On the subject of ward e-mail, here's my 2 cents. Our ward is not active with the lds.org remailer, either. I have not seen one that is -- other than those with unofficial e-mail lists on their PCs. At first, church e-mail was seen as a novelty and a few early adopters and the leaders logged on. Since not many were using it, most now ignore it. Occasionally, I get a few notifications that the calendar has been updated, but nothing important.
Most people that I know have internet access and are very comfortable with e-mail, signing up for lists, etc. Still, they don't use the church's e-mail system. Why? We're discussing it like it is a technology issue, when it is more likely a user experience issue. If there are lost e-mails, then that needs to be fixed, but I don't think that's at the core of the issue. When someone goes to Amazon.com or researches genealogy at genealogy.com or somewhere like that, they can simply log on. However, with the church's system, you must remember on a frantic Sunday to meet with your ward clerk (who's usually busy or disappeared), ask for your membership number and your date of confirmation. While both are personally unique, they are simply hard to [remember] to get. If you forget on one week, then you must remember on the next. After a few weeks of forgetting, then users simply lose interest. **I'm not sure if there is a better way (i.e., at least as secure) to authenticate users, but this seems to be the real deterrent.** Here are some alternative ideas: 1) Would it be possible to log in and setup your account from your clerk's terminal? 2) Could a member simply ask the clerk to 'enable' their account for them to log in? (without their membership # and such) 3) Could a member ask the clerk to send an 'invitation' to subscribe to a member's personal e-mail account? This could then be authenticated by the user via their personal e-mail -- kind of like subscribing to the LDSOSS and other news lists. I applaud the intent of security with the current system (I am a security professional), however, it does seem like a deterrent for most [non-tech industry] users. Option #3 would streamline the process and make it simpler and easier for users to subscribe. Other ideas? Thanks, Steve _______________________________________________ Ldsoss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
