Class Launches Newsletter

How will you know when Classmates add content to the website?

It might be a article of broad interest or it could be a “Memories and Observations” post someone wrote.

As of October 2017, the new “Yale1969 Newsletter” will email summaries of all new website content to all active Classmates.  That way, no one will miss being notified about new content.

“Community websites live and die by the engagement of their users,” said Harry Forsdick (PC), co-webmaster of Yale1969.org.  Harry should know. In 1969, his first job was as a software engineer with the firm that created the internet!  “It’s easy to forget to check a site — and then a vicious cycle sets in: Readership declines, so authors are less inclined to add good content, which discourages readers who return, which further depresses traffic, and so on.”

If, on the other hand, the website notifies interested readers of interesting new content, they will return, read, enjoy and maybe even “engage” by leaving comments or adding a post of their own.

The Yale1969 Newsletter will notify Classmates about new content by emailing “summaries” of articles recently published in an easy-to-digest “Newsletter” format.

Finding The Goldilocks Frequency

“The real question is how frequently to send the Yale1969 Newsletter … and how many posts to put in it,” said co-webmaster Wayne Willis (JE),  “More frequent publication makes the newsletter shorter and the content fresher; but you don’t want to become a spammer like Facebook.”

The current plan is to publish monthly, but to accelerate the schedule anytime there is either a large number of posts or content that’s time-sensitive.  “In an optimal world, there shouldn’t be more than 8 “post summaries” in an single newsletter,” said Willis. “So we may need to publish faster than monthly once more Classmates start adding their own content.”

Memories and Observations Posts

Classmates are still getting acclimated to the website and learning how to update their profiles.  So, not many Classmates are creating “Memories & Observations” posts on their own.  But when they do, the number of posts in a given month or fortnight will grow in number.

If any Classmate wants to reduce the number of posts in each Newsletter, he can change his subscription options (at the bottom of his “edit Profile” page) from “All Posts, Class-wide” to “Just My College, Major and Activities“.  That way, he’ll only get Memories & Observations posts that relate to his college, major or extracurricular activities.

Regardless of which subscription option he chooses, he’ll still get class-wide posts that appear on the Home page — News, Class Notes, Potpourri, In Memoriam and Announcements.

Of course, if anyone doesn’t want to receive the Newsletter at all, he can unsubscribe at any time – just “edit profile” and select “None” at the bottom of that page.

Comments Are Handled Differently

At the bottom of most posts, you can read and/or leave “Comments”.  Everyone is encouraged to do so!

New comments will NOT be reported in the Newsletter.  Rather, there’s a “Follow Comments” button near the Comments area at the bottom of each post.  If you press that button, you get a personal email if/when someone leaves a comment on that post.

So, if you read something you like, be sure to press “Follow Comments” so you can see what other people say about it.

Willis summarized, “The webmasters and the Reunion Committee had to make a policy decision about notifying Classmates when there was new content on the website.  Basically, all active Classmates were automatically subscribed to the Newsletter, and they can unsubscribe (that is, opt out) if they want. That way, virtually everyone will see when new posts are published.

“But in order to ‘Follow Comments,'” Willis continued, “the Classmate will need to ‘opt in‘ on any post they care about.  We think this is the right balance of notifying folks about content of interest without flooding their inboxes with email notifications.”