1225589 - Google Groups UI, as used for mozilla communication, is a potential black hole

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Infrastructure & Operations :: Infrastructure: Other, task)

Description

[Adrian Aichner [:anaran]]

Happened to me before in
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mozilla.dev.mdc

Today it happened in
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mozilla.dev.webapps

I write a mail as a new topic, spending some time on it, and press [Post]

The webpage goes busy for minutes and eventually reports it is taking a log time to post and I should RELOAD (presenting a link).

My post is nowhere to be seen.

Today I at least got an email stating my post is held for review, but the text of my post is not contained in that notification.

Hence I have no way of getting back the information I posted.

This is a really irritating experience that is hard to describe without swearing.

Google groups seems to be a real UI fail. If it can't post my text it should at least give it back to me.

I would argue that Mozilla should consider alternatives to google groups.

Thanks for listening,
Adrian

----

Your mail to 'dev-webapps' with the subject

    How to applyDownload of packaged app after successful download?

Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.

The reason it is being held:

    Post by non-member to a members-only list

Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
notification of the moderator's decision.  If you would like to cancel
this posting, please visit the following URL:

Comment 1

[Janet Swisher]

Pretty sure WebOps:Engagement is not the right component for this.

Comment 2

[Jennifer Hayashi [:jen]]

:anaran - there's no much we can do about the Google UI.   You might have more luck if you subscribe to https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-webapps which is hosted by Mozilla and synced to the Google group you're trying to which you're trying to post.

Comment 3

[Adrian Aichner [:anaran]]

That's a good suggestion.

I have a suggestion too:

Would be great if the mozilla google groups could have their welcome messages set, similar to what

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/codemirror
uses:
"This is the old mailing list for the CodeMirror project. Please open new discussions at discuss.codemirror.net."

Instead of declaring them obsolete they could warn about possibility of "lost" posts and advertise the associated mailto url.

E.g.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mozilla.dev.webapps
"Posts to this group are held for review and are effectively lost until a reviewer approves them.
Alternatively, to post a message to all the list members, send email to mailto:[e-mail]"

Comment 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

anaran: the issues with replacing our current system with something else are covered here:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Discussion_Forums/Problem_Statement

AIUI, as long as you are a subscriber to at least one discussion forum in its mailing list form, you have permission to post to all of them via the Google Groups or news interfaces without moderation.

Gerv

Comment 5

[Adrian Aichner [:anaran]]

(In reply to Gervase Markham [:gerv] from comment #4)
> anaran: the issues with replacing our current system with something else are
> covered here:
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Discussion_Forums/Problem_Statement

Thanks for the link.

> 
> AIUI, as long as you are a subscriber to at least one discussion forum in
> its mailing list form, you have permission to post to all of them via the
> Google Groups or news interfaces without moderation.

As I described in Comment 0 I was subscribed to
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mozilla.dev.webapps
at the time and my post still went missing (to this hour).

I have actually lost information I collected to post to the group.

Could you please clarify your terminology used above as I cannot make sense of it:

discussion forum == one particular google group owned by mozilla?
its mailing list form => what does this mean?
What is "all of them"?
What is "news interface"?

Are posts restricted to list members yet? If not, perhaps that's the way to go?

At this point I can only advise anyone against using the google groups interface for posting.
It is a complete UX failure.

> 
> Gerv

Comment 6

[Adrian Aichner [:anaran]]

Attachment: This is the popup of doom, appearing after many minutes, for unsubscribed group in this example

Comment 7

[Adrian Aichner [:anaran]]

Attachment: Message of doom minutes after posting to joined google group

Comment 8

[Adrian Aichner [:anaran]]

Here is all that is left of my posting attempts.

So it looks like I am not subscribed to devug-webapps, even though the GG UI definitely suggests I am. See the upcoming attachment.

----

Your mail to 'tools-l10n' with the subject

    testing post to ubsubscribed google group

Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.

The reason it is being held:

    Post by non-member to a members-only list

Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
notification of the moderator's decision.  If you would like to cancel
this posting, please visit the following URL:

----

Your mail to 'dev-webapps' with the subject

    test posting to joined google group

Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.

The reason it is being held:

    Post by non-member to a members-only list

Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
notification of the moderator's decision.  If you would like to cancel
this posting, please visit the following URL:

Comment 9

[Adrian Aichner [:anaran]]

Attachment: UI suggests I have joinned the group, but moderation email suggests otherwise

Comment 10

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

(In reply to Adrian Aichner [:anaran] from comment #5)
> As I described in Comment 0 I was subscribed to
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mozilla.dev.webapps
> at the time and my post still went missing (to this hour).

No, I mean subscribed in its mailing list form/version/incarnation/access point, whatever word seems best. Every Mozilla discussion forum (of which we have about 300) has 3 access points - mailing list, newsgroup and Google Group. See https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/ .

> Are posts restricted to list members yet? If not, perhaps that's the way to
> go?

Posts are restricted to subscribers to the mailing list form, or people who have subscribed to one of the other mailing lists.

My point is: subscribe to at least one group in mailing list form, and you can then post to any of the Google Group.

Gerv

Comment 11

[Ashish Vijayaram [:ashish]]

Closing out in triage.