Help

Q. What can a moderator of a Affinity Group do that a regular group member can't do?

A. Moderators have one very important ability, which is to add members to affinity groups. This is especially vital for closed affinity groups, where the moderator needs to approve members who request membership. Moderators can also edit the settings for their affinity groups and send out special messages. Here is more information on these tasks:

• Approving new members: While a closed affinity group gets most of its members by invitation, the affinity group WILL be listed underneath its Category and Topic or Topics in the Affinity Group Directory. Thus, the moderator or moderators for a closed affinity group may receive requests from members to join. You may need to dialogue with the member who made the request to see if s/he is eligible. If s/he is not eligible, please be gentle and specific about explaining why. One way to avoid receiving numerous requests is to specify very clearly for whom the closed affinity group is intended--this may help others feel that it is not of interest to them. You can also specify an email address to send membership requests to, if a particular moderator does not want to perform this function.

• Adding new members: To learn how to add or invite members, visit the Inviting or Adding Members file.

• Editing Discussion Info: When you first set up a affinity group, you set certain parameters about it. Moderators can modify many of these settings by clicking Edit this Affinity Group in the left column of the affinity group's home page. Click the first option you see, Edit Affinity Group Settings to see the settings you can change. You can edit:

• Affinity Group name. We recommend that you let affinity group members know that you are doing this, so they will not be confused by suddenly getting email from a different affinity group they didn't know they had joined!
• Short Summary for Affinity Group: The summary of the affinity group that appears on the affinity group web page and in some correspondence. If you find that your current summary confuses people, feel free to change it.
• Affinity Group description: The description of the affinity group that appears on the affinity group web page and in some correspondence. The more you refine this, the easier it will be for potential affinity group members to find your affinity group and figure out if it is of interest or not.
• Primary Moderator of Affinity Group: If you have more than one moderator, you indicate the primary one here. You can change it if you get burned out!
• Open or Closed Affinity Group: You can change this if needed. Remember, it is a lot more work to maintain a closed affinity group, as new members need to be approved, etc.

• Editing mailing list settings: Moderators can modify many of the email settings that were originally put in place when the affinity group was set up, by clicking Edit this Affinity Group in the left column of the affinity group's home page. Click the third option you see, Mailing List Settings, to see these options. You can edit:

• The prefix for email subject--you might do this if it is just too long for your taste, etc.
• Welcome message--often one realizes that some important information was originally left out. Feel free to make the Welcome message that goes out to new members as helpful as possible!
• Moderator signature--the signature added to messages that are sent by the system on behalf of the moderator(s).
• Moderated or unmoderated list--whether new email messages need to be approved by or sent by the affinity group moderators.
• Who can be part of email affinity group--the setting that lets you set the affinity group to be open or closed.
• Where replies to email postings go--some people prefer that replies go to the sender only, others that all go to the entire list by default. Choosing Moderator here makes a moderated list.
• Add header link to emails--if you choose this, a link to the sender's profile is added at the beginning of messages.
• Add footer link to emails? Lets you add (at the bottom of the email) a list of control email addresses, like how to unsubscribe, etc.

• Permanently Delete Affinity Group Only do this if you really want to delete it!

• Sending out special messages: In some affinity groups, especially moderated news or announcement affinity groups, not all affinity group members have chosen to receive affinity group emails. Also, in some cases, communities have imported all members into the community network, but not all those people have signed in yet. If there is a very important message that needs to be seen by ITALS everyone in the community, a message can be sent to "all" by using a special email address, listed below. For messages intended for everyone in a ITALS group who has joined the group by signing in (including members who have chosen the "web only" option and do not normally receive individual emails or daily digest) a "news" message can be sent.

To send an important message to an entire affinity group, regardless of whether the person has an email subscribed or not, the moderator does this:

The email must come from an email address registered to a system admin or a group moderator. Emails sent from other email addresses are forwarded to the group moderator. Please use this feature carefully, since it will go out to people who may not wish to get large quantities of NTEN Community email.

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