Ski Buddies notification emails
This page discusses how to set email preferences and explains the reason for the structure. Please read this if you want more immediate or less frequent emails.
Over the off-season, work was completed on the website to allow users set what kind of emails they receive and how often. There are many, many settings that are available. It is important that users have this ability because many people want to stay in touch with the club, but don’t want constant emails. The webmaster gets many, many requests to reduce or discontinue emails when they are getting many of them. Others request that their messages be sent immediately to everyone in a certain way. Allowing users to set their own preferences was the best solution.
To Set your preferences:
1) Log in with your username and password (use recovery link with your email if you forgot).
2) Click on “My Account” link, which is the top link on the left side navigation.
3) Here you will find your information provided to the club. You will see four tabs: “view”, “edit”, “subscriptions”, and “contact”. Click on “Subscriptions”.
4) There, you will find four more sections: “Overview”, “Pages/Threads”, “Content types”, and “Categories”. Click on “Categories”.
5) Here you can choose how often and whether you get updates or comments as well. Here is where to set whether you even get emails for a particular type of content, and how often (interval).
Background on the issue:
The webmaster gets many more requests to get off lists than get things more often, especially when many messages go out about informal activities. The site runs on a content management system that is freely available to run on a web server, and it has been customized to work for the needs of the club. It is able to run on a low cost server. The server was also changed over the summer to deal with a SPAM black list problem we had with Comcast. That, apparently, is fixed. Currently, we have 120 paid members who can post to the forums. We have 242 users that have used the website within the last 2 years by signing in, indicating they want to stay in touch with what the club is doing. There are a total of 419 users able to get communication from Ski Buddies depending on how they adjust their settings.
This year, the webmaster has had complaints from two users that emails are not sent immediately, are not sent with their message only, or with the formatting or subject they want. The first two are dependent on how people have their settings configured. If you want immediate notification, set it that way. The third issue has to do with the content management system works by default, and the volunteer webmaster is not willing to work on this customization at this time.
If any member who knows web programming and server management basics, please volunteer to be webmaster/administrator. The current webmaster has volunteered for six years, and is more than ready to pass the job on to someone else. Contact Roy Vermillion, our awesome current club president, if you are interested.
