How to Handle Pending Messages

There are several ways to approve, reject or delete messages that are in pending status.

Moderating Through Email

As owner or moderator, you will receive a notification email for messages needing moderation. To receive these notifications, you must have permitted this by ticking the checkbox in Subscription, Notifications - Email when there are messages needing approval.

The email will say:

Hello,

A message was sent to the group https://GROUPNAME.groups.io/g/main from joeblow@gmail.com that needs to be approved.

View this message online [clickable]

Subject: testing forwarding with the rejection notice

test test abracadabra blah blah

A complete copy of this message has been attached for your convenience.

View this message online [clickable]

To approve this using email, reply to this message. You do not need to attach the original message, just reply and send.

To reject this message using email, and to have the sender notified of this, forward this message to:

main+reject+1905660+19+3587565863729549762@GROUPNAME.groups.io

To delete this message using email, forward this message to:

main+delete+1905660+19+3587565863729549762@GROUPNAME.groups.io

NOTE: The pending message will expire after 14 days. If you do not take action within that time, the pending message will be automatically rejected.

Moderating

- To approve this using email, reply to the notification message. This is the easiest way to approve. No message is required, just an empty reply. This reply will be sent to a system-generated reply-to address for that message ( groupname+approve+long+series of+numbers@groups.io ), not the original sender.

- To reject this message using email, and to have the sender notified of this, click on the link in the notification message and forward it message to:

groupname+reject+same long+series of+numbers@groups.io

- To delete this message using email, click on the link in the notification message in the email footer and forward this message to:

groupname+delete+same long+series of+numbers@groups.io

(In most email clients, these mailto: links will open a new email with the address already filled in. Easy peasy!)

Or you can copy the rejection email address from the Message Approval needed email, click to forward that Message Approval email, and paste the rejection email address in the To line in your email. Be sure to send it from your owner/moderator email address.

Notes:

1) You must send these moderation responses from the email address that is subscribed to the group.
2) The notification will expire after 14 days. If you do not take action within that time, the pending message will be automatically rejected.
3) If you wish to edit the pending message, you have to do that online (see below).

Moderating Online

You can either click the "View this message online" link in the notification email, or to to https://groups.io/g/GroupName/pending (or Admin > Pending.)
You will arrive at a screen similar to this.

If you aren't seeing this the most likely explanation is that you are not logged in to Groups.io, or are logged in using an email address which is not a group owner or moderator.

The Owner/Moderator badge is shown on the Home button, just under the Groups.io logo in the screenshot above. If you need to navigate to this page click the Admin button on the left-side menu bar to open the buttons for admin functions, then click the Pending button.

To moderate, you have two options:

1) Select several posts using their corresponding check boxes and click the Approve (or another) button.

2) Click on the first one to open it, then use the buttons at the bottom to Approve, Edit, Reject, Delete, etc. Once you take care of the first pending message, the next one will automatically open.

Claimed messages: If you open a message to moderate, a Claimed tag with your name will appear.

You can edit the message and then save it to look again after an edit.
You complete the approval / moderation of a message by clicking save and approve.

No one can approve or reject a claimed pending message by email, but working on the web the claim only gives other moderators a warning - it doesn't actually prevent other moderators from "jumping your claim".

This is why it is unnecessary to have a way to remove the claim - if you become unable to ultimately approve or delete/reject the pending message, another moderator can step in and do it for you. Hopefully that's an infrequent occurrence.

Possible "problems"

1) If your group has several Moderators/Owners, it's possible that someone else is already performing moderation duties on the affected message. If so:

- Via Email: If another moderator or owner has already dealt with the incoming message, you will get a rather cryptic bounce notice, depending on your email client. However, the email to you will say: 500 This message has already been approved or rejected.

- Online: If another moderator or owner is dealing with the message, it will display a "claimed by" badge. You can just back out.

2) To moderate messages online, you must first be logged in. Once you complete the login process, you should see a light blue status badge at upper left (next to the Home button), confirming that you are logged in with either a Moderator or Owner account. At that point you can go to Admin>Pending and proceed with your moderation duties.

Rejection and Deletion Notices

You can create some messages to send with some - send message, reject or delete - in Admin, Settings, Member Notices. (Click on +New Notice and choose the matching notice type.

Be sure to save.

You can create more than one of each type and are editable when sending.)

These work whether you are moderating through email or online. If through email, the "active" message is sent.

More information

For more information about Member Notices, see https://groups.io/g/GroupManagersForum/wiki/Member-Notices.

For more information about moderation, see https://groups.io/g/GroupManagersForum/wiki/Message-Moderation.

The official Groups.io user documentation is in the Groups.io Help Center.