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**MBMorgan** · October 24, 2017, 10:30 AM

How about incorporating info/links for special deals into the monthly Smoke Signals newsletter? "Spam" problem solved and the information still reaches Pit members.

Edit:

After (minimal) further reflection, just create a section in Smoke Signals to announce the availability of special deals for Pit members, and offer a single link in that section to the existing "Special Deals & Limited-Time Offers" Sub-channel. Pit members should land directly in the sub-channel and non-members should encounter the Sign In/Sign Up page. Who knows? You might attract a few new members that way ...

Meathead Huskee

**FlaBouy** · October 24, 2017, 10:50 AM

OK.. just saw this and before I responded, I gave it a moment to breathe. I will also /Flamesuit On

Electronic spamming is the use of electronic messaging systems to send an unsolicited message (spam), especially advertising, as well as sending messages repeatedly on the same site. Spamming remains economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, servers, infrastructures, IP ranges, and domain names, and it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings.

I post that off of a Wiki site that defines spamming, and it specifically gets to the point. An unsolicited e-message advertising a product by using a managed mailing list controlled by the sender. It is that simple. No additional qualifiers needed.

Now, you have an admin on AR trying to redefine that as "Spam is unsolicited emails/offers, typically from untrusted sources." I consider that as spinning the argument to fit a stance taken that benefits the decision to spam, and not giving consideration to the member who takes issue with that interpretation. I see this as AR taking an ends, justifies the means stance instead of taking an Ooopps, we broke the trust, stance.

Since the broadly held view of spam also includes "it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings.", I think this is a case where a member tried to hold the sender accountable for a pledge they felt was violated, forcing the end user to act to prevent the sender from abusing that pledge in the future.

Regardless of whether you "liked" the email or not, the member has standing, and has a valid point.

Now, I watch with interest to see how the site responds, because I must point out, it promised its members that if they chose to pay for the membership, this kind of thing would not take place. I would also hope that there are no repercussions on TheCount over his comments, albiet a lil heavy handed post. He was correct in addressing an obvious reversal in site policy in regards to unsolicited mailings. To circle the wagons at this point and try and convince him and others that this was not spam is not productive. I would spend my energy modifying the process so you come back in compliance with your original promise or just simply refund their money if you cannot work it out.

With all that said, I didn't mind the email.. it went in the trash with the rest of the unsolicited emails that find their way to my inbox. I didn't take offense and if this site decides to adopt future mailings on group discounts, I am in.

My .02 cents.

Carry on

**customtrim** · October 24, 2017, 11:04 AM

So dont bash me im not as illiterate as most of you but why wouldn't the news letter if it carried the deal not be considered spam

**MBMorgan** · October 24, 2017, 11:14 AM

Originally posted by customtrim View Post

why wouldn't the news letter if it carried the deal not be considered spam

Because it would merely be an announcement that special deals exist for Pit members. It's completely up to you if you choose to go to the Pit (via the provided link perhaps) to look at those deals ... or not. It puts total control of the situation in your hands ... not someone else's.

**Meathead** · October 24, 2017, 11:52 AM

OK, no more emails devoted to a special offering for members only (BTW, this is the first time we've done this I think). We will include this sort of notification in a regular mailing of Hot From The Pit as we have before. Then you could skip right over it, no harm, no foul. And members who want to take advantage of a great deal could. They come out about once per month. Alas, this may mean we will have to skip some deals. Like the PK deal. They made only 200 graphites and they want to move them. But they did not want to sit on the inventory until we send out our regular newsletter. So it was now or never.

