security features Grouply might have implemented before now, right now whatever they had done would have been off-beam. Yes they might have got some things right, but still they would have got a lot wrong, and my guess is the same kind of flak would have been thrown, just different words.
Fortunately for everyone, the moderator community is speaking loud and clear - and Grouply are working with that.
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I hear you loud and clear. I think what you have written in your opener is valid. The problem is that it's too little and too late.
Discussion groups do not grow ontheir own. What seems a dynamic and self-ruled list life is the result of somebody with an idea and the desire to breathe life into it.
You assessed the world through the eyes of the user but failed to appreciate that the user's comfortable discussion environment is largely made possible by an enthusiastic owner and moderator.
And when you made your assessment you failed to understand the needs and *responsibilities* of the owner .
Now you (grouply) are backtracking and simultaneously trying to come up to speed. It's painful to watch but it's - more importantly, and from my perspective - a staggering display of arrogance to not only respond to us only after we start screaming but to not even set up your own discussion list to facilitate the process.
I have not noticed one list owner who is enthusiastically welcoming this painful interface.
What you do next is your business, but I would personally insist that all controls suggested on EM-L be implemented so that those of us that need to can extricate ourselves from your business plan as quickly and expediently as possible.
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