In the loop, out of the loop...
- EcoTeam
- 200 or more found
- Posts: 1267
- Joined: 03 April 03 7:57 pm
- Twitter: EEVblog
- Location: Crestwood, NSW
- Contact:
Good ideas.
You have to remember also that there may be many cachers who simply don't want to read forums or join mailing lists. Especially the forums, as you have to continually go to the site and check for new messages etc
Mailing lists like Yahoo! groups have the advantage of getting a message to everyone almost instantly via email, but many people also don't like these services for obvious reasons.
Here is an idea for what it's worth:
Seeing as that this forum seems to be the centre of the Aussie forum chat universe, how about we convert the Aussie_Cachers Yahoo group into an "announcement only" service and encourage every aussie cacher to join that. In that way everyone will always get important emails (like dinners, events, new mega-cache announcements etc), but won't have their in-box flooded with silly chit-chat.
Perhaps there is an even easier to use and join email list we could use?
We could even have an email group for each state perhaps?
A simple "click here to join" link on the main gc.com.au page perhaps?
I'm sure that every serious cacher (even if they hate email lists) wouldn't mind joining such an exclusive email list for the purposes of important announcements?
Encourage everyone to post important events and messages to the email list instead of here, were only a few dozen regulars get to see it.
I think an email list is the only way for everyone to get important announcements quickly.
EcoDave
You have to remember also that there may be many cachers who simply don't want to read forums or join mailing lists. Especially the forums, as you have to continually go to the site and check for new messages etc
Mailing lists like Yahoo! groups have the advantage of getting a message to everyone almost instantly via email, but many people also don't like these services for obvious reasons.
Here is an idea for what it's worth:
Seeing as that this forum seems to be the centre of the Aussie forum chat universe, how about we convert the Aussie_Cachers Yahoo group into an "announcement only" service and encourage every aussie cacher to join that. In that way everyone will always get important emails (like dinners, events, new mega-cache announcements etc), but won't have their in-box flooded with silly chit-chat.
Perhaps there is an even easier to use and join email list we could use?
We could even have an email group for each state perhaps?
A simple "click here to join" link on the main gc.com.au page perhaps?
I'm sure that every serious cacher (even if they hate email lists) wouldn't mind joining such an exclusive email list for the purposes of important announcements?
Encourage everyone to post important events and messages to the email list instead of here, were only a few dozen regulars get to see it.
I think an email list is the only way for everyone to get important announcements quickly.
EcoDave
- EcoTeam
- 200 or more found
- Posts: 1267
- Joined: 03 April 03 7:57 pm
- Twitter: EEVblog
- Location: Crestwood, NSW
- Contact:
Yes, the special announcements feature might do the trick in theory, but...
1) We would have to get the agreement of everyone on the list.
2) We would have to convince the majority of geocachers to join Yahoo groups. That might be hard. I know many people who will refuse to do it because it's Yahoo (kind of like an anti-microsoft thing), and it's a pain the butt and confusing to sign up and get registered if you aren't already a Yahoo member. It should be as simple as "Enter your email address here and click OK", on the main page of GC.com.au
3) There is no way we can seperate the states. I think it would be much more beneficial to have seperate lists for every state, along with one for all of Australia.
Does anyone know of any simple and reliable non-commercial email lists? I know that plenty of them do exist.
EcoDave
1) We would have to get the agreement of everyone on the list.
2) We would have to convince the majority of geocachers to join Yahoo groups. That might be hard. I know many people who will refuse to do it because it's Yahoo (kind of like an anti-microsoft thing), and it's a pain the butt and confusing to sign up and get registered if you aren't already a Yahoo member. It should be as simple as "Enter your email address here and click OK", on the main page of GC.com.au
3) There is no way we can seperate the states. I think it would be much more beneficial to have seperate lists for every state, along with one for all of Australia.
Does anyone know of any simple and reliable non-commercial email lists? I know that plenty of them do exist.
EcoDave
- EcoTeam
- 200 or more found
- Posts: 1267
- Joined: 03 April 03 7:57 pm
- Twitter: EEVblog
- Location: Crestwood, NSW
- Contact:
Looks like I was able to set up a mailing list with a few mouse clicks!
My web server provider has an inbuilt email list manager, so I created a NSWcachers email list. This is the signup page:
http://www.alternatezone.com/mailman/li ... ezone.com
You can simply send messages to everyone on the list by sending an email to nswcachers@alternatezone.com
I haven't really tried it yet, but it seems to have all sorts of neat features in the admin section, much like Yahoo groups.
If it was this easy for me, must be even easier for i! on the super duper GC.com.au server - guys?