If you wish to unsubscribe from Hot you can but you may miss important announcements (and deals). We also post info in The Pit, but most of the deals Paul is working on last for only a week or less, so if you don't check in regularly you miss out. We think more of you want to know of these sort of deals if we can get them. And we pledged to get you "Special Discounts On Products We Love" in the list of member benefits here: http://amazingribs.com/pitmaster_club

BUT BEWARE!!!!! IF YOU BLOCK EMAIL FROM US YOU MAY NOT GET A PRIZE NOTIFICATION!!! This has happened MANY times. We pick a name for The Gold Medal Giveaway, worth up to $2000, send the winner an email, no reply. Send more emails, no reply. I once had a member email me back and he screamed at me to stop spamming him!

**Mudkat** · October 24, 2017, 12:30 PM

Should we have a vote?

**Steve B** · October 24, 2017, 01:50 PM

Why am I feeling like I need to go outside and preburn some wood now 🤔

**Meathead** · October 24, 2017, 01:54 PM

Mudkat asks if we should have a vote. I wouldn't mind seeing a poll on the subject, but my mission is to avoid pissing off members so I have made a decision: We will no longer do emails with only special offers in them because some members consider this spam. We will continue doing email the way we have in the past. On occasion Hot From The Pit will contain info on special offers that we have worked hard to get for members only, just as we promised, as a benefit to membership. The occasional special offers will not be lengthy. You can scroll right past them just like I scroll past Brussels sprouts recipes when I see them. If you do not wish to get Hot From The Pit and Smoke Signals, there is a link on the bottom of every one to cancel. But canceling Hot will also cancel ALL Smoke Signals and email is a good way to stay in touch...

By the way, several members have already ordered the PK360 and saved far more than the $23.95 membership right there.

**DWCowles** · October 24, 2017, 02:22 PM

So the crybabies have gotten their way.

**HouseHomey** · October 24, 2017, 03:09 PM

How funny would a Spam on Spam be?

Too soon?

**Huskee** · October 24, 2017, 03:16 PM

So as promised we talked and decided on a happy medium. Both perspectives win, and we intend to still offer exciting deals, but only monthly in the members newsletter. Check in to The Pit regularly to make sure you don't miss any that get posted & expire before HOT from The Pit comes out.

Edit: Remember, members-only only deals WON'T be in Smoke Signals, it's not members only, it's everyone who signed up. General public deals, perhaps.

**billg71** · October 30, 2017, 04:51 PM

Originally posted by Meathead View Post

Mudkat asks if we should have a vote. I wouldn't mind seeing a poll on the subject, but my mission is to avoid pissing off members so I have made a decision: We will no longer do emails with only special offers in them because some members consider this spam. We will continue doing email the way we have in the past. On occasion Hot From The Pit will contain info on special offers that we have worked hard to get for members only, just as we promised, as a benefit to membership. The occasional special offers will not be lengthy. You can scroll right past them just like I scroll past Brussels sprouts recipes when I see them. If you do not wish to get Hot From The Pit and Smoke Signals, there is a link on the bottom of every one to cancel. But canceling Hot will also cancel ALL Smoke Signals and email is a good way to stay in touch...

By the way, several members have already ordered the PK360 and saved far more than the $23.95 membership right there.

Wow, I wasn't aware getting a newsletter or notification of a special offer was such a big deal! As you pointed out in an earlier post, part of the bennies of being a Pit member is the special offers. How are we supposed to know about them if we don't get emails?

I don't visit the Pit every day, I come and go as my interest in cooking and other interests(like making a living) dictate. I might check in daily for a while and not log on for a couple of months.

But I get the newsletter and the deal emails, I read them and then either visit the site or check out the deal. Or not. Either way I have a choice and it's not that big a deal to hit the Delete key when I'm done.

But to just stop notifications on Pit club deals I don't agree with. I got the PK email on 10/23, the offer was only good until 10/27. The newsletter didn't come out until the 25th so I wouldn't have known about the deal until 2 of the 5 days it was good had passed. I'd have been really PO'd if I'd bought one on the 24th and not gotten the Graphite color or the thrown-in cover.

Maybe we could set an option in email subscriptions to opt out of deal notifications and just get the regular newsletter and topic notifications? It's just lines in code, right?

