Newsletter (Anyone remember DNTK?)

DeVore

A good while ago I started doing a newsletter for Boards but lack of time and working in Spin made me abandon the idea.

I'm thinking of resurrecting it because as Boards has grown so big its sometimes hard to make yourself heard (even for me!) to get information accross...

I used to enjoy reading FnckedCompany's irregular newsletter and am thinking about something in that style but havent thought beyond that.
Obviously we'd use the "Allow Administrators to Mail me" option to give Opt-In / Opt Out control to the users, but I'm wondering if anyone would be interested.

I'm thinking of something vaguely weekly and with a mix of stuff from Boards, stuff from the wider internet, announcements and the usual craziness that arrives in my inbox from time to time.

I know I could use the front page Newsletter area but there is something about a weekly newsletter that attracts me. I cant fathom what... maybe its the "we'll come to you" nature of e-mail that the user gets it delivered to them rather then having to come collect it... I dunno... *muse*

DeV.

flogen

I'd certainly look forward to it... I'm not a big fan of newsletters, but when you know its going to be something worth reading rather than some company trying to sell their wares, then thats a different story!

flogen

seamus

I used to enjoy the 5 o'clock shadow from p45, even though I've never been mad about their forums. For some reason or other I unsubscribed.

A newsletter from boards I think would be cool, and you'd have no shortage of people willing to help out. Content is the thing. Personally I'd be content with one email a day entitled, "DeV's crazy email of the day!" obviously containing that one brain melting email you've received that day.....or something.

smoke.me.a.kipper

i look forward to seeing this in my inbox.

The Muppet

Sounds Interesting

Raphael

Sounds great!

Stabshauptmann

Sounds great but why would this not be suitable material for the magazine forum or your Journal?
Sign me up anyway!

Bard

Bring it on!

DeVore

My journal is personal to me and the front page magazine is intended for something else (something more intended to be opened up to a few people like Seamus is suggesting).

Also we have a lot of people who have agreed to allow the administrators mail them and given my desire to write for a living that seems like a decent audience to have some fun with.

DeV.

The Muppet

DeVore wrote:

Also we have a lot of people who have agreed to allow the administrators mail them and given my desire to write for a living that seems like a decent audience to have some fun with.

DeV.

Is this in the userCP or is there a seperate signup for the proposed newsletter?

celticfc

Great idea

DeVore

Its in the UserCP. We dont write to our users otherwise (I dont think we ever have apart from DNTK which also obeyed that opt-in). It seems appropriate.

DeV.

amp

Never been a big fan of e-mailed news letters myself. Why not use webpages?

Sarky

[Insert "Bubbles for editor" joke here]

I like the idea. There's far too much going on around Boards.ie to see at once. A summary of sorts would be rather nifty.

Agent Smith

i give this my full approvel.....

BuffyBot

Sounds like a good idea!

Tom Dunne

This is Tom Dunne and I approve this message.

Or these messages.

Or these newsletters.

Or whatever DeVore wants to call them.

Moriarty

amp wrote:

Never been a big fan of e-mailed news letters myself. Why not use webpages?

What the yank said ^

Bard

Moriarty wrote:

What the yank said ^

What Sherlock Holmes' nemesis said ^

Agent Smith

what the celtic musician said

smoke.me.a.kipper

what neo's nemises said ^

Dr. Dre

ditto all the above

NeoSlicerZ

What the freaky doctor said

SantaHoe

What about people who signed up for a boards account, set it to allow admins to mail, then left the boards having posted once or twice, then a year later have a newsletter coming to them that they don't care about.
If I was getting a newsletter from a forum I hadn't been to in about a year; I'd be irritated by it.
"Allow administrators to send you email" (or something to that effect) doesn't neccisarily imply that they want a regular newsletter.
I wouldn't mind recieving one at all, but I'm just thinking of all the dormant/dead accounts that might consider it spam.
Unless you could limit the recipients to people who've been active in the past few months, although I'd say that's a lot of work to setup.
Why not do it via PM instead? That way, if you're not using your account, then you won't even know it's there.

