Freegle Tech Report 14-9-30

 Freegle Tech Report September 2014
Posts 13849-13924
Members 96
If you are interested in participating then you are welcome to join us, even if you only want to dip in and out. Mods are wanted who are willing to try out new stuff, test any tweaks done, or just comment - please come along.

General.

You will see a more prominent unsubscribe link on the top of emails to help prevent those members who can’t work out how to leave from marking our mails as spam instead. Some discussion ongoing on whether it should say something other than unsubscribe.
Please try and deal with members who wish to unsubscribe by removing them, rather than asking them to click on the links in their emails. Some are not getting these emails, and others, don’t get the verification one to return, or Yahoo does not accept them because it is sent from a slightly different email address like Gmail when the member is registered with Googlmail..
Yahoo members are best being removed from the group. If not there you can use this unsubscribe link.
http://direct.ilovefreegle.org/unsubscribe.php

Bt/Yahoo

We have seen reports of BT members and mods being unable to log in to their groups. once again. For some clearing their cache and cookies has worked, so worth a try. Bt users most at risk are those whose username is the same as their email address. Yahoo issued all BT/Yahoo email addresses a username automatically, and they have now withdrawn them.
Bt did have some email problems last week, which may have caused some of the reports. These seem to be fixed now, but any members still affected may now have lost their Id. If not affected but you think you maybe in the future,l BT published this advice. http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/47530/kw/yahoo%20groups/c/346,6769
Give as You Live
Some work has been done making it easy for members to join up without leaving the Freegle page.
If you haven’t signed up yet why not try it and let us know if it goes smoothly?
Give it for Good. (G4G)
Do remember you can now add your local reuse outlets for inclusion in repost reminders to help prevent items not been successfully freegled from ending in the tip. Just use the Add box at the bottom. You don’t need to fill in all the details, just as many as you know.

Hotmail/Outlook/MSN/Windows Live/AOL

We are still getting hundreds of mails returned as spam from their service providers .
Edward and Christian are working to try and and stop the tide. As a result, we have to check that their email address is not bouncing our mails. We are also turning off mail for those from whom we get multiple reports.
Refusal by Hotmail to whitelist us is resulting is some members having to log in each time they wish to use Freegle Direct.
All we can do is advise them of the problem, ask them to help if they can by marking our emails as not spam, or maybe if they have another email or a Facebook account they can use that.

Mapping

There are still some problems with the members exact location being mapped from, the groups center being picked up instead. When a location is available and has been mapped the ‘ to field’ is working fine. General locations are better and there has been a reduction in Goggles Mapping Limits being exceeded. Even if you see the limit warning the mapping still holds if you correct it.

Questions asked and responses.

Could someone tell me please: Is it possible to tell Freegle Direct not to include the original message when it sends 'taken' messages to the list?
A We will look into it.
Q Something has gone wrong when I change my group's settings on FD. I click the 'Save settings' button and an email is sent to the owner's address. When I click the link in the email I get some code.
It is a fault but the changes are still being saved so you can ignore it for now.
Q I am getting quite a few of these. ‘Freegle Direct failed to send a mail from FBUser.1349206453.276245@... to your group.’
We have had a couple of glitches over the last 12months where memberships did not join fully, or Yahoo failed to add them to the member list. You need to check your management logs first to be sure you have not banned or removed them previously. Then send them an email only invite and ask the member to post his message again.
Trash Nothing.
Andrew explained how he had managed to capture Yahoo photo albums for his members, which he says had caused him many complaints. It is not fool-proof and only works if the member has linked it the photo to the post. It is better for him though if all photos are posted through the various message makers.
This is equally is true for non Yahoo ID members and those that prefer to use Freegle Direct. Albums are inaccessible to them so perhaps a reminder to your Yahoo members to use the message maker when posting photos would be useful!.
Jean
Freegle Tech