And as you pointed out earlier, part of the benefit of being a pit member is the deals you work out for us with sponsors. Unless you can coordinate timing of discounts to run with the newsletter please reconsider your decision.

I know the squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that but please don't let one squeaky wheel stop the train. As my Granny used to say: "Some folks'ud complain if they was hung with a gold rope". Or what P.T. Barnum said about pleasing people.

I'm an old engineer from the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" school. Nothing broke here folks, move along.

P.S. How do we post a poll in this forum?

**Huskee** · October 30, 2017, 06:26 PM

Originally posted by billg71 View Post

Wow, I wasn't aware getting a newsletter or notification of a special offer was such a big deal! As you pointed out in an earlier post, part of the bennies of being a Pit member is the special offers. How are we supposed to know about them if we don't get emails?

I don't visit the Pit every day, I come and go as my interest in cooking and other interests(like making a living) dictate. I might check in daily for a while and not log on for a couple of months.

But I get the newsletter and the deal emails, I read them and then either visit the site or check out the deal. Or not. Either way I have a choice and it's not that big a deal to hit the Delete key when I'm done.

But to just stop notifications on Pit club deals I don't agree with. I got the PK email on 10/23, the offer was only good until 10/27. The newsletter didn't come out until the 25th so I wouldn't have known about the deal until 2 of the 5 days it was good had passed. I'd have been really PO'd if I'd bought one on the 24th and not gotten the Graphite color or the thrown-in cover.

Maybe we could set an option in email subscriptions to opt out of deal notifications and just get the regular newsletter and topic notifications? It's just lines in code, right?

And as you pointed out earlier, part of the benefit of being a pit member is the deals you work out for us with sponsors. Unless you can coordinate timing of discounts to run with the newsletter please reconsider your decision.

I know the squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that but please don't let one squeaky wheel stop the train. As my Granny used to say: "Some folks'ud complain if they was hung with a gold rope". Or what P.T. Barnum said about pleasing people.

I'm an old engineer from the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" school. Nothing broke here folks, move along.

P.S. How do we post a poll in this forum?

Thank you for the thoughtful words, Bill. We're actually working on getting a couple check boxes added to the My Membership page, whcih will (hopefully) tie to the newsletters. Ideally, we want everyone to get exactly what they want- deals, newsletters only, both, neither. We just have to build that to make it happen.

As of now, we've decided to eliminate mailers with only deals, and to only include our deals in other newsletters, like Smoke Signals or, if they're members-only, then HOT From The Pit. A few folks felt that mailers with only a deal in them, while from us & not from third parties and very relevant to our common interests here, were crossing the line. So for the time being that's how we'll go about it, keeping deal-only mailers out of the picture.

We'll of course update you here in The Pit with such deals, so please check the Featured Posts marquee and the Special Deals channel regularly. There's currently a separate cub-channel for our Members-Only deals, so check it too!

Once the checkbox system gets built (we're all custom code here, and some things take priority over other things) and it gets tested to be working properly, then we can revisit special deal newsletters for those who wish to occasionally get them.

**Yno** · October 31, 2017, 09:42 AM

I didn't get the PK either (Ynette says there are enough cookers out there) but I enjoyed reading about it. I would like to see more of these offers, and I don't object at all to them coming out separately. But now that option is off the table due to one or two whiners. I agree that the owner of the site should set the rules, and if people don't like them, Adios!

So that brings up a general question. Is there a method to ignore posts from specific members? I know it is available on some forums. I might just have a short list of people whose "contributions" I could do without.

**Baltassar** · October 31, 2017, 11:56 AM

I figure if I affiliate myself with a web site it is allowed to send me reasonable amounts of email. It it becomes unreasonable there's an option to unsubscribe. I'm much more concerned about malware and data security than I am about stuff that takes a nano-second to delete.

I also think it's bad for the digestion to get too wrapped up in pledges, principles, and the crossing of lines.

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