This month's newsletter contains: * A little bit of history, Part 3 * Getting to know us * What's New * Spam Blockers * On a Personal Note * Volunteer Stats A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY, Part 3 In January of 2002, we made our "debut" on the internet with our own home address, www.raogk.org. At this time, the back end of the site also changed. All volunteers and their information now resided in a database and the pages listing the volunteers were now presented "on the fly," even if the appearance of the pages appeared the same. Maintaining the site now became 90% easier, to the relief of the staff. This newsletter also debuted in January of 2002. The first newsletter went out to 5175 volunteers. Needless to say, the bounces brought about by sending out the first newsletter were quite a few in number, 364 to be exact. We knew we had a problem with volunteer's e-mail addresses bouncing, the first mailing really showed us how much. Three years later our numbers haven't reached the peak of 5175 (if you want to call that an official number) of volunteers, however the number of returns received when this newsletter goes out is now below 40 most of the time. A great improvement. March is our anniversary month, we have been online for 6 years now. The site has grown and our ability to service both the requesters and the volunteers has also improved greatly. We hope to continue to be able to fine tune the site more in the future as the needs arise. However, the bottom line with RAOGK is -- if it wasn't for all you great volunteers, we would not be in existence. Thank you. GETTING TO KNOW US Have you ever wondered who the people behind the scenes are besides names at the bottom of each newsletter? All of us, except one, are just like you -- bitten by the genealogy bug and by becoming a volunteer and subsequently a staff member trying to "pass on" the kindness shown to us by others. So I thought I would highlight a member or two of the staff in this and future issues of the newsletter. William (Bill) Silliman Handles KS, KY, LA, ME, MD MA, MI, MN, MS, MO NM, NY, NC, ND, OH Bill has the distinction of being the only male on staff. Let me clarify that one, only male that handles the day to day routine duties of a staff member who updates areas. Of course, everyone knows the other male is our tech guru, Doc. Bill graduated from high school in Oswego, NY and joined the Naval reserves in 1953, he went active duty in 1956 and got out in 1959. He and his wonderful wife of 49 years have three children and three grand types and since 1956 live in Onslow Co., NC. Bill's last job, before retiring 5 years ago, was manager of a computer store and all other jobs entailed in running such. Besides genealogy his biggest hobby is his veggie gardens (4 or 5 going at a time). Over the winter he has been renovating his house, and says it is mostly done, but wanting spring/summer to arrive to get his hands dirty again. WHAT'S NEW Two announcements in this area. FIRST Any request made of a volunteer through the online form is now logged and on file. This capability was initiated at 2300 CST on January 23. What does this mean to you? We have had quite a few volunteers write to us after their hard drives have crashed or their mail programs were corrupted in some way and all their requests were lost asking if we had copies of them. Previously, the volunteer was out of luck, however, we now can provide those requests that were made after January 23rd. Just how many requests go through our system per month? Check out the stats for March below in the stats area. We have the capability to monitor the requests to catch those folks who love to make the same exact request to all the volunteers in one area at the same time. Some monitoring is being done now, but not on a daily basis. This task would be best assigned to one individual staff member, but I don't have anyone to spare for this. Any volunteers to take this on? If so, please write to me at raogk@raogk.org. SECOND We are always looking for a way to defray the cost of running this site out of our own wallets. One was is the straight out support page (http://www.raogk.org/support.html) and the other are the Google Ads placed at the top of every page (we get paid so much when someone clicks on one of the ads). Even though those two efforts are helping, we are always keeping our eyes open to other possibilities. A third avenue has now opened up. We are proud to announce that the Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness online store is now opened for business. We are selling items with our logo on them such as tote bags, t-shirts, bumper stickers, license plate frames, mugs, caps and more. We will be adding new items as time permits, and your comments (and sales) will be most appreciated. Come visit us at: http://www.raogk.org/store SPAM BLOCKERS Spam has become the bane of all e-mail account holders, and fighting this avalanche of unwanted intrusions into our life style has become a major priority. Many ISP's (Internet Service Providers) have installed spam filters on their mail servers. The levels of ability to detect spam are different with each program installed and within the same program itself. The nature of our service to others will sometimes put us in conflict with these spam filters. In the past month I have noticed an increase of this conflict. Without picking on Earthlink, I will use them as a recent example. Earthlink.net has an excellent spam filter, it does however have 3 levels of filtering. New folks who get online and use them or new subscribers to their service seem to feel that the highest level of "protection" is the way to go. Most of those users do not realize that they are blocking good mail as well. Unless a correspondent is already "white listed" by the user, anyone corresponding with the user for the first time receives a return message apologizing for any inconvenience, but you need to click on a link at the bottom of the e- mail to get your message through. Now, 95% of the time, my thoughts are "hog wash, forget it," and don't bother with clicking on the link. For years now we have been trying to stress to newcomers to the internet not to click on any link contained in e-mails from someone they don't know. So now comes phishing, and you can not even trust links contained in e-mail from your bank. In Earthlink's infinite wisdom (?), they are using software that calls for someone to do something that they have been warned not to do. Go figure. To make a long story short, if you are a volunteer and you have the ability to put spam filters on your mail coming in, please do not choose "max" coverage for this filter. Medium coverage should do nicely. Also, as a volunteer, if you should respond to a requester's first message and receive such a notice, it is up to you whether you want to go that extra step or not, we will not fault you if you do not do so. PERSONAL NOTE On Monday, April 4, RAOGK's Tech Guru (and my hubby) will be going in for back surgery. If you should write to staff (or me personally) on that day, or a few days after, please be patient on getting a response. Please keep him in your prayers. Thanks. CURRENT STATS Last month: 4607 This month: 4598 New: 135 Left: 76 Staff removals: 49 March Requests (to 1700 CST 31 Mar 2005): 9,556 USA volunteers received: 8,461 NON-USA volunteers received: 1,095 *Staff removals are those folks whose e-mail address has been reported bouncing and confirmed or volunteers who, over the course of trying many times, did not respond back to requesters or staff. Kudos for February: (http://www.raogk.org/thanks/) Until next month. . . . . . . THE STAFF Bridgett, Michele, Bill, Madlyn, Anja, Terri and Doc, the Tech Guru