Electronic delivery of BMWOR Newsletter

[Anonymous]

#4523

Howdo,I'm not long back from the latest Committee meeting, and yet again the perennial subject of electronic delivery of Newsletters has surfaced. We are told that many people would prefer this method of delivery.The Committee all agree that the requirement for a paper Newsletter is not going to go away anytime in the near future, so there is no intention to stop printing. The Register's members are paying to support a printed Newsletter, and a website, and both media will co-exist. There is no intention of introducing a cut price membership rate if you request only an electronic Newsletter. Possibly, if it could be demonstrated at some time in the future that a clear majority of members preferred electronic delivery this could be reconsidered. At the moment, don't bet your house on it.Delivery will be via an email list, the message providing a link to a file download. The file will be available, and the link sent, at approximately the same time most print copies are delivered, starting from the February 2015 issue.This service will only be available to current Financial members of BMWOR. If you wish to have your Newsletter delivered this way, email editor@bmwor.org.nz - you will need to quote your membership number.Emailing a link has been chosen as the simplest electronic method for the volunteers that will make it happen, and their successors, to administer. Email is a tool that most folk can understand, and saves any future Web Admin having to maintain a "Members Only" area on our website, which would be a far more complex solution.

[peter.trub]

#18330

Can I leave a copy of the link on the smoko room table for the other jokers at work to read?  😉

[Anonymous]

#18331

You are welcome to, which cover would you like me to put your contact details on? ;DI don't want to go through all the rigmarole of building a secure (¿maybe?) members' only area again on the site using WordPress plugins, and then having it turn out not so secure. Might scare my replacement off before he gets his hands on the handlebars, with the extra admin involved, too.I'm not going to build a proper web version of the Newsletter, either: more work than I want to do after producing the print file as a pdf. I'll just downsize the print file (ie, lower resolution) for download.I don't see a major difference between having the link getting forwarded around and leaving the paper Newsletter in the smoko room: either way, our advertisers get more exposure. It would be nice to think our members wouldn't spread each other's details around too promiscuously, but everybody is so into (allegedly) social networking nowadays some have sort of forgotten security.I'm told "a lot" of people want the facility; an email list is the simplest (read: laziest) way to do it. I'm thinking 15 to 20 Mb to download, gives real good pictures on screen. If all the world and his dog wants to forward the link, I can go to 3 or 4Mb .djvu files (similar view on screen) instead of the bigger pdf and email it as an attachment (some of you Windows users would have to install a dejavu viewer for those), or crappy little 3Mb pdf.And, of course, if of our members expressed concern at us emailing a link because of security or privacy fears, then we would have to abandon the idea. You can please a few of the people some of the time, but it seems staggeringly easy to piss many of them off all the time.

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