If you have a record of the purged names, it might not be a bad idea to look for the ones who are SDMB members, and for CRSP to e-mail them to apologize and invite them back.
If you have a record of the purged names, it might not be a bad idea to look for the ones who are SDMB members, and for CRSP to e-mail them to apologize and invite them back.
McNutty is building a list of the members, emails, post count and last activity.
He will Email it to me. I will parse out those with more than 1 post and those banned.
The reduced list will then be Emailed to Sarahfeena, Myrnalene and Auntbeast for review. We will look through the list and narrow it down to those we know of with the idea of sending out an apology Email to maybe 100-200 of them.
We need to work on the basic letter of apology.
We need CRSP to approve this and effectively deputize those above as staff members for a few days to assist.
This thread is to hammer things out.
For the actual email, I think short and sweet is best. While I don't want us to be accused of brushing this off or trying to downplay what happened, I also don't think we need to overburden our recipients (quite of few of whom probably have no idea yet that their accounts are even gone) with too much unnecessary information.
Something like, "Hello! This is a notice to inform you that due to board maintenance*, your account at been deleted along with several others. To re-register, please do blah blah blah. We are sorry for the inconvenience and look forward to seeing you again at Domebo!"
If they want more information then that, they can find it on the board.
*or whatever we want to say.
everything in nature is sort of gross when you look at it too closely. what is an apple? basically the uterus of a tree - terrifel
I would like to added some links to the front page and the index mentioning the lively chat at the bottom.
There is one oddity, the number of deleted names is around 1300. Apparently, 600 never completed registration. I might need to do some SQL myself. McNutty game me a good start though to mess with it and the Databases are copies and not live.
OK, the (absolutely paranoid and retarded) nonnies at the snackpit do have a point about sharing email addresses with me, Sarah and Auntie. It was my understanding that What Exit? was going to try and do a mass email though Outlook. In that case, we would have no need for that information, right?
everything in nature is sort of gross when you look at it too closely. what is an apple? basically the uterus of a tree - terrifel
Jim definitely said that it would be a mass e-mailing. So, I agree about the e-mails...I can't think of any reason for us to have them, either.
OK, I think I can go through the list by myself, I would still love help building the actually letter though.
Please comment and help.We recently did a user purge on Domebo.net that was overzealous and purged your user account. We are very sorry for the inconvenience and just wanted to explain it was done by accident and was not a banning or anything singling you out. We ended up pruning all account with less than 2 posts. We hope you are still interested enough to re-register at ucp.php?mode=register.
Registration is the same as before and you can reuse your email and username. If you have not been by lately we have been updating our front page at http://domebo.net/ and we have added a chat feature to the index or stand alone .
What Exit?, I think your letter makes board management sound incompetent. I much prefer the little white lie (if it's even that). I think Myrnalene's example is pretty close:I would say something like 'Due to an error made during board maintenance,' instead of making it sound like it something that will happen all the time.Originally posted by Myrnalene
I agree with JohnnyClyde.
I'm still swimming in harmony. I'm still dreaming of flight. I'm still lost in the waves night after night...
Do you have an idea or an article you would like to see on the Electric Elephant? Email me at theelectricelephant(at)gmail.com!
My two cents:
"Hello! This is a notice to inform you that your account at Domebo has been deleted during recent Board maintenance due to inactivity. If you wish to re-register, please go to ucp.php?mode=register.
Registration is the same as before and you can reuse your email and username. If you have not been by lately we have been updating our front page at http://domebo.net/ and we have added a chat feature to the index page.
We look forward to seeing you again at Domebo."
I don't mind sending a purge notice to people, but I'm not sure an apology is necessary; if they had posted just twice, they wouldn't have been purged. I do like the idea of using the letter to nudge people and let them know we have new features.
I like the changes. I do feel a small apology is needed at least. Even if it is just the "We are very sorry for the inconvenience"
I think if you really want to include an apology something like, "We apologize for the inconvenience" reads less wimpy.
That is fine, but I am open to changes, In fact hope for them.Originally posted by featherlou
And I'm one step closer to world domination.Originally posted by pepperlandgirl
I think an acknowledgement that this was an error is better than pretending it wasn't. (a) Because most people already know this, and the ones who don't will find out when they see that thread, so there's little to be gained by trying to conceal it, and (b) so it's clear that Domebo is not planning to do this again. No lurker is gonna sign up again if they think they're just going to have to do it again in a few weeks. Jim's original may have been a little too clear, but people should understand that this is a one-off thing.Originally posted by What Exit?
