Joining a Freegle group

1. How do I join a Freegle group?
   
2. Email or web? Choosing how to read group messages.
   
3. Will my membership be active straight away?
   
4. I think I've joined the group, but I haven't had a reply. What has happened?
   
5. Why do you have to use Yahoo?

How do I join a Freegle group? 

Simply go to your desired group's home page (see the local groups list to find your local group) and click Join This Group (a blue button towards the top right of the page).

You will need a Yahoo ID to join on the web (our recommended method) - if you don't have one, see our detailed information on creating one when you join. If you have one already, you can select the profile and email address you want to use for Freegle after clicking Join This Group. Please note that Freegle is an all-ages community, so if you have an "adult" email address or profile, please select an alternative one to use for Freegle.

Some groups ask you to specify your location when you join, so that moderators can see how local their membership is. If you are taken to a screen with a comments box during the joining process, please type your location in there, and also tell them how you heard about Freegle.

Finally, you can also join by email, sending a message (the content does not matter) to your desired group's subscription address, but you will not have access to advanced features including the ability to control how you receive messages from the group. We recommend you only use this option if you have real problems with getting a Yahoo ID.

Email or web? Choosing how to read group messages. 

During the joining process, you will be asked how you want to receive messages:



Depending on what you are used to, you may find a Freegle group rather busy (up to 600 messages per week) and so you may not want to receive messages individually. Select Daily Digest or Special Notices (as above) if you wish, but please do not choose No Email - we occasionally need to contact all members with important information using Special Notices. There are generally only 3 or 4 of these messages per month at most, so they will not overwhelm your inbox.

Yahoo also recently introduced "new and improved" messages, which are formatted slightly differently and have more links to the group within them. By all means try this format, but we recommend the simpler "traditional" format as it is easier to deal with when replying to people!

At the end of the joining process, the final screen confirms your settings - please check them carefully!



If any of them are wrong, click on the Edit Membership link just above to change them. You can do this at any time, e.g. to turn off emails when you go on holiday.

Will my membership be active straight away? 

Some groups require each member to be individually approved by a moderator, and others do not. Yahoo will tell you at the end of the process whether you are a member of the group straight away or if you should wait for approval. If this is the case, it will take less than 24 hours and you will receive an email when it has been done.

On all groups, your first few messages will be held for checking by a moderator before being sent out to all members. This allows moderators to help people who are having trouble following the correct message format, and also helps us to catch any spammers and stop their messages reaching the list.

I think I've joined a group, but I haven't had a reply. What has happened? 

We welcome all applications and never deliberately ignore anyone, so if you're not getting any replies about joining the group then do let us know! You should have received an email within 24 hours, either confirming your membership or telling you if there is a problem. Check the Spam/Bulk/Junk/Trash folders in your email just in case it ended up there. If you got a Yahoo ID when you joined the group, Yahoo may be sending the messages to your Yahoo email address - more information here. If you still can't see any messages relating to the group, contact your group's moderators, telling us your Yahoo ID, when you joined, and the email address you are trying to use.

Please note that if 14 days have passed since you applied to join the group, you will have to re-apply as the application will have expired. If you contact the moderators about your membership, always state which email address and Yahoo ID you were trying to subscribe with.

Why do you have to use Yahoo? 

We know a small number of people have problems joining or using Yahoo, and we are sympathetic - we will try to help as much as we can. However, every legitimate Freegle group worldwide uses Yahoo, and we cannot use anything else if we want to stay recognised by The Freegle Network. This may change in the future if Freegle sets up its own servers - but for now we have to stay with Yahoo. If you are having problems with the sign-up process please contact your group's moderators and we will do our best to help! You can join by email (see above), but you then have no access to Files, Photos, Polls, Databases, mail settings or any other web-based features.

Last modified: 21st December 2009

Content Copyright © 2009 Norfolk Freegle Moderators