The only information required is your email address. As always, I will only use this to send the free gout newsletter, and never pass it on to anyone else.

I am transfering existing subscribers to the new list, and this will need to be confirmed. If you are an existing subscriber, you will get an email within the next day or two to tell you that you have been added to the new list. You must click on the link to confirm your free subscription, or you will not be sent the newsletter.

I am writing a newsletter over the next few days to coincide with the relaunch of the main GoutPal.com site under it's new format.

Let me take a moment to thank you for raising the privacy issue.

I've thought long and hard, and realised that the newsletter needs to retain it's old distribution method with as much anonimity as possible.

I'm going to stop messing around with fancy services like the Groupsites one I considered, and switch it to a simple list server. This wil take a couple of days to set up (which with me, probably means a week).

You will still see references to the Groupsites service for a day or so, but I will change these, and switch all GoutCaster subscribers to the new list.

Thanks again guys.

Keith

I never had any intention to include anything from this forum automatically in the GoutCaster Newsletter. I hope I have put your mind at rest, zip2play.

That is all  that I require. My worry arose when I clicked the proferred link to the newsletter sample in your initial posting and there, running down the right column, were the recent word for word recent postings, including of course MINE with attribution to zip2play. THus I thought that forum posts were going to be automatically included in GoutCaster. If that is not the case, then I am okay with your plan. 

I know full well that a bulletin board is completely public and post accordingly and any PRIVATE section seems unnecessary. But an e-mail newsletter is a PUSH service (for want of a better word) sort of halfway between a bulletin board and a NEWSPAPER and I don't want to participate in distributing MY thoughts that way (or I'd have done it myself long ago.)

My thoughts, freely posted on the bulletin board, can be used in the newsletter if you wish as long as there is no attribution to ME,  in it. To be precise I don't want the word (if it can be called a word) ”zip2play” to appear anywhere in it.

My experience with newsletters, I get several, is that while they often seems such a good idea to subscribe to are an endless stream of detritus that soon get to be a bore requiring endless deletions from e-mail. What we may have interested us in 2000 can get pretty boring on a daily basis by 2009. Remember, one man's idea of interesting news,  can readily be viewed by another as SPAM.

GoutPal.com is easy enough to find for anyone googling gout. Why not consider leaving it as is? or expandinf it into a more accessible, less creaky bulletin board, And it is a wonderful idea to continue making it tedious for posters who come in casually as GUEST to do much. If someone wants the information or has something to contribute, then he should be willing to register to put in SOME input. I guess that's a way of my saying that I am only interested in communicating people who are actually INTERESTED and interested AT THE MOMENT.

An endless supply of newsletters pushed into thousands of letterboxes does not provide that kind of communication  because it is ONE WAY, aka preaching.

(I must say part of this is MY fault because no objections would have arisen had I not used my OLD, OLD screen name and chosen one more anonymous and unique to this board. But if I could see the future I'd have a stock portfolio worth $trillions!)

That said, Forwarned is For-armed! - I can't afford a good enough lawyer!

A private section is an EXCELLENT  idea GP. Any complaints can instantly be dealt with by coralling the item. Then it is a privacy matter and can be covered by a general disclaimer.

[The truth is not yet illegal.]

My main concern was in the tracking cookies that HAVE to be accepted to be on the new site and the fact that 3rd party privacy through any links can't be assured.

This because the whole site is based on market profiling info. This would not be addressed by the opt out I posted, and needs some further thought and clarification.

Seen what Google is worth lately?

zip2play said:

Post edited 2:45 pm – October 24, 2009 by zip2play

I am of two (or  18) minds on this subject.

Can I presume that what we post on the Gout Pal forum will be sent into 2700 e-mail boxes on a daily or weekly basis?

No, the GoutCaster newsletter is entirely separate from this forum. There will not be automatic inclusion of anything posted here, though I have occasionally made reference to forum posts. When I have done that, either in the newsletter, or on GoutPal.com, I have not made any reference to individuals.

If so, I must admit, it makes me a bit uneasy because a lot of what I have posted is personal information that I freely gave to those who made the positive effort to come to this site. A lot of my advice was given to a single person in a unique situation and some in a rather casual way. Had I thought I was writing for a huge audience my postings might have very well been more thought out or skipped entirely.

This worries me, zip2play. This has always been a public forum, open to anyone on the Internet. It has always been my intention to make gout information as freely available as possible. I totally abhor the type of website that charges an arm and a leg for some so-called "secret relief for gout sufferers". This forum, and my other information articles are my way of trying to make it impossible for such charlatans to operate, though obviously, my first objective is that anyone who seeks gout help can have it - for free.

I do not have words to describe your enormous contribution to this, and I must think very hard about the future of this forum. If I make it private, it dissuades many people who need help, but I cannot risk losing your contribution.

Would a private section of the forum allay your fears? Strictly members only, and you can have full moderation rights to exclude anyone you are not happy with.

I have written for pay for a newspaper in the past and, believe me, every word was parsed from several angles before publication. THis is VERY differenct from bulletin board posting and it might be wise to keep the two separate.