So.......something like this:
"Hello! This is a notice to inform you that your account at Domebo has been deleted during recent Board maintenance. Due to a bit of overzealousness on our part, all accounts with less then then 2 posts were deleted. We apologize for the inconvenience our error in judgment has caused and invite you to re-register at ucp.php?mode=register. You can use the same username and/or email account if you choose.
We look forward to seeing you here!"
I'm sorry, I really can't think of a way to add a pimpage for the front page or chat that doesn't sound awkward.
everything in nature is sort of gross when you look at it too closely. what is an apple? basically the uterus of a tree - terrifel
I think that last version has the exact right tone. Although I'd change "less then then 2 posts" to "less than 2 posts"
Or even "Fewer than two posts"
Lightly Seared On The Reality Grill
God damn it, I hate when I'm out-grammar-nit-picked.
OK, I like the final version posted by Myrnalene. It's short, and acknowledges a mistake was made without bordering on self-immolation. How many people will this be sent out to?
Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur Monotone
One suggestion, change "re-register at ucp.php?mode=register" to "register at domebo"Originally posted by Myrnalene
In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.
571 was my short list. It might be longer than needed. Do you have any good ideas on how to do a mass mailing from a CSV file? I would rather send them out as Something@domebo.net then a non-domebo account.Originally posted by CRSP
I would still like to include a short little bit on the front page and chat as long as we are doing this.
It was brought up that is we use domebo.net for an email address, we need to:
hatesfreedom Jul10 14:25:57 contact slicehost and tell them to make 67.207.138.196 = mail.domebo.net i guess
I believe that is "goddammit."Originally posted by McNutty
Mmm, that's wrong on so many levels.Originally posted by What Exit?
1) there's nobody looking for a "mail.domebo.net" -- I'm not sure where that name came from
2) 67.207.138.196 is not a mail server
3) slicehost does not do the DNS for domebo
It looks like the mail DNS is set up incorrectly, though. It is pointing at "domebo.net" for a mail exchanger, which is wrong. The web server doesn't accept mail. After the initial board move, CRSP still had another host handling mail for the domain, but I don't know what happened to it. Something like that needs to be set up again. I don't want to run a mail server.
If CRSP needs a cheap solution, I can recommend NearlyFreeSpeech.net, which costs 2 cents a day for a simple mail-forwarding MX host. I use it for my own domains and it's great. I can even set it up on my NearlyFreeSpeech.net account if needed -- it's not like another 2 cents a day is going to break me -- but he is the only one that can fix the DNS entries.
I can just set up a sub-account of my own to send out the letters. It won't be from @Domebo.net but I would like to try to get this done by Monday.Originally posted by McNutty
Any suggestions on using tools like outlook Express or Outlook or a free email provider to use the .CSV to massmerge or massmail? I can think of a few things I can do.
Well, I have the technical ability to write a script which will churn out all that email, but I don't have much experience actually doing mass-mailings, and I think there's a little more nuance involved in pumping out that much email if you don't want to simply be called a spammer and have your server end up on a block list. So I guess the answer is, no, I don't really have any suggestions.Originally posted by What Exit?
ETA: then again, the only thing my server ending up on a block list would affect is domebo, since I don't personally use it for any email-sending, so if you want to try that, we can. But if it does end up on a block list, that will affect all board emails, such as registration confirmations.
OK, I figure out a way to do this.Originally posted by McNutty
Ok, Jim and I decided to try the script, and in doing some tests, the wording as is triggered some spam filters at verizon, so it needs tweaking. The things that spam filters pick up on are pretty ridiculous, so I decided to tweak the wording slightly to make it less mock-official sounding and avoid phrases like "your account" and "notice to inform you" because these are hallmarks of phishing scams. Here's what I came up with:
I thought this was a pretty reasonable rephrasing of the approved message. Myrnalene raises the point in chat that we really should be given the chance to debate this to death (my extreme paraphrase of her complaining, admittedly) and CRSP should approve it, so we should discuss it in this thread. I disagree, but rather than cause her strife, I submit the message here.Hello [username]!
Heads up from Domebo to let you know that we accidentally deleted some active users during some recent Board maintenance. Due to a bit of overzealousness on our part, all users with fewer than 2 posts were removed. We apologize for the inconvenience our error in judgment has caused and invite you to re-register here.
(Note: Her complaint was over my use of the word "accidentally", which she says is a lie. I don't agree. It was an accident that active users were deleted, unless we simply don't believe CRSP and What Exit about what they were trying to do.)
