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I have been working on the site this weekend.


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  • Forum CEO

Last year I was getting complaints that people were not getting the email notifications they subscribed to for followed topics, they were not getting notified of private messages, and new members never received the validation email so they could not register.  I studied the problem and tested the email system.  Turns out the email server software I was using did not have email validation so VFRD emails were going strait to the spam box or being blocked completely.  To fix this I started using sparkpost email validation, It worked for the last year.  However now they shrunk the size of free emails to 500 a month, and to upgrade it was another $14 bucks a month just to send emails? 

 

I thought to myself is vfrd really sending out that many emails? so I poured thru the logs to see if somehow the server got hacked...no it did not people really did have that many subscriptions.   So when It reached 500 emails poof cut off! So I was back to my original problem.  A few months back I rebuilt the server completely to comply with the ever changing forum software, this time I used plesk server software instead of the old server software I had been using before, plesk is built for hosting several sites and is very powerful but its alot of architecture and runs a bit slower, however it has a nice email platform, that "low and behold" has email validation built into it.  So I spent most the night trying to get this plesk email thing to work, cause it just would not work...finally success its sending emails and they are not being bounced....so far!  I also started sending out a weekly newsletter with current topics, classifieds, downloads, and of course the featured bike of the day. Why not? Maybe some long time users who have not been on for a while might see something interesting and come back and rejoin our community.  As usual VFRD is a member supported website with no commercial advertising. 

 

I hope this improves email thruput and people get the notifications they need now.  I hope the newsletter is useful too, still polishing up that part of my work. let me know your thoughts on the newsletter, too many too little hate it dont hate it, I need to put in unsubsribe links but as of now its not working, I am not sure why that part is not working, its just prints out "unsubscribe" and no stinking link? Work continues.

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  • Member Contributer

Hey HS... I'm one of those long time users that haven't logged in for a long time.

 

Happy to be getting emails again!

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I’ll stop calling CornerCarver bad names for not responding to PM’s.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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  • Forum CEO

Well so far I have had 5 people tell me to delete their accounts!  Resolves 5 old accounts anyway! I did add an unsubscribe link, I had to manually add that since the tool did not work for unsubscribe, and I also added a link to your settings so you can do more with your account as well.  I thought there was a way to delete your own account but that was an older version of the forum, I cant find it?  You can also unfollow content other then the newsletter.  I am going to keep publishing the newsletter once a week unless i get bombarded with hate mail. 5 so far is not so bad, these people havent logged in for years and no longer even ride.  I understand, us hoodlums still ride vfrs! Sore and our back hurts but we still ride! I am just trying to bring vfrd back to life a little.  Oh and sorry for the double publish thing, I did not realize clicking publish would send out a whole new copy, there is a difference between publish and enable! opps.

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  • Member Contributer

HS for President!!!

 

 

And once this cornona has subsided, hop onto Airforce One and I will let you ride my RC51.

Bring Timmythecop as security advisor; I will feed him saucijzenbroodjes... 

Och hell, bring the entire VFRD crew over; I've got plenty single malt whisky and bog rolls :goofy:

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  • Member Contributer

Seconded!

I've been so caught up in "business" these last few years that I lost track of y'all.   😔

 

I'm so happy to be getting those newsletters to poke me and show me what I'm missing! 

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  • Member Contributer

Thank you Miguel!

 

Really appreciate what you do to maintain and improve VFRD, it is a great site--visuals, content, and some great contributors. All this from someone who is currently "between" VFR's.

 

How's the budget for 2020? Please let us know if we should throw some money in the pot.

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  • Member Contributer

Thanks HS for the prod.  Life had taken me away from VFRD for some time, but not my viffer - it asked me no questions needing help, so I got out of the habit of visiting the site.

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  • Forum CEO
On 3/18/2020 at 7:38 AM, Blesk said:

Seconded!

I've been so caught up in "business" these last few years that I lost track of y'all.   😔

 

I'm so happy to be getting those newsletters to poke me and show me what I'm missing! 

I was not sure how it would go over, but now that I have added controls so people can opt out its bringing back some long time members who have forgotten about us.. Glad to see some familiar names in the online list this week.

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  • Forum CEO

I was having issues with mails sent from the server not validating the domain name and so are being marked as invalidated.  I think I have that fixed now, I hope.  I would hate to see mails getting blocked and losing connectivity.  I tested several today this morning and some bounced back as invalid and so i did some research and added some more spam controls and domain checks so I hope its fixed now. 

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  • Forum CEO

This newsletter is exposing alot of things wrong with the server that I have been able to get fixed in the last week.  It also exposed a lot of bum email addresses from members who are no longer active, I will be using my logs to prune old accounts with undeliverable mails  mailbox unavailable, this should also make the database sleeker and faster. 

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