I was interested to see how the Google Groups thing would actually work (that, and I'm avoiding writing), so I created a test group. From a purely preliminary basis, it looks quite positive. Google
will host files (however, a group's quota would end at 100MB), so the archive feature will work exactly as planned. A member, once accepted, could make a Page which could contain the exact same information as the submission emails do, and just have the file linked from that page. From there, members receive an email saying that there is a new page.
Furthermore, you can comment on the pages within the Group, but it appeared to be slightly onerous to me. Any discussion posts are also forwarded to your email. So, if we were to switch
entirely to a Google Group, it would be akin to receiving an email whenever anyone replied to any topic on this board, which does not sound particularly appealing to me. If we did Google Groups, it should be as a submission mechanism only, not a discussion mechanism. Discussions would still go here. I like TWG quite a bit, so let's stay here.
"Managers" (in other words, admins) can also invite new members to the Group. Unfortunately, this was my primary issue with the Google Group: I could send invitations to my non-Google email addresses, but in order for them to actually access the Group's content, they would
have to get a Google account. I do not see a way around this, because the Log in screen says "Sign into your Google account". This would mean every Reading Excuses member would be forced into using Gmail (not that I'm opposed to that at all, but some people might
) for this. I did not see a way in your membership info for the Group where you could send the notification emails to an email other than your Google account. I'm not sure if some members would like forcing people into using Google. It could limit off some members in the future.
Other than that, there isn't much to report. It's a really easy to use interface if you know how to navigate TWG worth anything
.
For the security front, members can delete their uploaded files if they choose. If we implemented this, I would probably want to place a disclaimer in the Rules thread "Users beware", or something to that regard. I'm not immensely worried about theft, because it's a private group and people would need Manager approval to join. If anyone joined the group and stole stuff, that means there would be a limited amount of culprits. And besides, if a theft DOES happen, then we have massive evidence (the discussions) and witnesses (every critiquer) who would say that that content was the rightful author's. Yet, it is still a risk, so a disclaimer will be necessary.