My server seems to use a program called MailMan
We could have
NSWcachers@geocaching.com.au
VICcachers@geocaching.com.au
etc...
EcoDave
My web server provider has an inbuilt email list manager, so I created a NSWcachers email list. This is the signup page:
http://www.alternatezone.com/mailman/li ... ezone.com
You can simply send messages to everyone on the list by sending an email to nswcachers@alternatezone.com
I haven't really tried it yet, but it seems to have all sorts of neat features in the admin section, much like Yahoo groups.
If it was this easy for me, must be even easier for i! on the super duper GC.com.au server - guys?
My server seems to use a program called MailMan
We could have
NSWcachers@geocaching.com.au
VICcachers@geocaching.com.au
etc...
EcoDave
- EcoTeam
- 200 or more found
- Posts: 1267
- Joined: 03 April 03 7:57 pm
- Twitter: EEVblog
- Location: Crestwood, NSW
- Contact:
I have just tried it and it works like a treat.
You get the persons email along with the nice signature at the bottom like this:
----------------------------------------
Nswcachers mailing list
Nswcachers@alternatezone.com
http://alternatezone.com/mailman/listin ... tezone.com
MailMan looks to be just what we need. It's very simple to setup and maintain, and people can join by simply going to the info page above, entering their email address and choosing a password. You are then asked for a reply confirmation and you are in the group. You can then send an email to nswcachers@alternatezone.com and everyone immediately gets it. There is even an option to allow posting without joining.
I'm happy to host mailing lists for every state on my server, but it would of course be much better if we had nswcachers@geocaching.com.au
EcoDave
You get the persons email along with the nice signature at the bottom like this:
----------------------------------------
Nswcachers mailing list
Nswcachers@alternatezone.com
http://alternatezone.com/mailman/listin ... tezone.com
MailMan looks to be just what we need. It's very simple to setup and maintain, and people can join by simply going to the info page above, entering their email address and choosing a password. You are then asked for a reply confirmation and you are in the group. You can then send an email to nswcachers@alternatezone.com and everyone immediately gets it. There is even an option to allow posting without joining.
I'm happy to host mailing lists for every state on my server, but it would of course be much better if we had nswcachers@geocaching.com.au
EcoDave
- embi
- 400 or more spectacular views seen
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- Joined: 02 April 03 2:09 pm
- Location: Wyndham Vale
- Contact:
The user groups or "state groups" exsist so that a group can be all contacted with one email.
<p>
The problem with this is that unless you are a forum member, you cant be contacted.
<p>
We need to think of a way to get people in here. Even if it is just to register and be placed in thier state group.
<p>
The problem with this is that unless you are a forum member, you cant be contacted.
<p>
We need to think of a way to get people in here. Even if it is just to register and be placed in thier state group.
- EcoTeam
- 200 or more found
- Posts: 1267
- Joined: 03 April 03 7:57 pm
- Twitter: EEVblog
- Location: Crestwood, NSW
- Contact:
Setting up an email list would not really constitiute another thing to sign up for, as it's absolutely zero maintenance. 30seconds to sign up and then you forget about it forever.
Advantages of an email list:
- simpler and quicker to sign up for than this forum, just enter your email address and a password, and there is no need to even remember the password
- no need for a username
- no need to log into a forum to send a message, you simply send an email to nswcachers@geocaching.com.au
- people can send a message to the group without actually signing up
- no need for a moderator to review messages, the system does not require maintenance from anyone.
- hitting reply on your email sends the message back to the user who sent it.
- You can put a simple to understand link on the main GC.com.au page for people to sign up.
Disadvantages of using the forum:
- The moderator has to approve messages, this could delay them by a day or more.
- you have to join and log into the forum to send a message to the group (correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm just assuming)
- you can't send a message unless you join. not really fair for those who really don't want to join for some reason, but want to send a message to everyone.
- All this forum stuff can be complicated to understand for a beginner
I can't really see any advantage of the forum system over an email list, even for those who are already forum members.
I'm usually not a fan of email lists as such, but for this application I think it's absolutely perfect. The forum would be a cludge.
We need some more wide spread opinion on this though....
That's my usual two cents worth, taxed at the top marginal rate and then rounded down to zero!
EcoDave
Advantages of an email list:
- simpler and quicker to sign up for than this forum, just enter your email address and a password, and there is no need to even remember the password
- no need for a username
- no need to log into a forum to send a message, you simply send an email to nswcachers@geocaching.com.au
- people can send a message to the group without actually signing up
- no need for a moderator to review messages, the system does not require maintenance from anyone.
- hitting reply on your email sends the message back to the user who sent it.
- You can put a simple to understand link on the main GC.com.au page for people to sign up.
