Hi All-
I apologize in advance if this is beating a dead horse for some of
you. This list is just one avenue I'm hoping the message can reach
someone of
influence at HQ. Thanks for any fixes/enhancements you can make.
Below is a forward from my last ward's ward webmaster and while not
intended to be broadcast like this (I received his permission),
illustrates very frankly the frustrations wards have with using
the Email
Broadcast functionality on the ward websites. It is my understanding
based on past memos from SLC, that the Church does not approve of
non-lds.org email groups for official ward/stake business. Yet it
is my
observation that many feel like there is no good alternative. It
would be
interesting to know... Out of all the wards that regularly use
email as an
effective form of communication, which percentage are actually
using the
ward websites and which percentage still maintain contraband
yahoogroups/googlegroups or other mailing lists? Then there are
the wards
that abide by Church policy, decommission their seemingly effective,
external ward email list, but because of restrictive
functionality, never
quite make the transition to using the ward website's Email
Broadcasts,
crippling what was once useful communication. The later is my
current
ward's situation.
-Greg
Forward below:
*************************************
*Issues with LDS.org's email system (in no particular order):*
In our experience drops 10% of emails (this was a huge headache, and
unfortunately our GNU Mailman system had similar reliability
issues later
as well).
Is frequently having technical difficulties (can't login during busy
periods, etc). Also quite frustrating.
Requires full admin access to send emails (this means these admins
will
also have full access to all of the ward administration functions as
well).
No moderator functions - so you must give a few users full admin
access
and then have other users send those admins the emails in order
for them
to then send the message to the ward. This may not seem like a huge
bottle-neck to someone who has never had this responsibility, but
it slows
things down substantially, especially if the admin isn't as
responsive as
the users would like (sometimes it would take me a full day to get to
requests and users would be very frustrated). Submitting an email
through
LDS.org requires the admin to: 1) go to lds.org 2) type in
username and
password 3) open the admin section 3) navigate to the email
submission
form 4) copy the subject of the email 5) paste the subject of the
email 6)
copy the body of the email 7) paste the body of the email 8)
reformat the
body of the email so it looks presentable 9) submit the message
content
[if something goes wrong here, then you lose all your work] 10)
Choose an
email list to send the message to 11) submit the message 12) check
your
email 13) email still hasn't arrived an hour later, so check email
again
14) several hours later you check your email and it went out -
hooray!
Compare this with the admin receiving an email with a link that
they click
to approve the and it goes out immediately. It's the difference of
several
minutes-to-hours versus a few seconds. And when you're confronted
with a
several-minute (or more) task like that, then you say "I don't
have a few
minutes to do that right now" and put it off till the evening or
the next
day when you may have time to go through the whole process - and hope
during that time that any other emails that need to be sent will be
requested soon so you can do them all at once. Alternately, if the
process
only takes a few seconds, you do it right away - since "Hey, this
will
take less than 10 seconds and will be done!"
Due to the effort required and unreliability involved in the lds.org
system, some users would either not send the message at all or just
circumvent the system (ask for the full official email list and
then do an
evite so they could control the system, even when an actual evite was
unnecessary). This would cause problems because, there would then
be an
old 'official' ward email list being passed around and used that
would
obviously not include new members - and so announcements would go out
inviting everyone from the old list, including people who had
left, and
leaving out the most important new members.
Usually, since the admins send the message and not the actual
sender - the
responses end up getting received by the admin who then has to
forward all
of them to the actual sender (usually because users will just hit
'reply'
to the message rather than read the instructions in the message to
email
someone else, then have to copy and paste that email address of
the actual
sender and send it that way).
Does not allow attachments.
Doesn't support emailing members outside the ward (involved non-
members).
Doesn't archive the messages.
Allows only plain-text formatting.
Only supports very restricted and buggy file-sharing on the site (I
believe the file has to be either pdf, doc, or xls and under 50K).
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