***New E-mail Policy***

Your doing a fine job too!

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>

I'll second that notion!

Dean Lapinel

>

Broken

Warren in Lancaster, Pa

>I liked the old system. I never thought that I got junk mail from this source. I think having the email public cut down on malicious posts. The few times I read suspicious posts, there was no email attached. This evening I tried five times to send myself a test email. Not one worked. I get a message like "Mail System Error, Sever encountered an error. The message only lasts less than two seconds.

Re: Broken

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Not that it will make any difference, but I'm happy with the way it is now, too, absolutely no problems; and I love it that someone who wants to ask me a question can get through and be replied to directly.

Pam

Re: Broken

MikeW

>The entire message:

****************************************

Return to Index

Hand Tools

Mail System Error!

The server encountered an error while trying to send out e-mail notifications. This most likely means that the e-mail program has been incorrectly defined in the program's configuration. If you have any questions, please send a note to webmaster@woodcentral.com.

Your browser should automatically

take you back to the message index page.

****************************************

I suspect Ellis is fixing the problem.

Re: ***New E-mail Policy***

Rob Lee

>Hi Ellis -

I dislike board-based emails, as I no longer have a copy in my "sent" files. It's critical for me to be able to refer back to what I've written - and all of it gets archived.

Can you add a "copy to sender" flag or something???

As an aside - same goes for PM functionality...it's a real pain to have to check/reply to emails in multiple sources...

Must be getting old and cranky....

Cheers -

Rob

Re: Broken

Rob Lee

>Another aside for Ellis....

I don't *know* who "MikeW" is now.... maybe it's Mike Wenzloff, maybe it's someone else....the email address gave me that...

That's a real loss of information....

Cheers -

Rob

Re: Broken

Warren in Lancaster, Pa

>I agree with you here, Rob. I like the idea that if someone really wants to know my last name they can find it in my email. Also agree about the archiving. Recently I was corresponding with a fellow and wondered if he was one I had talked to last year. It was still in my email file.

Re: Broken

MikeW

>Hmm,

I *am* real, said the Velveteen Rabbit! The boy said so...

I think fully masking the identities, or having them revealed, can be handled by people electing to use full names--or not. Their choice. However, that takes registration, mandating real names to be used, authentication (which is too simple to bypass).

Using an email addy to discover or determine who I am is fraught with issues anyway--one needs to know that I use a wenzloff.com domain addy on WC. However, if it was idiot@verizon.net one may not know unless they had previously known "I am real."

I think I agree about the web-form based emails, though. While I don't like them, nor board-based PMs, at least with board-based PMs there is a saved/sent folder. Still a hassle for the user in that they need to go to their folders and copy/email themselves with their replies to someone in order to have a record off the board.

So put me down as not liking web-form based emails. Second best to me is board-based folders. Best for me is to continue using the email addy as a link next to the name.

Take care, Mike

Re: Broken

Paul Kierstead

>I never thought that I got junk mail from this source.

I use a unique address for woodcentral (actually, I have a separate address for almost every site and company). One of the benefits of this is I can directly identify which address was harvested (or which company gave/sold my address in some cases). Woodcentral addresses are definitely harvested, but I am surprised that it has never amounted to much; they don't seem to be cooperative spammers. At one point I discarded the addy I was using and switched to a new one, but this one -- about a year and a half old -- has been pretty quiet. A quick look in my email folder and it there have been none in the last 30 days.

Re: ***New E-mail Policy***

Glenn Madsen

>"Must be getting old and cranky...."

Me too! The more things as I can consolidate and automate, to make my thinking less burdensome, the better.

On reflection, I like the status quo

Bill Houghton, like MN today, Sebastopol, CA

>Ellis,

I really appreciate the energy you constantly put into hosting this site, and know that your change in e-mail policy was motivated by your take on our individual best interests. But I had no problem with the existing mode.

Had you received multiple complaints about e-mail address harvesting, I'd feel differently, but the responses (at least on the handtools forum - didn't look on the others) seem to indicate that this hasn't been a big issue for community members. And, for me, the immediate and direct availability of e-mail addresses has been a boon. I've had several side conversations with folks, and have, as has Rob Lee, been grateful that I could save the sent messages.

I'm also concerned that, if you do decide to go in the direction of registration - a related issue - economics will force you to use one of the services. Since my wife and I share the same e-mail address, there are several settings in which I appear as Arlene. Doesn't end my universe, but it's generated some confusion at times.

It may not be broken enough to fix.

Bill