Chatterwood

A Bulletin Board for Riderwood Residents

Chatterwood is a free email bulletin board for topics of interest to residents of Riderwood Village. We have nearly 600 members and are growing. Membership is strictly opt-in. We acknowledge the generous support of the Riderwood Computer Club.

How to Subscribe

  • Request Subscription Click to join Chatterwood. This will initiate an email request  subscribing. No subject or body text is needed — just send a blank message.
  • Be sure the request comes from the email address to be subscribed.
  • A moderator will review requests, making sure that the request meets requirements for subscribing and act on the request.
  • By submitting a request to subscribe, applicants implicitly agree to follow the Requirements / Guidelines for Use listed below.
  • Activate a subscription by following the directions in a confirmatory email issued to new subscribers.

Post A Message

  • If not subscribed, you must first subscribe using the email address to be used for posting and reading posts.
  • Compose an email using the interface usually used for sending.
  • Send the message to Chatterwood@groups.io — clicking this link should open the default email application.
  • Emails sent from other addresses will be rejected by groups.io.
  • Etiquette: No TEST messages / Do not REPLY TO SENdER
    • Please do not post TEST messages to Chatterwood.
    • When replying to a post, reply to the original correspondent.
    • Do not reply to a message as a quick way to start a new topic. Start a new post to chatterwood@groups.io.
    • We have over 600 subscribers – avoid cluttering their inboxes with such posts. Rather than posting a “test,” compose a message and send it. And, 600 subscribers do not necessarily need a thank you or a virtual nod of agreement. Limit group replies to those which contribute constructively to a question / topic.

Requirements / Guidelines for Use

  • Subscriptions are limited to residents of Riderwood Village, using a personal email address.
  • Moderators will verify eligibility before approving subscription requests.
  • Residents are permitted to post,
    • announcements for events, on or off-campus;
    • topics or questions of interest to residents;
    • for personal items or services, for sale or sharing between residents;
    • all other commercial solicitations are prohibited.
  • Topics relating to religion and politics are to be avoided and civility is encouraged.
  • New Interest Group? When forming a new group, including “discussion groups,” Chatterwood permits posting of an initial announcements to publicize the group.
    • Such postings should be short, one-time communications and limited to those conducted at Riderwood (not off-campus) events.
    • Subsequently,, organizers should take advantage of other resources available to residents. These include:
      • Form a new group / club with aid from Community Resource, which also helps publicize meetings, presentation, etc.
      • Create a discussion group or mailing list using tools at groups.io.
      • Use existing mailing lists, e.g., OnPolitics for discussion of political topics. See also the Riderwood Democratic and Republican clubs. Several religious groups also provide avenues for publicizing related activities.
      • For groups with related interests in the directory on RiderwoodLife.com.
  • Avoid disparaging remarks, proselytizing, argumentativeness, and the like.
  • Do NOT mark messages as “junk” or “Spam.” Just delete them. Otherwise, groups.io may reject subsequent messages.
  • Avoid long posts and large attachments – use links instead.
  • Do not share the ability to post with other persons.
  • Your moderators are volunteers – please ease their tasks by reading the instructions at the end of incoming posts and consult HELP to become familiar with using Chatterwood.
  • Posts which violate Chatterwood rules are subject to being muted and deleted, subject to Moderator discretion.
  • If all else fails, read the instructions!

TIPS / Commands via email

Use the following links to perform the indicated actions. Click on a link to effect sending an email.

Spam Blockage?

Received a message that about having been blocked from posting because of a message being marked as “Spam” / “Junk?” Recover by:

  • First, check Spam / Junk folders and select all messages from Chatterwood marked as Spam or Junk.
    • Selection methods vary depending on which email client used. Most have a check-box to select a message.
  • Move the selected messages to the in-box.
  • Next, in the warning message, read and follow the instructions to re-subscribe. There will be a link to click.
  • Finally, never mark messages as Spam / Junk to get rid of them. DELETE them from the in-box. Why?
  • Marking messages as Spam / Junk triggers “learning” by email programs regarding what messages are Spam / Junk, using Bayesian Inference. Similar messages would be marked as Spam / Junk in the future and not appear in the in-box. Likewise, moving messages from Spam / Junk to the in-box also helps the mail program learn what is not junk mail.

Reading Chatterwood with Email Client?

  • If emails are not arriving and an email client, e.g., Thunderbird, is used to access emails, Spam / Junk mail filters on the server for your email host may be the cause of the problem.
  • Why? If the email is blocked on the server, it will not make it to the email client.
  • The FIX: Login directly, using a web browser, to your email host – commonly Gmail. Find the Spam / Junk folder and look for Chatterwood messages.
    • Mark them as Not Spam – see the tips immediately above.
    • This approach solved the missing Chatterwood email for at least one subscriber.

About Religion and Politics on Chatterwood

Questions commonly arise about our policy on avoiding posts dealing with religion and politics on Chatterwood.

Chatterwood organizers chose to have a bulletin board free of promotion and debate about religion and politics. There are other mailing lists for politics such as the Republican and Democratic Clubs, and, the OnPoltics mailing list.

Chatterwood moderators have read and carefully considered comments posted to Chatterwood about posting messages about this subject and provide this guidance.