flogen

SantaHoe wrote:

What about people who signed up for a boards account, set it to allow admins to mail, then left the boards having posted once or twice, then a year later have a newsletter coming to them that they don't care about.
If I was getting a newsletter from a forum I hadn't been to in about a year; I'd be irritated by it.
"Allow administrators to send you email" (or something to that effect) doesn't neccisarily imply that they want a regular newsletter.
I wouldn't mind recieving one at all, but I'm just thinking of all the dormant/dead accounts that might consider it spam.
Unless you could limit the recipients to people who've been active in the past few months, although I'd say that's a lot of work to setup.
Why not do it via PM instead? That way, if you're not using your account, then you won't even know it's there.

If they consider it spam, they'd just hit the "this is spam" button on their e-mail account... or contact DeV..

I'm sure they'd come up with some kind of "if you dont want to recieve this anymore, follow this link" kind of thing that most newsletters tend to have.

flogen

Crash

I'd say a pm version would be slick. cus i read my pm's more than i read my mail and i hate mass mail jobbies

smoke.me.a.kipper

crash_000 wrote:

I'd say a pm version would be slick. cus i read my pm's more than i read my mail and i hate mass mail jobbies

i tend to agree entirely. much better idea than email option.

SantaHoe

flogen wrote:

If they consider it spam, they'd just hit the "this is spam" button on their e-mail account... or contact DeV..

Not everyone uses Yahoo mail dude.

flogen wrote:

I'm sure they'd come up with some kind of "if you dont want to recieve this anymore, follow this link" kind of thing that most newsletters tend to have.

Yeah most spam has that aswell, but mostly to check if the account is alive so they can send more spam to that account... tbh I don't think most people are arsed doing that anymore.
I'd just add a mail filter to delete everything from that address.

The thing is though, why make a few thousand people have to do that, just because a few hundred of us want a newsletter?
I don't know the figures involved in what dead account holders will recieve a newsletter or not, but I think it's something to consider at least.

Or if you really want to go the email route, how about hax0ring a new checkbox into user options asking them specifically about the newsletter?

ecksor

What exactly do people have in mind when they click "allow admins to email me?" then? It's not like I'd consult in the event that I had to directly contact an individual user for some odd reason, it's purely for permission to send bulk mail in my opinion.

flogen

SantaHoe wrote:

Not everyone uses Yahoo mail dude.

Me included, but most of the main e-mail companies have some kind of bulk or spam mail diverter.

Yeah most spam has that aswell, but mostly to check if the account is alive so they can send more spam to that account... tbh I don't think most people are arsed doing that anymore.
I'd just add a mail filter to delete everything from that address.

The thing is though, why make a few thousand people have to do that, just because a few hundred of us want a newsletter?
I don't know the figures involved in what dead account holders will recieve a newsletter or not, but I think it's something to consider at least.

Or if you really want to go the email route, how about hax0ring a new checkbox into user options asking them specifically about the newsletter?

True, most spam has that, but so what? if someone doesnt want to recieve the mail what difference is it if they block it as spam or tell boards.ie not to send it anymore?

If its possible to put another option in the CP for users to click for the newsletter, then that would certainly solve any problems like the above.

flogen

ecksor

Ye do realise that spam is Unsolicited Commercial E-mail? Not "Thing that I signed up for and then realised that I didn't want after all". It doesn't help already overzealous spam filters if they're being trained with non-spam.

sceptre

^ what the logic expression said

Might be worth a try, let's do that.

flogen

ecksor wrote:

Ye do realise that spam is Unsolicited Commercial E-mail? Not "Thing that I signed up for and then realised that I didn't want after all". It doesn't help already overzealous spam filters if they're being trained with non-spam.

I'm not encouraging people to list it as spam, its just likely that the dormant users will do it if they dont want it, that is if they still use the e-mail account they signed up to boards with 3 years ago.

flogen

DeVore

When we did it last time we included a link to the userCP with instructions on how to NOT get it again. If they've forgotten their password they can use the "I forgot my password" option which will resend it to them so they can access it.
Its entirely within their hands.

