I have never said that a newsletter like this, wouldn't be part of TM. What I am saying is that phpBB (TMs current installation and version of this forum) doesn't support newsletter in the fashion I am announcing, and what I said is that, if TM members and board would like such a feature, I already have a feature that you can use. It's not based on phpBB but it solves the challenges needed in such a newsletter. It will be managed and "badged" by TM.
If a user can't be bothered to check back for updates once in a while, they're obviously not too interested.
Totally disagree. A while ago, I had way too much work to do and couldn't be so active in the forum, as I usually am. When I came back, after like 3 weeks, I first noticed that I was msised (thanks alot guys), but also noticed that there were way too many threads to follow up on, and I just "marked all threads as read", and just reset everything, and started from there. Most likely, I have missed alot of interesting threads and news, and that's not because I am a lazy b* and didn't have enough interest to hang around. Sometimes magic isn't everything, and other things in life take up your time. Keeping updated in forums and blogs is very time consuming, and a short and brief newsletter would really had been nice in such periods, because I would easily be updated with the most important news and happenings in the forum.
Ergo, I stand by my comments. What advantage would it serve? What would it contain which isn't already covered on the forum?
Again, this is not what I am saying. The newsletter will most likely have much of the same content as in the forum, but the goal of the newsletter is totally different than the forum itself. It will remind users about TM and keep them coming back for more information. We have too many registered users that drop out of the forum, for some reason. If these users were reminded on a regular basis what is happening in our forum, our great threads, file sharings, competitions and events, ppl would come back, and we would have a more active forum. Also, there will be information in the newsletter, if we want to, that is not part of the forum, as the statistics I already have mentioned.
It may have escaped your attention, but for someone to trawl the archives here and statistics and produce a worthy, coherent publication would be actually quite time consuming.
I am not sure what platform and statistics solution TM is running, but most likely, you already have a statistics engine running, and to copy paste information from this, would be rather easy. And I don't think it is fair that you trumpet how much work all this would be, when ppl willingly would like to help around. It's like killing the ehthusiasm even before it is a reality.
I get your point, and I do not think your are knocking me personally. Discussions are great, that's called democracy, and hopefully we will have more ppl joining the discussion.
Maybe the thread should be moved to the Misc forum, as I have a feeling that most ppl don't read the request category.