Disadvantages of using the forum:
- The moderator has to approve messages, this could delay them by a day or more.
- you have to join and log into the forum to send a message to the group (correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm just assuming)
- you can't send a message unless you join. not really fair for those who really don't want to join for some reason, but want to send a message to everyone.
- All this forum stuff can be complicated to understand for a beginner
I can't really see any advantage of the forum system over an email list, even for those who are already forum members.
I'm usually not a fan of email lists as such, but for this application I think it's absolutely perfect. The forum would be a cludge.
We need some more wide spread opinion on this though....
That's my usual two cents worth, taxed at the top marginal rate and then rounded down to zero!
EcoDave
- The Ginger Loon
- 450 or more roots tripped over
- Posts: 824
- Joined: 28 March 03 9:09 pm
- Location: Tamworth
- Contact:
I remember seeing a cache in the US at one time called "The Daily News" (or something). It wasn't really a cache but rather a way of disseminating information for that particular caching community. I'm not sure this type of thing would be allowed in the post-modern caching era, but it was a way of getting a basic message out to the people. I think the way it worked was when the cache was initially posted all interested parties set it in their watch list and the cache page itself then acted like an email list. The people in that community would post their news in the form of a Note, no Found Its were allowed, and the news would travel to all and sundry.
<P>
As an aside to this discussion about email lists vs forums and their various merits I think part of the problem (for us as the geocaching "community") is if people want to play the game but don't want to be a part of the "community" that is entirely their perogative and we have to learn to accept that. There is nothing in the "guidelines" (ha) that says you must become active in the local community. I can think of 2 players who play "outside" what we see as the bigger picture. It's their choice and we have to respect that.
<P>
So for my 2 cents worth it's all well and good to espouse the virtues of your favourite information dissemination method (both of which I can see the value of so no-one please accuse me of taking sides in this debate) but as I said elsewhere, "you can lead a horse to water..."
<P>
But to finish this post on a positive note maybe people should consider linking to this Forum or Yahoo or where ever from their cache pages at GC.com. You could even do this with a buttoned link. That way whoever sees the page will see the link and morbid curiosity might just be enough to get them to click a link to here or wherever and get them "into the loop".
<P>
As an aside to this discussion about email lists vs forums and their various merits I think part of the problem (for us as the geocaching "community") is if people want to play the game but don't want to be a part of the "community" that is entirely their perogative and we have to learn to accept that. There is nothing in the "guidelines" (ha) that says you must become active in the local community. I can think of 2 players who play "outside" what we see as the bigger picture. It's their choice and we have to respect that.
<P>
So for my 2 cents worth it's all well and good to espouse the virtues of your favourite information dissemination method (both of which I can see the value of so no-one please accuse me of taking sides in this debate) but as I said elsewhere, "you can lead a horse to water..."
<P>
But to finish this post on a positive note maybe people should consider linking to this Forum or Yahoo or where ever from their cache pages at GC.com. You could even do this with a buttoned link. That way whoever sees the page will see the link and morbid curiosity might just be enough to get them to click a link to here or wherever and get them "into the loop".
-
- 250 or more caches found
- Posts: 573
- Joined: 28 March 03 8:07 pm
- Location: Lane Cove,NSW
- Contact:
Standard link
How about we all include the following link at the end of our cache descriptions on geocaching.com?
<p align=center><a href='http://geocaching.com.au/forum'><img src='http://geocaching.com.au/pics/logo_gca_25.png' width='25' height='25' valign=middle border='0' alt='Geocaching Australia Forum'> Geocaching Australia Forum</a></p>
<p align=center><a href='http://geocaching.com.au/forum'><img src='http://geocaching.com.au/pics/logo_gca_25.png' width='25' height='25' valign=middle border='0' alt='Geocaching Australia Forum'> Geocaching Australia Forum</a></p>
Last edited by leek on 22 June 03 10:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
- 250 or more caches found
- Posts: 573
- Joined: 28 March 03 8:07 pm
- Location: Lane Cove,NSW
- Contact:
That would appear as:
<p align=center><a href='http://geocaching.com.au/forum'><img src='http://geocaching.com.au/pics/logo_gca_25.png' width='25' height='25' valign=middle border='0' alt='Geocaching Australia Forum'> Geocaching Australia Forum</a></p>
<p align=center><a href='http://geocaching.com.au/forum'><img src='http://geocaching.com.au/pics/logo_gca_25.png' width='25' height='25' valign=middle border='0' alt='Geocaching Australia Forum'> Geocaching Australia Forum</a></p>
Last edited by leek on 22 June 03 10:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- 300 or more found
- Posts: 9
- Joined: 08 May 03 5:03 pm
- Location: nsw australia
- Contact: