When a classmate uses the Missing Classmate menu, they can Invite this missing classmate to join the website by entering their email address known to that researching classmate.

The problem, nothing gets sent to myself as Root Administrator with the Missing Classmate name and previously unknown email address. Sample below:

We have a website now at http://www.AnadarkoHS60.com/ - please join us and reunite with your Warriors!

To change or discontinue these email notifications manage your Notify Me settings.

I know we do not want name and email privacy floating around in the email system, but since the sending classmate is in the website, couldn't we somehow "capture" the name/email information internally, and post message to the Root Administrator as the ONLY one able to view this information. This could be one more tool to expand our class list to others unknown.

We have discussed this previously (internally) and decided that because the email being sent to the recipient as an invitation is to an email address that is 1. not a confirmed email address, and 2. had not previously been obtained by the admin, we would not store such information. Furthermore, if the email does indeed result in a new member, you would eventually get that email address anyway.

That makes sense. But what I was after, assuming it is a valid email, Root Administrator has no way to "follow up" and "encourage" the person to join.

There is a high potential that the email sent is in fact valid (from a friend), but the classmate does not join, or doesn't get the email because sorted as junk, etc.

At least, by saving the 'suspected' email address, the Root Admin would have some level of a 'hint' to further search for the classmate.

In the existing email, the potential classmate member does not even know what friend sent him/her the email, which puts it in to a high probability for Outlook or whatever to identify it as Junk.

This comes up from time to time. Seems like a perfectly valid request doesn't it? If it weren't for the way email works in 2013 I'd say yes in a heartbeat. Here's the problem though:

First, today having that box at all is risky. In fact we may wind up having to remove it. The problem is we're letting anyone send out unsolicited email to any email address. On rare occasions somebody turns these emails in to their own provider as spam, who turns it in to our Dallas Data Center, and each time that happens we have to respond in writing as to why we're allowing unsolicited emails to go out from our system. In yesteryear the rules weren't so stringent.

Right now this isn't happening enough that it's a huge issue, but the problem is doing something like the request above magnifies the risk considerably. I realize you, Derrell Pulis, is likely to be respectful if you had these email addresses. Although potentially Derrell even sending even 1 could cause a problem. If the person didn't want the first invite they received, now they're receiving even more from you. It only takes a small fraction of people for this to become a huge problem.

But the risk gets worse: If we make these email addresses available to ALL admins, now they can start emailing to these addresses 1, 2, 3, 10 times for all we know. I.E. one unsolicited email after another -- all from obtaining addresses you had no other way to get (or you'd already have it) but to get it from somebody who didn't intend to give it to you (or at least didn't know they were giving it to you). Bob might know Bill's email address, but Bob doesn't know that auto inviting Bill is going to give the email address directly to Derrell, who in turn is going to send another 10 invites if the classmate doesn't show up on the site (again, just hypothetical here).

Bottom line we're taking a confidential email address held by one party, and then giving it to another party, with no knowledge about this to the first party who sent out the auto invite. This breaks all email ethics rules and puts us at great risk when the setup as it stands now has already become risky in the modern email world. Thus final analysis is the risk barrier is too large to entertain this request.

Brad Switzer wrote:

You are working with the existing wording where that is not disclosed. All that needs to be done is full disclosure. Then no ethics rules are broken

Explain very clearly to the admins receiving this (just like you did now) that they need to be cautious with repeated unsolicited emails for the reasons given.

Don't see a problem if all that is clearly explained. CC is making presumptions that should be decided by the admins. Isn't the goal to make contacting "missing" as easy as possible?

I think this has been over thought from a technical perspective without thinking as a CC USER.

Although we could disclose, which you're right would be a step in the right direction, I have no way of stopping an admin from sending a second, third, fourth etc. email to an unsolicited address...

Again, I think this is unfortunate myself. But trust me, each time I have to fill out a written spam report supporting why we're allowing unsolicited email of ANY kind, it's not fun. Big hosts like the one we have in Dallas can cut you off entirely for doing this.

I did just think of one more thing (see ya got me thinkin' Jack). We could do both of the following:

1) Disclose we're giving out the email address to the admin
2) Not allow the admin to input that email address into the system. The admin would have to send invites from his or her own personal email address. There's simply no way we can allow the system to send repeated emails to somebody who didn't opt in for those emails.

My only concern is explaining this to admins (i.e. why they can't enter the email address that we just gave to them) -- it's a lot to take in. For those who want to click on and read a rather lengthy explanation, at least that would allow them to send emails to the address privately, removing all risk from Class Creator.

Still not sure I want to do it at all but that would certainly be far better. Thanks Jack.

Wow Brad!

Maybe you should just get rid of that button entirely.

