Problems with email broadcast system

[mkmurray]

Both addresses may be owned by the same person. You may have to contact the individual to see if that is the situation. It is possible to receive a message using one address and reply using another. Just consider e-mail forwarding, disposable e-mail addresses and techniques for disguising e-mail addresses.

In situations where I get requests such as the one you recieved to have their name removed from 'my' mailing list I respond with a message like this. "I am sorry for the inconvenience caused. You are receiving these messages because you have elected to belong to the group list(s) at your unit's web site for which these messages were sent. You can remove yourself from these group lists by editing your user profile for you unit's web site. Only you can edit your user profile and make these changes. It is not accessible by web site administrators. To edit you user profile ..." I then explain the procedure to edit a user profile.

Actually, I gathered from BDalton's comments that he has talked to this individual in person and he/she supposedly wants the emails delivered. But the reply came from someone else not wanting to receive emails (perhaps someone not even of our faith).

Although, it could be that this individual has a severe case of split personality!

[techgy]

Both addresses may be owned by the same person. You may have to contact the individual to see if that is the situation. It is possible to receive a message using one address and reply using another. Just consider e-mail forwarding, disposable e-mail addresses and techniques for disguising e-mail addresses.

In situations where I get requests such as the one you recieved to have their name removed from 'my' mailing list I respond with a message like this. "I am sorry for the inconvenience caused. You are receiving these messages because you have elected to belong to the group list(s) at your unit's web site for which these messages were sent. You can remove yourself from these group lists by editing your user profile for you unit's web site. Only you can edit your user profile and make these changes. It is not accessible by web site administrators. To edit you user profile ..." I then explain the procedure to edit a user profile.

I must be missing something here. If I was the individual to whom a message was sent from my ward and I received an Email at an address that I don't use for church Emails, I'd probably reply with a friendlier Email and simply ask them to change the address. The response you received sounds more like someone doesn't know what's going on and is getting a bit upset. I don't believe that the problem would be at HQ since it would be happening to hundreds of accounts and would most likely be noticed. These issues sound like isolated cases and the chances are good that it's at the members end.

There's two places to check for this error. One is in the member's profile and the other is in the MLS record with the ward clerk.

[aebrown]

There's two places to check for this error. One is in the member's profile and the other is in the MLS record with the ward clerk.

Actually, there's only one place. The MLS record has absolutely nothing to do with the e-mail that is sent from the LUWS. So look at the e-mail address that is in the member's LUWS profile -- that must be where the incorrect e-mail address has been entered.

[mkmurray]

Actually, there's only one place. The MLS record has absolutely nothing to do with the e-mail that is sent from the LUWS. So look at the e-mail address that is in the member's LUWS profile -- that must be where the incorrect e-mail address has been entered.

I also believe the email addresses in MLS are only stored locally on that one computer and not transmitted to Church HQ in anyway (but maybe to the Stake), is this correct?

[aebrown]

I also believe the email addresses in MLS are only stored locally on that one computer and not transmitted to Church HQ in anyway (but maybe to the Stake), is this correct?

E-mail addresses do get transmitted from ward MLS to stake MLS (which means they do pass through Church HQ), but I don't think they are stored actively at CHQ.

[russellhltn]

The response you received sounds more like someone doesn't know what's going on and is getting a bit upset.

There are any number of possibilities:

1) It's a member who doesn't understand what's going on. (Remember, the email appears to come from the sender, not from the church. A typical member may not know the web site admin person at all. Especially not a stake admin.)

2) It's an inactive member who is no longer interested in the church.

3) A member no longer uses that email address and someone else signed up with the ISP and chose the old member's screen name.

4) A member mis-typed their email address and it's going to someone with no relation to the church.

About the only thing an Admin can do is deactivate the account. Short of impersonating the member and doing a password reset, there's no way for an admin to be able to change that email setting.

So I think the only practical thing to do is deactivate the account and send a email to the member's bishop to find out what's going on.

[russellhltn]

P.S. This may have been brought up before. Form prior messages I understand the LUWS design that prevents Admins from entering or altering the email address is deliberate.

However, if an Admin gets a angry reply from the owner of the email address to no longer receive emails, the admin needs some tools to do that. I hope this is considered as LUWS 2.0 is designed.

[lajackson]

P.S. This may have been brought up before. Form prior messages I understand the LUWS design that prevents Admins from entering or altering the email address is deliberate.

Which is why I do not use the feature. I must have an extremely compelling reason to use something over which I have no control, especially when it gives me undeserved grief.

I suggest that the Administrator be given an option to disable the e-mail address. I do not care if I can enter or change it. In fact, I agree that I would not want to do anything with the address other than to disable it.

After the e-mail address is disabled, it would be nice if the member received a notice that the e-mail address had been disabled. This could be flagged to happen the next time the member logged in.

I would be happy for them to be able to re-enable their e-mail address without my assistance.

But, until then, I will not willingly subject myself to dozens of e-mail messages of grief.

[techgy]

Actually, there's only one place. The MLS record has absolutely nothing to do with the e-mail that is sent from the LUWS. So look at the e-mail address that is in the member's LUWS profile -- that must be where the incorrect e-mail address has been entered.

This is true,however, I suggested the MLS record because it's often overlooked when members change their Email. When a ward/stake directory is printed, and the member has configured his profile to show their Email address, it's the address that's stored in the MLS that get's printed and if this is incorrect, it can also lead to someone sending an Email to the wrong place.

[bdalton]

I just got an email message from someone asking to be removed from my list and to "stop swamp me with your email immediately!!!!"

This was in reply to a "news and information" notification from the ward web site. The return address in the reply was -----@aol.com, but the address in the email I sent to our ward member was -----@aim.com. Any ideas? Does the mail server occasionally "correct" an email address and send it out to .aol when it should have gone to .aim? The person in our ward with the .aim address wants to receive email, but I really don't want to continue sending accidental mail to the aol address.

Please help!
- Brad

I think I may have resolved the split personality problem. It seems if you have an AIM address, you also have the corresponding AOL address. I just created an AIM account and sent messages to that address at @AOL.COM and @AIM.COM and I received both messages. That would explain the different addresses. The split personality has not been confirmed yet, but we suspect their grandson (a disgruntled member) was using their email account and took it upon himself to request removal from the list. Thank you all for your help and suggestions.

I'd still like to know if there is a solution to the problem of email broadcasts from the ward web site only being successfully delivered about a third of the time.

Thanks again.
- Brad