I don't want to fight about this. I think the importance of this entire episode has been inflated beyond all reason, and the alleged importance of the precise wording of this email is just icing on the big shit cake. You folks figure it out. But I'm not hanging around breathlessly waiting for you to craft a masterpiece of consensus so I can run the mailing script, and I'm also not spending hours tweaking the wording by committee and running and re-running tests to see what spam filters it gets caught in. I'm swiftly losing my inclination to help in any way.
BTW, before anyone suggests that the spam filter problem is about the way the message is sent (suspicious headers, sending server, etc)... That would be my first suspicion as well, but in this case, changing the content of the message to:
and leaving everything else the same made it get through the spam filters.Greetings, [username],
Sorry we suck so much.
-The Management
Holy shit, this is the best suggestion so far.Originally posted by McNutty
everything in nature is sort of gross when you look at it too closely. what is an apple? basically the uterus of a tree - terrifel
Originally posted by McNuttyur doin it wrongOriginally posted by McNutty
If you're still looking for tips, how about this minor tweaking, which takes out the disputed "accidentally", but still says that the active accounts weren't deleted intentionally.
You could even tryHello [username]!
Heads up from Domebo to let you know that we deleted some active users in error during some recent Board maintenance. Due to a bit of overzealousness on our part, all users with fewer than 2 posts were removed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, and invite you to re-register here.
Hello [username]!
Heads up from Domebo to let you know that we deleted some active users in error during some recent Board maintenance. Due to a bit of overzealousness on our part, all users with fewer than 2 posts were removed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, and invite you to re-register here.
In case you haven't stopped by lately, we'd also like to take the opportunity to let you know that we've been updating our front page at http://domebo.net/ and have added a chat feature to the index page as well.
Wow, WhyNot, you're brilliant! Especially on Thursdays!
I cross-posted this from Giraffe Board. In view of the spam issues that I did not anticipate, this might be the best idea.Originally posted by 7
It's irrelevant at this point, Jim. There's no point in doing anything to publicize it, since there's probably no one who will ever check in again who isn't already aware. People who post at Giraffe instead of here are aware.
I'm sorry, but the night it happened I said the thing to do was post an announcement -- I even said that in the PM I sent you. The decision to do something more elaborate has meant that things have been delayed so long that it doesn't matter anyhow. Since there's little chance of anyone being informed by an email by now, don't do it. I don't really understand why this email thing got any real traction anyway; it seems to have sprung up during one of my brief absences but it's pretty clear it's not going to benefit us any and if it means future activation emails will get thrown out as spam then it's really a bad idea.
Suggest you post this as an announcement, then wipe your hands, and not talk about this shit ever again:
As most of you are probably aware, earlier this week the administrators made an error in attempting to weed out spammer accounts and ended up deleting everyone with fewer than 2 posts. We considered individually emailing those affected but were concerned that it might lead to Domebo emails being blacklisted by spam detection programs.
We hope you are not too annoyed with us, and we invite those who were deleted to sign up again. You can reuse your username and email address from before.
Agreed. I don't think the email is going to do anything but make a bigger deal out of something that needs to be put behind us.
But they didn't do it to weed out spammer accounts, did they? We still haven't been told the real reason.
Just go with an announcement, if something must be said at all. CRSP should write it and it should go up soon, or else simply be forgotten because doing it days from now will just look stupid.
So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.
Yes they did. Yes we have. Please try to keep up nonnie.Originally posted by goatse spam
Welcome to Mellophant.
We started with nothing and we still have most of it left.
Oh really? Do you have a link? Read this one: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3833&start=100#p88609Originally posted by Glazer
Jim said that CRSP hasn't provided an full explanation yet and that Jim will leave it to CRSP to do so.
Do you really think that the purpose was to eliminate spammer accounts? Does that make any sense to you? They've been blocking spammer accounts all along by banning them. Once they're banned, how does removing the account do anything other than free up their email address to spam the board again.
[modhat:bwp9neqt]This is not the thread for these question, ask away in the other.[/modhat:bwp9neqt]
I apologize. My original point still stands. You shouldn't equivocate in the announcement. Tell the truth. I should have directed Glazer to the other thread and responded there.
Fair enough and I agree actually.Originally posted by goatse spam
As usual I agree with Caerie. If we can get a global announcement up by tonight it would probably be best.Originally posted by Caerie
Caerie or Sublight or maybe CatInASuit early tomorrow, if we get a 4th yea vote could one of you please put up a Global announcement tonight please?
A global announcement is a good idea, I will put something up and then CRSP can amend it accordingly.
In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.
Fuck you. Drop dead. Who cares about your lame-ass CYA apology? Drop dead twice.
OK, that's out of our system now, right? Carry on.
There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. -- Ray Bradbury's "Coda"
Thanks for doing this!Originally posted by CatInASuit
Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur Monotone