Actually, and seriously, Facebook app will make the finding of classmates more feasible anyway. But we need to hurry to get Class Connection ready for Multiple Year websites. (Sorry, I couldn't resist that last sentence).

Heh. Well, I'll tell ya something Derrell (and being very honest here): Strictly financially speaking, the multi year system is not good for Class Creator. Way too many people, costs, issues, support, and only 1 person who pays. Not a huge deal as most classes here are single class, but this is definitely one of the reasons we're not launching multi year on Facebook at inception.

Briefly, what we're going to do is give all multi year admins their whole school at the same cost you're paying now. Once we put this on Facebook any new admins or alumni associations wanting to reserve a whole school will pay a much higher fee -- probably something like $99 a month reserves an entire school.

Multi year admins at the current rate and new multi year admins alike will become "super users" so to speak and will be able to assign a separate root admin to each individual class year (or not if they don't want to).

So it's an expansion of a lot of the multi year programming plus changes to the billing system as well. We'll get to it as fast as possible though. Alumni associations and other multi year admins have been asking for this ability for a long time.

Oh, once we do this on the app, obviously the same thing has to happen on the Class Creator side. So there's code changes needed here too. Pretty hefty project.

How about just doing step 1 - disclosing the sender only? Then an admin could contact the member (I'm assuming it's from a classmate that's logged in).

Your concept about restricting using the email address on CC sounds feasible. I'm guessing that most people that set up a site using CC are willing to learn and understand why it's done that way. It's not just anyonee that takes on a task like setting up a CC site. In a way, everyone here is a bit special

Thanks for considering.

Brad Switzer wrote:

Interesting Brad. Only interesting because I have thought of just what you said off and on for a few months. You should be charging higher fees for Multiple Year websites. For example, I pay price of one class for right now 5+ classes. That can't be much of a financial good deal for the company.

Of course, I am certainly glad you are considering 'grandfathering' us existing groups.

Actually, I would never have converted to a Multiple Year Class, and the only reason I did is because I was anxious for the project where different years could 'bridge' over to each other without having to duplicate profile on every class. That is something that perhaps Class Connection is headed for on the Facebook App, as I see you can Visit Other Classes. Seems to me, if handled carefully, on Facebook you could visit other classes, and have some kind of 'authentication' to allow full access over there. I would have been perfectly happy with that, and kept all 3 of the classes that I had as Individuals. With that kind of setup, frankly there would not be such an incentive to create a Multiple Year site (other than cost will do it in future anyway).

@ Brad..if it ain't broke don't fix it!!! Eventually..it sounds like you will have to get rid of that box. We don't get a whole lot of action with it activated anywho!! We are a multi-year site..but will only encompass the 60's years. Right now..we have 3 of those yrs..we are trying to get the 60-63 Reunion Commitee to merge with us..but they more stubborn than we are...and won't do it...says they don't know us..we are to young..HA! We may never get 68,and 69...the make up of the school changed alot....Our school charter is closed but the bldg is still being used by the CPS!!!

As far as multi-yr class site...maybe you should charge on a sliding scale. I would raise my rates on the whole school sites..even if they are older sites. It called watching your bottom line. Just MHO!!

Derrell Pulis wrote:

One of the incentives to go multi on Facebook is you become a "super user". For instance, an alumni association can be the super user. Or the actual high school. The Super User can then assign individual roots to each class year. This is something that has long been requested here of course, but as Darlene just alluded to, it shoots us in the financial foot. That's one of the reasons we never accommodated it here on Class Creator. Class Creator was never set up to generate significant revenue. But -- it's important it not lose revenue.

The Facebook app opens up a variety of new things that in many cases aren't possible with Class Creator at all. There's always going to be resistance to things that are new, things that change, etc., but I think when admins see what's possible in there they're really going to get on board in a big way. Although an app is of course not part of Facebook itself, we've really in a sense added a whole new dimension to Facebook that doesn't currently exist.

Derrell Pulis wrote:

Frankly Brad, I would raise the Multiple Year prices now. Why wait until the creation of the Multiple Year Class Connection to be completed. As you say, that may be end of Dec 2013, or it might be next Spring. Programming sometimes does that.

We want our favorite company to keep a healthy bottom line in the black. I need you around AT LEAST another 15 years!

My current subscription runs out March of 2021, then I plan to extend it about another 5 years. Geez, I would then only be a young 84, so maybe I will extend yet another 10 years. Especially since I believe that I was your very first 10 year Platinum client. But, I still think it is prudent to 'grandfather' existing, especially if you don't have an immense number of Multiple Year Sites.

Another drawback to using the Missing Classmates box is, if the email address is invalid, we as admin's don't get a bounceback or similar notice.
I have encouraged my classmates to simply email the person directly, and include a copy of the hyperlink to the Classmate Profiles pages, where they can join there.
[I have deactivated the Missing Classmates block as well]