[sf-lug] Public service announcment: How to join a Google Group w/o Gmail, 2018 edition

[Rick Moen]

Quoting a friend:

> I will join when/if the [LUG mailing] list is *not*  mediated through
> Google Groups)

So:  Ain't gonna happen.

As you'll see on BALE, an _increasing_ number of tech. groups in the Bay
Area have either deteriorated to the point of having only Google Groups, 
or never had anything better in the first place:

BerkeleyLUG:  Uses a Google Group and WordPress
CCSF LUG (inactive):  Google Group is still there (dormant); LUG is long dead
CocoaHeads Silicon Valley:  refreshingly has both a Google Group and MLs
EBLUG:  only ever had Google Groups
FeltonLUG:  ditto
SJSU LUG:  ditto -- ignominimously, shut down by Google for incompetent admin[1]
SlugLUG (inactive):  used to have MLs, then just Google Group
Starship Augusta Ada (inactive):  ditto 

At least having only a Google Group is far less ignominimous than having
only a Meetup, as is (lately) true of Bay Area FreeBSD User Group and
BayLISA.


_If_ you decide to join a Google Group, send an e-mail to
<groupname>+subscribe at googlegroups.com, then answer the 'Are you sure
you wish to join?'  IIRC, mailing <groupname>+unubscribe at googlegroups.com 
suffices (after confirmation) to leave.

_Or_ visit this link to join a Google Group:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/<groupname>/join
and this link to leave:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/<groupname>/unsubscribe


I don't want to seem conspiratorial, but over the years the Web-based
methods for joining Google Groups using non-GMail addresses have 
tended to become mysteriously broken after a while, almost like Google
is passive-aggressively pushing the use of Google Accounts and would 
prefer people not know how to participate in Google Groups without them.
(I'm on most of the above-mentioned Google Groups, and in many cases am
the only or almost the only person not posting from GMail.)

But it appears that the old-school method of joining and leaving by
sending e-mail consistently works.


[1] See: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sjslug .  I'm pretty 
sure what they did was open up posting to non-members, and immediately
the mailing list filled with crap including spam, scams, and malware.