  • Please note that Chatterwood moderators are volunteers. They look to maintain Chatterwood as a resource for the community that is civil and free of rancorous debate. Think about a post: if thoughts arise about whether a planned post gets into the political or religious arena, think twice – it well may. Recall also that posts that promote off-campus organizations are off limits on Chatterwood.
  • Readers are reminded that other avenues are available for announcements through community affairs and that, they too, limit them to on-campus organizations. Some might even consider setting up a mailing list for religious activities, similar to OnPolitics. The availability of such a list could be announced on Chatterwood. Chatterwood and OnPolitics are examples of resident managed groups, with a free version at groups.io.
  • Chatterwood is not a debating society about which posts are proper. Avoid activities that border on argumentativeness, baiting and incivility.
  • Violation of Chatterwood rules can result in moderation of messages before posting. This results in posts being held until approval by a moderator. Residents who chose to join Chatterwood implicitly consent to abiding by its rules.

Searching for Prior Posts

— Proceed Intrepidly —

Use a groups.io Account

Chatters commonly ask, how can I search for posts to Chatterwood. Answer:

groups.io signin page

  • Click Sign up to establish an account with groups.io
    • Just being a subscriber to Chatterwood does not create an account – that’s a separate step – Sign up.
  • Those who already have an account just click on Login

Searching

  • After logging in, the Chatterwood home page appears.
  • If the Message History does not appear, scroll down.
  • Click on the period to search. In this example, in Nov, 2021, click on the blue number in the 2021 row, Nov. column.

chatterwood home page

A list of posts for the period chosen appears.

  • Either scroll through the posts, looking for the subject of interest, or,
  • Type a search term into the Search box and click on the magnify icon – the icon commonly used to initiate a search.
  • Scan through the results to find the topic of interest.
  • Note: the ability to search for posts in groups.io is a bit kludgy / limited in options.

chatterwood search box

Other Benefits with a groups.io account

  • Many more advantages accrue to Chatters who have groups.io accounts
  • Ability to customize profiles, including a Profile Photo
  • Create a standard signature line
  • Manage subscription(s), e.g., change to / from digest mode, etc.
  • Explore for more options.

Replying to Posts – Avoid Reply All

Please do NOT reply-to-all when reading posts to Chatterwood. First consider that if one does so, the reply will usually go to over 550 Chatters. This happens when both the original poster’s name and Chatterwood appear in the “TO:” box.

Chatterwood moderators get a lot of complaints about this issue so please do fellow subscribers a favor and attend to this issue. It does take a bit of learning for some but fellow Chatters will appreciate the effort.

Moreover, in most cases it is not appropriate to reply-to-all with expressions of agreement and similar messages. Just reply to the original poster. Don’t assume that the whole world necessarily needs to know about your agreement or blessing.

gmail icon

Go to How-To with Illustrations. – Example for users of Gmail.

 

Saga of Chatterwood’s Disappearance

NEW GOOD NEWS! September 23, 18:55.

Chatterwood  disappeared around 15:00 on Sept 19. It was resurrected from the death on September 23. 2022. Luckily, and by chance, a copy of the addresses of members had been downloaded a few days before, enabling the effort. Admins then advised:

  • Virtually all members have been re-instated and mailing preferences (digests, etc.) were retained. You do NOT need to re-subscribe. (Those few who subscribed very recently may have been lost.)
  • Many thought they made mistakes when attempting to post to  Chatterwood. That was anomalous and caused because Chatterwood did not exist or was being resuscitated.
  • All content – messages, attachments, etc., are permanently gone. Only new messages will appear in archives and the online list of messages.
  • The Riderwood Computer Club is now sponsoring Chatterwood – we had to move to a paid tier of service from a free tier. THANKS to Computer Club officers for their support.
  • Finally, your volunteer Admins thank subscribers for their patience during this difficult time. Know that it took a great deal of effort to return to service – learning how to do it; massive reformatting of the email lists, behind the scenes coordination of a funding source, etc.

Timeline of status during downtime:

  • OLD NEWS: Chatterwood is down as of approximately 15:00 on Sept. 19, 2022. Your volunteer Admins are exploring a fix but anticipate this will take a day or two. We will post an update here when news is available.
  • 9/23:DO NOT try to access Chatterwood until it is fully restored. No postings, no requests to join.
  • 9/22: we are moving forward on re-creating the membership data. Reconstructing Chatterwood is more complex than anticipated.
    Update 9/20: we are waiting for assistance from group.io.
  • During this period of time:
    • Chatterwood lost its status as a cost free service. groups.io only gives free, limited services to groups of less than 100 subscribers.
    • A source of funding had to be found. Luckily, the Riderwood
      Computer Club came to the rescue as a sponsor.
    • The site administrator had to learn the ins-and-outs of setting up a group from scratch, including such “trivial” things as how to pay, settings applicable to the group, etc.
    • Totally reformat the address list. It downloaded as a “.csv” file, the format of which was not compatible with groups.io’s format for batch upload of a list of subscribers.
    • The reformatting of the list of over 600 subscribers was a “learning experience and include using Linux and the awk command.
  • Whew!