What do you think, Webmaster please respond

Chiel · Post by **Chiel** » Thu Jun 27, 2002 8:54 pm

Currently there are almost 5000 users, which is great. But I´ve noticed that many users are just active for a few weeks, and then stop entering bills. So the figure of 5000 might be a bit unrealistic.
Couldn´t we send those ´inactive´ users some sort of ´wake-up call´ so that they start entering bills again?

Donald · Post by **Donald** » Thu Jun 27, 2002 9:35 pm

Nice idea!

The message should be very friendly, people don't like to get bothered on the internet. My proposal:

"You have not registered any Euro note for more than 10 weeks, the community of EuroBillTrackers misses you. Hope to see you back!

Sorry for this little inconvenience."

My English is limited, maybe somebody can put this in more sophisticated words.

Sneakster · Post by **Sneakster** » Thu Jun 27, 2002 9:48 pm

Chiel wrote:Currently there are almost 5000 users, which is great. But I´ve noticed that many users are just active for a few weeks, and then stop entering bills. So the figure of 5000 might be a bit unrealistic.
Couldn´t we send those ´inactive´ users some sort of ´wake-up call´ so that they start entering bills again?

Well now, Chiel, that's a great idea, I found a few users that just registered a couple of notes for quite a while now.

emmem · Post by **emmem** » Thu Jun 27, 2002 10:17 pm

Sorry to bring some bad news.

But AFAIK in the past the decision was made not to spam the mailboxes of the EBT-users.

Imagine you left EBT because you strongly didn’t agree with something (I’m suspecting there was a user who did so in the past). I don’t think this user would not be happy with such a mail.

And let’s not forget that because a user hasn’t entered any bills for some time it means he is an inactive user. We have for instance some tourists who visited the Euro zone and entered some bills. At least one of them is still active on the forum.

The only way a user will receive a mail is if he didn’t opt out of the monthly newsletter...

Or if he has a hit of course.

smh · Post by **smh** » Thu Jun 27, 2002 11:05 pm

I think the default setting is that you'll get the news letter every month. That should be a reminder.

Philippe, do you know the percentage of users who get the newsletters?

Imagine you left EBT because you strongly didn’t agree with something (I’m suspecting there was a user who did so in the past). I don’t think this user would not be happy with such a mail.

Okay, i'm not asking you to give names (don't mind if you do though) but can you give a reason to strongly disagree?

Tiger · Post by **Tiger** » Thu Jun 27, 2002 11:39 pm

Is the newsletter option standard on or off ?
Because, I didn't get any letter from EBT yet...
Well, maybe it's because I'm only about 1 month active here.

When is the next newsletter planned ?

Craft · Post by **Craft** » Thu Jun 27, 2002 11:54 pm

Post by **HNL** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 12:17 am

Craft wrote:Well, I'm definitely against any reminders etc. through e-mail, even extremely polite ones.

I agree. Maybe we can delete users with 0 banknotes after one year or 1/2 year, but that's the limit. It is just a hobby, and we have to respect the users privacy. When a user entered 1 banknote or more, he / she is member for ever. But spamming: NO

!

EuroBillTracker · Post by **EuroBillTracker** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 1:27 pm

Tiger wrote:Is the newsletter option standard on or off ?
Because, I didn't get any letter from EBT yet...
Well, maybe it's because I'm only about 1 month active here.
When is the next newsletter planned ?

The newsletter is still on. I even got the translators to do last month's but never came around to sending it in time so I kept it for July.
See, the problem is that I am probably going to change jobs in my real life so I have to push EBT lower in my priorities.

Also, I won't be able to send the july newsletter until mid-july but I definatly will send it this time !

Every time a newsletter was sent, we got a little surge in total bills entered per day so I expect our little slump here is because noone got a reminder lately !

smh · Post by **smh** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 2:10 pm

Is it really that troublesome to sent the mails?

After all, since you have that phpcollab thingy others can help you to write it.

EuroBillTracker · Post by **EuroBillTracker** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 2:38 pm

smh wrote:Is it really that troublesome to sent the mails?

After all, since you have that phpcollab thingy others can help you to write it.

It's sending the email that's a problem. Getting translated is ok although I need to get some new translators since historicals are getting burned out

My biggest problem is that there is not a single tool that can handle multilingual sendings, it's just a big pain. So I just write my own little script which is very much a hack. Also, my first send had some debugging info in it and some people were pissed so I'm always very careful.

So yeah, at the current production stage of sending the newsletter, consider it can take up to 2 hours for me to check everything and finally send it to everyone. I know it seems like very little but it isn't right now for me !

smh · Post by **smh** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 9:51 pm

Can't you just create an e-mail address for sending the news letters. Put all the addresses in a language group and send the mail as BCC?

If you ever need a Dutch translator, drop me a message

micro · Post by **micro** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 10:43 pm

Craft wrote:Well, I'm definitely against any reminders etc. through e-mail, even extremely polite ones. ...
How would you feel, if you chose to give some money to charity a couple of times, and after stopping received a mail saying "Gee, thanks for what you have done, but now you have been inactive for a month already. Would you please give us some more money now!"

I agree with you. But such a reminder needs not say "You have been inactive! Please come back!"
It could just say "You are a registered user with EBT [bla bla] We want to inform you that we have improved our site in this or that way [bla bla]. Here's how it works: [bla bla]", and end with: "This is not a newsletter but just a singular message. [bla bla]" (Replace [bla bla] with something polite). I think no one would feel bothered or enforced to come back. Maybe a few, but so what? But it would probably lure many people back who just forgot.

pinguino79 · Post by **pinguino79** » Fri Jun 28, 2002 11:55 pm

Making the inactive users come back is a noble purpose indeed

The fact is: receiving the newsletter is optional, so users who unchecked the option have some reasons for not wanting to receive anything from EBT; I think they wouldn't see any difference between a monthly newsletter and an individual message.
If one chose the option, sending him/her a message would be a useless duplicate.

EuroBillTracker · Post by **EuroBillTracker** » Sat Jun 29, 2002 11:25 am

smh wrote:Can't you just create an e-mail address for sending the news letters. Put all the addresses in a language group and send the mail as BCC?

If you ever need a Dutch translator, drop me a message

I did indeed think of using mailing lists which my hosting server provides. Problem is adding a removing users based on their database preferences.
The other solution which you propose is to export all the addresses and add them to an outlook message for example. Well... to answer that... remember that I am sending the message to litteraly hundreds if not thousands of people in any given language so that quickly becomes a problem because the CC: field is too big. So then I have to cut it up but then that's more maintenance.
Although it's not productified right now, at some point close in time hopefully, I will just have to make sure all the translators have done their work and then just click a send button !

What do you think, Webmaster please respond

What do you think, Webmaster please respond

Re: What do you think, Webmaster please respond