My organization really wants to be able to send periodic community announcements to groups, as not everyone, especially new users seems to be visiting regularly. They want to direct users to a specific activity as a topic.
The problem with group messages is that a recipient replies thinking it is to the sender, when it relays to the whole group, and we generate tons of noise and email notification. I have tried everything to disable a group message, tried closing, unlisting, turning off reply by email across the site and regardless, non admin users are able to see and reply to a group message even when closed-- this one is closed but the reply button is still active.
Gargling with salt water might take care of those coughs.
I am not asking to switch admin role on and off; I maintain a non admin user in another browser for testing and I also use impersonate to see from a users role.
I have been merely looking for a way to use group messages to make announcements that regular users cannot reply to. And yes, in my latest test, I sent a group message and then closed it, and as a non admin user it is completely gone. So that means I would never even see it. What I hoped was a message sent that could be read and not replied to, but it seems not possible.
