E-mail Lists Contributions

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How the Contribution Requirement for E-mail Lists is Managed

The Nitty-Gritty of the process followed:

One of the first things we had to restrict to contributors was our e-mail list system. This was due to abuse of the system and angry e-mail from users who felt entitled to not only free services but instant support. Requiring a contribution essentially eliminated those problems after an initial period of whining. There are now an increasing number of other benefits for contributors. Given the lack of financial support and the lack of help seeking it the site has had to go in this direction in order to simply exist at all.

Over time a somewhat unique way of managing the contribution requirement evolved. This has developed in a way which allows people to try out the service for a resaonable amount of time for free before they are required to contribute.

Prior to the 2005-2006 season we ran the script which enforces the contribution requirement at irregular intervals, always at a time when problems could be responded to immediately. Beginning in December of 2005 the scripts have been run automatically on a weekly basis. There will also be no adjustments or exceptions made for particular lists - they are all included in the script.

We maintain five files which we work from:

• supporters - a list of e-mail addresses associated with contributors
• once - a list e-mail addresses which has been sent one intial notice about contributing
• twice - a list of email addresses which have received two notices
• removed - a list of all addresses which have previously been removed
• hostile - a list of addresses from which angry or hostile e-mail has been sent to us

The hostile list has addresses we will not serve and they are removed from any services they might be on, and from email lists nightly. The addresses on this list are essentially never removed from it due to the level of hostility these people have shown.

We periodically run some scripts using the other four lists which send reminders and notices to subscribers who do not contribute. First we remove any entries in the supporters list from the once, twice and removed lists, and addresses on the removed list are taken off all advisory lists. (Addresses on the removed list have used the system on a trial basis already, at some point in the past.) We run a script weekly which sends e-mail to every address on every advisory distribution list which is not in our supporters file. Addresses which have received a first notice the week before are sent a second notice, and those which have not been sent any notices at all but have not contributed are sent a first notice. The notices are generally sent on Tuesday nights. On Thursday nights we run a script which unsubscribes all addresses which have received two notices, and they are added to the removed list.

So after joining a mailing list you will receive a notice on the next Tuesday, whether that is after one day or six days. The following Tuesday you will receive a second notice. Two nights later, on Thursday, you will be removed if you have chosen not to contribute at least $25 to support our nonprofit work and to receive membership benefits, including email list service.

This may seem complicated but there are some custom PERL scripts I wrote to manage the process. After doing this for several years problems have become infrequent and usually result from snail-mail contributions which did not include an e-mail address or from somebody using a different address than they subscribed/contributed with.

Contributors have access to a web interface where they can add or remove themselves from multiple lists at once with no authorization e-mail required.

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