mahara-contributors team mailing list archive

[Aaron Wells <1256722@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Public bug reported:

Most Mahara sites are run within institutions of learning, so they don't
need to worry too much about abiding by bulk email best practices. But
mahara.org is a public-facing site, and there are a few steps we could
take to get more in line with best practice.

1. GOOD: We already require the user to respond to a verification email
before we will send any further email to any given email address.

3. GOOD: Mahara has a system to recognize bounced emails and disable the
email address associated with them. (Although we do not currently have
this activated on mahara.org)

4. GOOD: We provide a clear "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of forum
post emails

5. LACKING: The unsubscribe link requires you to log in, and it only
takes you to the page to unsubscribe from a single forum. We need to
make it possible to unsubscribe without logging in, and to unsubscribe
from all emails at once (currently to do that you have to log in and go
to your account settings page)

6. LACKING: Unsubscribe by email

7. LACKING: Bulk emails should be "opt-in"; the user should have to
explicitly agree to receiving them. Mahara.org is currently "opt-out":
we use Mahara's feature to auto-join all users into the Mahara Community
group, and auto-subscribe all group members to the News forum, in order
to send out Mahara update emails. We need to turn this into an opt-in
step instead; during the registration process, we should detect auto-
subscribe forums, and ask the user which of them they want to be
subscribed to. We should also ask during registration whether they wish
to receive emails at all. (I suspect this behavior would not be desired
by most learning instutions, though, so it should be a configurable
setting)

Google's guidelines for bulk email:
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126

The Spamhaus project's guidelines for bulk email:
http://www.spamhaus.org/faq/section/Marketing%20FAQs

** Affects: mahara
     Importance: Wishlist
         Status: Confirmed


** Tags: email spam

** Summary changed:

- Wishlist: Unsubscribe from emails without logging in
+ Wishlist: Bulk email best practices

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1256722

Title:
  Wishlist: Bulk email best practices

Status in Mahara ePortfolio:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Most Mahara sites are run within institutions of learning, so they
  don't need to worry too much about abiding by bulk email best
  practices. But mahara.org is a public-facing site, and there are a few
  steps we could take to get more in line with best practice.

  1. GOOD: We already require the user to respond to a verification
  email before we will send any further email to any given email
  address.

  3. GOOD: Mahara has a system to recognize bounced emails and disable
  the email address associated with them. (Although we do not currently
  have this activated on mahara.org)

  4. GOOD: We provide a clear "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of forum
  post emails

  5. LACKING: The unsubscribe link requires you to log in, and it only
  takes you to the page to unsubscribe from a single forum. We need to
  make it possible to unsubscribe without logging in, and to unsubscribe
  from all emails at once (currently to do that you have to log in and
  go to your account settings page)

  6. LACKING: Unsubscribe by email

  7. LACKING: Bulk emails should be "opt-in"; the user should have to
  explicitly agree to receiving them. Mahara.org is currently "opt-out":
  we use Mahara's feature to auto-join all users into the Mahara
  Community group, and auto-subscribe all group members to the News
  forum, in order to send out Mahara update emails. We need to turn this
  into an opt-in step instead; during the registration process, we
  should detect auto-subscribe forums, and ask the user which of them
  they want to be subscribed to. We should also ask during registration
  whether they wish to receive emails at all. (I suspect this behavior
  would not be desired by most learning instutions, though, so it should
  be a configurable setting)

  Google's guidelines for bulk email:
  https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126

  The Spamhaus project's guidelines for bulk email:
  http://www.spamhaus.org/faq/section/Marketing%20FAQs

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