Matt Dralle Site Admin
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Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 25204 Location: Livermore CA USA
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Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:10 am Post subject: [Please Read] Why I Have A Fund Raiser... |
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Dear Listers,
Each year I like to explain why I have a Fund Raiser and also take the opportunity to express why I think the List Services here provide a superior experience over the commercial equivalents.
I use the List Fund Raiser each year to offset the costs involved with running a high performance email list site such as this one. With the annual support from the List members through the PBS-like Fund Raiser, I have found I can run the entire site without having to inflect any of the members with those annoying banner ads flashing up all the time trying to sell little-blue-pills or other garbage nobody wants or needs. From the comments I've received over the years regarding the Lists, the great majority of the members really appreciate the non-commercialism of my List systems and don't mind my 'go-team-go' banter once a year during November to encourage members to support the Lists.
I believe that the Lists services that I provide here offer many benefits over the commercial equivalents in a number of ways. The first feature I believe to be significant is that you cannot receive a computer v*rus from any of these Lists directly. Each incoming message is filtered and dangerous attachments stripped off prior to posting. I also provide a Photo and File Share feature that allows members to share files and bitmaps with other members and everyone can be assured that these files will be prescanned for any sort of v*rus before they are posted. More recently, I have enabled limited posting of a number of file formats including pictures and PDFs.
Another very important feature of this system in my opinion is the extensive List Archives that are available for download, browsing, and searching. The Archives go all the way back to the very beginning of each List and with the very fast Search Engine, the huge size of some of the Archives is a non-issue in quickly finding the data you're looking for.
And added just a couple of years ago is the new Email List Forum that allows members who prefer the Web BBS-style of List interaction. The beauty of the new List Forums is that they contain the exact same content that is distributed via email. Messages posted via email are cross-posted to the respective Forum and vice versa. The Forums also allow for another convenient method of sharing pictures and other files (http://forums.matronics.com ). Additionally, added recently is the List Wiki that allows members to build their own "Online List Encyclopedia" of sorts, documenting various aspects of their project for all to share ( http://wiki.matronics.com ).
I've been running email Lists and services under the matronics.com domain since about 1989 starting with RV-List and 30 guys I knew and who where also building RVs. It has grown into nearly 70 different aviation-related Email Lists and an associated web site that receives over 34,000,000 hits each year!! Additionally, the List Email system forwarded well over 77,000 postings last year, accounting for an unbelievable 33,000,000 (yes, that's 33 MILLION) email messages delivered to Matronics List subscribers! I think there's a lot of value in supporting a service that has gone the long haul and is still providing and improving a high quality service all _without any advertising budget_!
I have to admit running these Lists is a labor of love and I hope it shows in the quality of the experience that you receive when you get a List Email Message, Search the Archives, use the List Browser, or surf the Forums and Wiki sites. The Lists will be here for a long time to come. If you just want to lurk a while for free, that's great and I encourage you to do so. If you use, appreciate, and receive value from these Lists, then please support them during the Annual List Fund Raiser!
List Contribution Web Site:
http://www.matronics.com/contribution
Thank you,
Matt Dralle
Matronics Email List Administrator
| - The Matronics EZ-List Email Forum - | | Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:
http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?EZ-List |
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_________________ Matt Dralle
Matronics Email List Administrator |
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