This month's newsletter contains: * IN RETROSPECT * FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS * FROM THE TECHIE DESK * OUR SEMI-ANNUAL PLEA * CURRENT STATS IN RETROSPECT 2005 has been an up and down year for all of us. RAOGK has blossomed and parts of it has improved, and will continue to improve in 2006. RAOGK will have been online for 7 years in March of 2006 and I am amazed that it is still as popular as it was in the beginning. New this year for RAOGK: * Requests being sent in through the site. This ability took everyone's e-mail address out of harvester's way. You should not be getting any spam because your e-mail address was grabbed off the site and sold, especially if you are brand new to the site since March 1, 2005. If a volunteer has lost a request, we have the ability to hunt it down and send it on to them. We now have the ability to gently remind them NOT to send the same request to more than one volunteer in the same area in a very short time frame I'm a number cruncher, and this ability allows me to be able to find out how much the site is actually used, not just how many people visit by the number of requests sent out. If we had a buck for every request sent through our site, we'd be rich . * Three and a half new staff members. Why one-half? Because one staff member came on board in December of 2004, however, really didn't get rolling real good until January. Two folks were brought on board to keep track of duplicate messages mentioned above, and the last person brought on due to a serious illness of another staff member. * Two new stores where the revenues generated from them help with the cost of maintaining the site and keeping it online (well they will when they take off). The one disappointment? A cookbook that didn't sell too well. Links to these stores are: The RAOGK logo store: http://www.raogk.org/store?pid=2851439&tid=news12 Genealogy For You Shop (general genealogy): http://www.genealogyforyou.com/shop?pid=2851439&tid=news12 Until January 9 there is a "Post Holiday Blow-out" sale going on: Ornaments $2 off Coupon Code: BIG2 Greeting Cards and Wall Calendars $4 off Coupon Code: BIG4 Sweatshirts, Tracksuits & Hoodies $5 off Coupon Code:BIG5 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS The FAQ's for Requesters were updated on December 15, 2005. You may want to go read them http://www.raogk.org/faq-requesters.htm . The main change is to the time frame in reporting of volunteers who do not respond back. This is still our biggest complaint. I want to stress at this time, that we check out all complaints before we delete a volunteer for non-response. FROM THE TECHIE DESK We have quite a few volunteers who are AOL subscribers. Because of this, AOL subscribers can be one of our worst headaches when it comes to our mailing lists (raogk-announce aka newsletter, RAOGK-L and RAOGK-Chat). And 95% of the time it isn't even the fault of the subscriber, but AOL's method of treating messages that hit the subscriber's spam mail folder. If AOL sees a volume of reports that the mail coming from @raogk.org is marked as spam, they will block our servers from sending mail to AOL users. The below is from our techie, who pulls what is left of his hair out when he gets a spam report from AOL: For those of you who use AOL as your main mail you need to be aware of what happens if you get a RAOGK mail in your spam folder. You need to highlight that mail and click on "This is not Spam." Also you should ADD the mailing list address to your Address Book to prevent a false report. Do this BEFORE you delete or move the message(s) to your inbox folder. AOL will report any mail in the spam folder that is just moved or deleted as spam. So it is important to "train" your AOL spam filters. Also if you are going to be gone for a few days and you're on either RAOGK-L or RAOGK-CHAT lists you should follow the link at the bottom of every messages that says: An example: This is being sent to: youraddress@aol.com Raogk-l mailing list Raogk-l@raogk.org http://lists.raogk.org/mailman/listinfo/raogk-l Once there scroll to the bottom of that page to where is says: "To unsubscribe from Raogk-l, get a password reminder, or change your subscription options enter your subscription email address:" Fill in your e-mail address and click on "Unsubscribe or Edit options." You can also have the mail system send you your password if you have mis-placed it. Once your logged in there what you want is called " Mail delivery." Set this to "Disabled" then scroll to the bottom and click Submit my changes. Once you come back from your "Vacation" just go back through this same procedure to "Enable" your mail subscription. I know it sounds complicated but it really is quite simple. And protects your subscription from being removed for reporting the lists as spam. Note: Information about RAOGK-L: http://lists.raogk.org/mailman/listinfo/raogk-l Information about RAOGK-Chat: http://lists.raogk.org/mailman/listinfo/raogk-chat OUR SEMI-ANNUAL PLEA From time to time I mention those kind-hearted folks who have sent support for the site our way. Every little bit helps and to see a list of those who have sent funds you can do so by going to http://www.raogk.org/supporters.html. If you would like to see your name listed on this page, you can follow the directions at http://www.raogk.org/support.html. CURRENT STATS Last month: 4384 This month: 4341 New: 49 Left: 45 Staff removals*: 47 December Requests (through December 30, 2005): USA volunteers received: 4415 NON-USA volunteers received: 548 *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 December: 64 (through December 30, 2005) (http://www.raogk.org/thanks/) The STAFF would like to wish you a great 2006, with many genealogy break throughs. THE STAFF Bridgett, Michele, Bill, Anja, Terri, Nancy, Bobbi, Jo and Doc, the Tech Guru