Technical questions

These are the most common questions we get relating to the technical side of Freegle - sending and receiving group messages.

1. I posted my message - why hasn't it appeared on the group?
   
2. Why was my post to the group rejected by Yahoo?
   
3. Why was my post to the group rejected/deleted by the moderators?
   
4. Why am I not receiving messages from the group?
   
5. Why am I receiving so many messages?
   
6. I'm going away - how do I stop receiving emails?
   
7. How do I change the email address that Freegle messages are sent to?
   
8. How do I change the name that appears on my messages?
   
9. How do I leave the group?

I posted my message - why hasn't it appeared on the group? 

As a new member, 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. Most people are taken off moderation after a few messages. In certain circumstances we may also put members back on moderation, e.g. if they post a number of incorrectly-formatted messages.

Why was my post to the group rejected by Yahoo? 

Yahoo will automatically reject messages for the following reasons:

• You sent the message from an email address which is not the one you subscribed with.
• You sent the message to a group you are not a member of, or (if you mis-typed) a group which does not exist.
• You sent the message in HTML format - emails must be in plain text only. If you are unsure how to change this setting, please use the Post link on your group home page to send messages.

Why was my post to the group rejected/deleted by the moderators? 

We put the reasons in the rejection message sent to the message author, but in general, the most common reasons are:

• Your post is missing information in the subject line (OFFER/TAKEN/WANTED/RECEIVED, item/s, location)
• You posted an off-topic message (please use the Café for discussions, notices, questions, etc.)
• You were offering or requesting something which is prohibited - please see our policies pages
• You posted a RECEIVED message about an item you received from someone else's OFFER.
• You posted a TAKEN message about an item you received from someone else's OFFER.
• You re-posted the same OFFER or WANTED message within two weeks.
• You posted more than one WANTED message within one week - more details here.
• Your message appeared on other groups at the same time - see our policy on cross-posting

Why am I not receiving messages from the group? 

There are several possibilities:

• You have set your membership to Special Notices or No Mail. Log in to the group and choose "edit membership" to select Individual Emails or Digest:
  
  
  
  
• Messages to you have been bouncing back, e.g. if your mailbox is full (check with the moderators to see if this is the case).
  
• Messages are being classified as spam by your ISP or email provider. Check whether you can "whitelist" the address of your Freegle group to force them to allow group messages through; also try adding the address to your addressbook, which may have the same effect (this is true for Yahoo mail).

If you believe you have checked all these possibilities and still not solved the problem, email the moderators.

Why am I receiving so many messages? 

If you feel the number of messages is overwhelming, there are three things you can do to make them easier to manage:

• Set your group membership (via the "edit membership" link - see above) to Special Notices (so you get emailed important messages from the moderators, but nothing else) and read your group online via its home page (you need to be logged in to Yahoo to read the messages).
  
• Set your group membership to Digest and just get one or two (long) messages a day containing several emails each.
  
• Use your email program to filter the emails into a separate folder away from your Inbox - all group emails contain your group's name, e.g. [norwichukFreegle], in the Subject line so this should be easy to do. Check your email program's Help file for "Filters" or "Rules", see our miscellaneous links section, or ask on the Café group (see below).

I'm going away - how do I stop receiving emails? 

After clicking on the "edit membership" link on your group's home page (see above) you can choose Special Notices (we send out few of these, maybe 4 per month) - you won't get any of the other group messages.

Please note it can sometimes take a couple of days for the change to take effect - this is down to Yahoo and we can't speed it up, no matter how much we would like to!

How do I change the email address that Freegle messages are sent to? 

After clicking on the "edit membership" link on your group's home page (see above) you can either choose another email address that you have already confirmed with Yahoo (listed in the drop-down menu), or add a new email address (using the link next to the menu). If you add a new address, you will shortly receive a verification email from Yahoo - you must follow the instructions in that message in order to make the address available for use. (This is to stop people signing up email addresses that don't belong to them.)

Please note it can sometimes take a couple of days for the change to take effect - this is down to Yahoo and we can't speed it up, no matter how much we would like to! Also note that the moderators cannot change your address for you.

How do I change the name that appears on my messages? 

Some people wish to be fairly anonymous when posting to Freegle, for whatever reason. You can change the name that appears on your messages, but how you do it depends on the way you post your messages to the group - using email, or via the Yahoo Group online.

If you post messages to Freegle by email, your name shows will show what you have set up for your "full name" in your email program or webmail settings. How you go about editing this will depend on your email program/webmail, and if you change it, it will affect the name that appears on all other emails you send, to anyone. Alternatively you could choose to set up a new email (e.g. with Yahoo or GMail) and use that for Freegle, with any "full name" that you wish.

Please note that as well as your email "full name", your Yahoo ID or Profile name will also be shown, so you will also need to change this if it includes your real name. See below.

If you post to Freegle via the Yahoo Groups website, it shows the "real name" you have associated with the Yahoo Profile you use for the group, and the nickname of the profile as well. This may be the same as your Yahoo ID, but not necessarily, as you can set up several profiles to use for different things (e.g. one for groups relating to Freegle, and one for groups relating to another hobby you have). You can change your profile as follows:

• log in to Yahoo
• choose to "edit membership"
• in the first section under Yahoo! Profiles, choose to "add a new profile" (this allows you to edit existing ones)
• edit the profile you want, or create a new one
• set the "real name" field to be what you want
• make sure you "save changes"
• back on the "edit membership" page, make sure you are using that profile for your Freegle group membership

If you have problems with this process, it is best that you contact Yahoo! help and not the Freegle moderators! Yahoo seem to be making changes to the Profiles section of their service and so the above instructions may become out of date. Please let us know if so.

How do I leave the group? 

If you are sure you want to leave the group, and not just change the email address you use or choose to read messages on the web (see above), then there are two ways you an unsubscribe. You can click on the "edit membership" link on your group's home page (see above) and choose to leave the group, or you can send an email to your group's unsubscribe address.

Note that the email must come from the address which you use to subscribe to the group. If you have problems, contact the group's moderators.

Last modified: 21st December 2009

Content Copyright © 2009 Norfolk Freegle Moderators