Why can coordinators see email addresses of group members?

Or you could just have the 4 options visible every time you sign up for a group, with the default option pre-checked, so it's clear that you can change it for that group. This would mean different email visibility preferences for different groups. And I also think that the default should be group coordinators.

But, again, I think it would be important to have an internal Loomio messaging system to communicate directly and privately with one or more other groups members. If this is not available, I would suggest having the default be emails visible to other groups members (of course with the possibility to change preference to another level of visibility).

To your second point @olover - I agree wholeheartedly. I have several times been "sent" private email addresses in comments here on loomio. For me another issue is inviting people if you don't know their email (or which email they used to register).

Maybe the role of the coordinator needs to be looked at more closely... The coordinator can message the whole group. Why can't I if I am not a coordinator???

(I did try to message everyone in my group and it didn't work - would love to have more clarity on that from anyone who might know what's going on with that.)

I understand the concern of equal opportunities for users. I do think there is a spamming concern, and it's just about betting that coordinators are less likely to send unwanted messages to group members.

However, we could also envision users having an option to decide whether they want to receive messages as a group from any member of the group, or if they want to just leave that prerogative to the coordinator.

This is making me think of something else, which is not directly related to email address visibility but is more of a process idea:

It seems there are many questions about what should be the functionalities or defaults of groups, and I'm imagining that perhaps every Loomio group can go through an induction phase in which it will start to take decisions collectively through Loomio about the way it wants Loomio to function. Thus there could be pre-made proposals on email visibility, as well as several other issues that may be standard variable questions for groups. I am mindful of the intention of Loomio to be as flexible as possible to accommodate for different groups and individuals, and this process would only relate to features that everyone in the group needs to agree on. For individual options (such as sharing my private email address with anyone), individuals can change those preferences autonomously.

The induction phase could be started at any point by decision of the group, though encouraged by Loomio to do so soon after starting a group - so the decision on when to start this phase could be the first decision of the group.

There are all kinds of issues with this, including what a quorum is for starting the induction phase, but I think it would be a cool way to use Loomio to customize Loomio in its collective aspects.

The induction phase idea is brilliant.

I just thought of a hack.

hey @olover - come join my cool new group.
https://www.loomio.org/g/K1nEZsdP/email-sharing

If you join the group I'll make you a coordinator and we can see each other's email addresses. Dirty!!!

I don't see any reason for needing to give anyone your email, admins or not. Especially if there is a user contact form. Surely this software is about public organising? So why encourage background contact at all? (see also https://www.loomio.org/d/0Mr85YhU/backchannels)

If users want their email address made available, they could put it in their profile if https://trello.com/c/qlqkI6vS/6-user-profile-text-field happens.

I see @naught101 you found that one thread regarding Loomio's currently limited user profiles. On a related note, this trello card needs like a million upvotes IMO :)

@naught101 can you expand a bit more on this: "Surely this software is about public organising?"

There are lots of different use cases for Loomio. Currently about 38% of Loomio groups are visible to public, which is what I had in mind when I said "the majority use case is a trusted group."

@naught101 - I agree. And as a matter of fact I was quite surprised to hear about the integration of backchannel communication avenues from coordinator -> participant.

Richard: yes, ok, I guess I mean "public within a group" e.g. - collective organising, where everyone is privy to all of the relevant information. e.g. trying to avoid caucusing, and backroom deals. Yes, information sharing within the group should not be publically accessible to the whole world, but there also shouldn't be much individual-individual communication, that the members of the group can't access.