Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 01:00:32 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Avalanche List Notice

Mail list Update

This is the last update which will be mailed to all subscribers on all
lists. There is important information below, especially for those who have
not been subscribers in the past and are not familiar with how our lists
work once the season gets underway.

First, a couple announcements -

Our online auction is mostly ending on Tuesday, with closing times varying
for different items. The last 48 hours are usually the most active, so
check it out. Also, since we have had late contributions of some items and
a few others with no bids there will be an extension until Dec 12 for
these things. Some are now posted and more will be added on Tuesday.

Successful auction bids count as contributions to the CSAC for the
purposes of list service subscriptions.

You can now purchase the video "Utahs Skiing Story" and have the sale
benefit the CSAC. See http://www.i-world.net/snow-videos/

Now for the list info -

To remain on the CSAC bulletin mailing lists you must make a contribution
to the project. We implemented this system a couple years ago when the
work of maintaining the lists got out of hand. Already this year the
number of bad e-mails has been increasing. Details on the transition of
our lists to a subscriber service remains posted on the mail lists page
even though it was written a couple years ago.

The main objective of requiring a contribution was to eliminate people who
abandon addresses frequently, subscribe with a friends account, etc. 
Therefore there is no minimum contribution amount required, although we
recommend/request $15 per list per year. If you contribute less than this
you are still welcome to use the lists but you will not be eligible for
any other contributor-only services. We feel our lists are unusually well
supported with most problems and requests responded to by a person within
24-48 hours.

So here's how it works -

We will run a program periodically which checks each e-mail on each list
against our contributor list. Addresses which aren't on our list will have
a mailing sent to them that they need to contribute or they will be
removed. We will do this on approximately December 7, and we do it
perodically throughout the winter. On December 7 we will run it for the
larger lists which are in full operation (Colorado, Utah, Washington,
Idaho and SW Montana). The smaller lists which have not come into
operation yet will be included next time.

We then run the same program about a week later but this time it removes
all addresses not associated with contributors. The next run of this
type will be about December 12. This 5+ days allows time to contribute
(but not much for using snail mail) and allows us to take care of the
inevitable few problems such as contributors who didn't include the
correct e-mail and therefore got a removal notice.

We keep a file of new subscribers prior to running our program, and people
who just recently subscribed do not get removed that time. They do get a
message more or less like this one. Since there is over a week until the
first removals take place and the lists to be covered then are running
daily now you will not be considered a new subscriber if you are getting
this message.

Finally, we keep a cumulative list of addresses previously removed. These
are removed from the new subscriber list since they are familiar with the
service already. We may also just remove these addresses without notice
once or twice a year. 

Remember that all bulletins are also available on the website for
everyone, whether or not they support our avalanche safety efforts. Also
remember that the top of each mailing contains the URL (link) to the mail
list page where updates such as this one are archived, and where you can
subscribe and unsubscribe from our lists.

Thank you for your support of our efforts in the non-profit sector. We
hope you have a safe winter. If you contribute prior to Dec 6 (or already
have) you should not receive anything more except the bulletins and any
infrequent problem update that may be relevant to the list(s) you are on.

--
***********************************************************
      Cyberspace Snow and Avalanche Center (CSAC)
      131 NW 4th St Suite 397, Corvallis OR 97330
          (877) 457-0913  (530) 509-7840 Fax

       http://www.csac.org        snow@csac.org
***********************************************************

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List management courtesy of I-World, http://www.i-world.net/