Alternatively I kinda do like the PM version but not everyone reads their PMs... in fact I'd say at least half of Boards doesnt. Its an option though.

DeV.

SantaHoe

ecksor wrote:

Ye do realise that spam is Unsolicited Commercial E-mail? Not "Thing that I signed up for and then realised that I didn't want after all".

Spam is by no means limited only to commercial interests.
And in this case a regular newsletter would be unsolicited, since (at least when I registered) any administrator email checkbox certainly didn't suggest I would be signing up for any kind of regular email newsletter that didn't concern my account directly.
Of course this is all open to interpretation.
Techically speaking I'm sure there's no problem sending mass emails to people with dead accounts that couldn't care less whats happening on boards.ie, since technically they are recieving email from an administrator.
All I'm suggesting is a bit of consideration for other people and maybe a responsible attitude towards mass emailing.

DeVore

SantaHoe wrote:

Spam is by no means limited only to commercial interests.
And in this case a regular newsletter would be unsolicited, since (at least when I registered) any administrator email checkbox certainly didn't suggest I would be signing up for any kind of regular email newsletter that didn't concern my account directly.
Of course this is all open to interpretation.
Techically speaking I'm sure there's no problem sending mass emails to people with dead accounts that couldn't care less whats happening on boards.ie, since technically they are recieving email from an administrator.
All I'm suggesting is a bit of consideration for other people and maybe a responsible attitude towards mass emailing.

er...

1. "Allow Administrators to email me".... thats pretty damned clear to me!
2. I think we are being *extremely* considerate. We started this thread, we are only emailing people who have that option set to yes and they have a perfectly clear way of opting out.... show me a "spammer" who does that.... Jaysis H Christ, we're talking about a monthly or bi-monthly mail to people who said it was ok! Not genocide!

DeV.

ecksor

I agree. I still want to know what you think that tickbox meant? Ok, you didn't think it meant a newsletter ...

I'm quite alarmed that someone would call this spam or suggest that this is irresponsible mass-mailing. I tend to associate actual spam with dictionary attacks that breaks a large proportion of the the country's e-mail capability in the vague hope that two or three people will buy a few boxes of viagra or sign up to a dodgy porn site. An occasional mail with actual information content sent only to people who actually agreed to let you e-mail them isn't quite there.

SantaHoe

DeVore wrote:

1. "Allow Administrators to email me".... thats pretty damned clear to me!

Surely I can't be the only one who didn't think it read "Sign me up for the boards.ie email newsletter"?

ecksor wrote:

I still want to know what you think that tickbox meant? Ok, you didn't think it meant a newsletter

Well I would have assumed it would be a once-off email directly concerning my account for some reason.
tbh I don't think it should be left up to the user to read between the lines.

DeVore wrote:

they have a perfectly clear way of opting out

Granted, but a significantly less clear way of opting in.

I've had to sign up for various things before, where upon registration they give you these checkboxes, you opt out of them all, and months later they still send you a newsletter... sure there are ways to opt out by signing into your control panel and disabling it from there, if only you could remember that password... granted this boards.ie newsletter includes a password recovery option which is more than I can say for some of the newsletters I get... but getting newsletters you never explicitly signed up for is god damn annoying, and with such a wide scope for interpreting "allow administrators to send you email notices" there are bound to be people who'll be annoyed by recieving your email, and in their eyes you'll be nothing but another spammer they have to either set a filter for, or take time out of their day to have their password recovered and poke around some website control panel.

Not me though, I love the newsletter.

Victor

SantaHoe wrote:

Well I would have assumed it would be a once-off email directly concerning my account for some reason.

So would I.

How about just sending a '5 line' e-mail that says :

"October's newletter is at http://www.boards.ie/newsletter/200410.html

You have been sent this e-mail because you ticked the box at .........

To unscubscribe from this newsletter uncheck that box or click here ....."

PcP

Is the 'allow admin to mail' thing on or off by default? If it's off by default (opt in) and the newsletter clearly shows how to unsubscribe for anyone who didn't expect a regular mail/newsletter then I can't see any problem with it.