But I'll think harder on it.

edit:

I've THUNK. Since my name is not completely anonymous and I have excoriated doctors, drug companies, “quackery” as I've seen it, treatment methodologies. etc., I would very much object to any of my posts being included in a newsletter sent out as e-mail. It could cause me harm.

 I would ask that if the project is undertaken in this manner that all my posts be removed before any general distribution. If it were just a matter off a few posts the matter would be trivial but I AM the major contributor.

If there is a problem about eliminating my posts from any planned e-mail distribution system, please tell me now because then I would have to choose to stop posting.

I may have caused some confusion, because I put the public feed to this forum on the newsletter promotion page. I only did this to let interested parties see the quality of debate that was available in these forums, in the hope that more might join in here. I have now deleted these feeds from the newsletter page.

Please note however that this forum remains completely public - the potential audience is still the entire population of the Internet. The actual audience is much higher than is suggested by the forum statistics near the foot of the page. This currently shows almost 600 members and almost 300 guest contributors, but there are thousands more who read these forums but do not contribute.

I never had any intention to include anything from this forum automatically in the GoutCaster Newsletter. I hope I have put your mind at rest, zip2play, though I should add that I think your insight and humor deserve a much wider audience. I shall firmly put out of my mind the inkling of an idea of an article on "The teachings of zip2play the gouty guru".

My main concern is: what to do next.

I can plug the hole for the future by starting the private forum I mentioned, but I remain worried if you are unhappy with your existing posts. They are public. They are indexed by search engines and linked to by other websites.

I'll have a think to see if I can come up with some solutions. All suggestions welcome.

trev said:

GP- have you thought about the marketing aspect of this move.

There's a lot of demographic info for a sign up and the clause in the privacy aggreement as follows ,can be applied if requested by you

“Groupsite Managers of Groupsite Pro accounts may also notify Groupsite.com if they wish their Groupsite members' addresses to be collectively suppressed from our newsletter distribution.”

Otherwise, I will not consider joining  it right now. I don't think there are any opt outs, otherwise.

* Always on the case !!

Thank you for bringing this to my attention, trev.

I've looked into it, and see that it refers to the previous paragraph in their policy. I.e., as well as distributing GoutCaster for me, they will also send their own newsletter, but you can opt out of this as an individual if you wish.

Personally, I think this is a small price to pay. As I have only just started this service, I have not seen their newsletter yet. I will look into it further, and test the views of my existing subscribers. I will see what their newsletter is like, and if it looks like it might detract from my own offering, then I will ask them to "collectively suppress" it.

Can I presume that what we post on the Gout Pal forum will be sent into 2700 e-mail boxes on a daily or weekly basis?

If so, I must admit, it makes me a bit uneasy because a lot of what I have posted is personal information that I freely gave to those who made the positive effort to come to this site. A lot of my advice was given to a single person in a unique situation and some in a rather casual way. Had I thought I was writing for a huge audience my postings might have very well been more thought out or skipped entirely.

I have written for pay for a newspaper in the past and, believe me, every word was parsed from several angles before publication. THis is VERY differenct from bulletin board posting and it might be wise to keep the two separate.

But I'll think harder on it.

edit:

I've THUNK. Since my name is not completely anonymous and I have excoriated doctors, drug companies, “quackery” as I've seen it, treatment methodologies. etc., I would very much object to any of my posts being included in a newsletter sent out as e-mail. It could cause me harm.

 I would ask that if the project is undertaken in this manner that all my posts be removed before any general distribution. If it were just a matter off a few posts the matter would be trivial but I AM the major contributor.

If there is a problem about eliminating my posts from any planned e-mail distribution system, please tell me now because then I would have to choose to stop posting.

There's a lot of demographic info for a sign up and the clause in the privacy aggreement as follows ,can be applied if requested by you

"Groupsite Managers of Groupsite Pro accounts may also notify Groupsite.com if they wish their Groupsite members' addresses to be collectively suppressed from our newsletter distribution."

Otherwise, I will not consider joining  it right now. I don't think there are any opt outs, otherwise.

* Always on the case !!

Although it offers much more than just a newsletter distribution service, that part of it seems to work very well. Of course, I have not been able to test with my full subscriber base yet, but the results are good enough to convince me that the Groupsites service is the way to go.

I am now changing all the subscription references on the old GoutPal.com site, so that any new subscribers join the new service. Once complete, I will send a final email from the old service informing of the change and switch all subscribers to the new email.

Finally, I will publish a new issue of GoutCaster to celebrate the move, with some juicy GoutPal exclusives.

Then, I should be able to find more time to keep on top of the fantastic discussions that are springing up all over these forums.

Finding a service that can handle 2700 plus subscribers is not trivial but I think I have found a good solution. If you have a few moments to spare, I would appreciate you checking out the new service and adding your views here before I switch to this new service.

I will save my own views until later, so that I do not introduce any bias.

Please use this form to register

N.B. I have changed this service since the original post. This is the new form.

Or check the GoutCaster subscription page.