People who only used the site for a short while probably used a spam mail account when registering anyway. I tend to when signing up to interwebby stuff so my main mail account doesn't get spammed.

I think it's a great idea, look forward to reading it.

SantaHoe

Is the 'allow admin to mail' thing on or off by default?

Tough question, boards has gone through so many incarnations I doubt the signup and control panel default options have stayed the same all that time.

I'd love to know, just out of curiosity, how many accounts are set to recieve this newsletter vs how many have logged in during the past 6 months.
It just strikes me as a bit lazy that the powers that be can't exclude unused accounts to spare those people some annoyance. (please don't ban me, I still love you)
But there again, it happens all over the intarweb every day, it's no big deal... it might even make some people remember that old boards.ie site they signed up for and come back full time. (the plot thickens!)

Maybe it's yet another reason to delete all those old accounts, although I know you love to hang on to them incase they come back some day... but half of them are probably bubbles anyway.
Actually I recall seeing one of my own troll accounts from my early IGN boards days still in the member list (for the love of God don't ban me!)

Imposter

Would it be a lot of work to put an extra option in the CP and also in the new user sign-up?

Set this option to 'Don't send me a newsletter' by default. Existing users who want the newsletter can change it in their CP and new users can decide when signing up or change it later using their CP if they wish.

DeVore

And then use the "allow Admins to mail me" checkbox for what? We never mail people except for DNTK! Anyway, maybe a PM would work better. I'll have a think.

DeV.

Gordon

Let bubbles co-write it with you!

SantaHoe

DeVore wrote:

And then use the "allow Admins to mail me" checkbox for what?

Just leave it as the super-special-non-specific-surprise-checkbox* that it's always been!

*Biddy: "I checked that 'allow admins to mail me' checkbox the other day Mary, bejyasis I dunno WHAT'S gonna happen!"

DeVore

SantaHoe wrote:

Just leave it as the super-special-non-specific-surprise-checkbox* that it's always been!

*Biddy: "I checked that 'allow admins to mail me' checkbox the other day Mary, bejyasis I dunno WHAT'S gonna happen!"

That seems dumb and pointless.
Hack the system to put in an option that effectively says "let the admins mail me" ... and leave the current options entitled "Let the admins mail me" for a surprise.


Um. Yeah.


DeV.

amp

Well I don't mind Admins mailing me, but I'd like to have the choice of being signed up to a newsletter or not. In the same way that I don't remember giving Suited Aces permission to mail me newsletters. Not that I mind of course but it'd be nice to have been asked.

I really don't understand why, with the vast technological wonder that is boards.ie, with it's webserver and database server and with the vast wealth of webdesign skills that boards contains, why you want to e-mail people, and the only way they will be able to prevent it is by blocking ALL admin e-mail.

I'd prefer if boards had a content area, with a main news section, were people could write columns, were Pix n Mix photoshoppers could be rewarded with their work being displayed. It would generate revenue from google ads, etc and attract more people to boards, especially those not interested in forums.

Just my 2c

DeVore

Thats not a bad idea itself, but content isnt our problem. Its the fact that people have to know about it to go and get it and that most people read email or PM's faster then announcements or stickys.

I'll think about it some more. Frankly I'm not sure I can be bothered now tbh.

DeV.

Agent Smith

what is/was DNTK? thats what i want to know...


altho i back this idea, i think a pm version might not go astray, i'd prefare it then a e-mail....

amp

DeVore wrote:

Thats not a bad idea itself, but content isnt our problem. Its the fact that people have to know about it to go and get it and that most people read email or PM's faster then announcements or stickys.

So pm them about the new content pages, word of mouth will do the rest.

I'll think about it some more. Frankly I'm not sure I can be bothered now tbh.

Um why? You wanted feedback and people gave it.

DeVore

Actually they did. You're right.

A couple of people objected, most were enthusiastic. Why I got bogged down arguing, looking for 100% agreement I dont know. If you dont want a newsletter, turn off your Admin Email option now. It will arrive by PM.


DeV.