Moderators of Yahoo Groups can choose to have their Group be public or to have various levels of restrictions. The purpose of LCBNO is to make observations of birds and nature in Lincoln County publicly available, not to force people to become members. Some people very interested in Lincoln County natural history may be reluctant to join a group for one reason or another. By having much of LCBNO publicly available, nonmembers or members (who do not want to use their Yahoo ID to Sign In) can view much information.
To reduce risks of spammers or computer viruses, the moderators have put some restrictions on uploading Photos and Files as well as to only allowing members to post to LCBNO. Unfortunately, there is no option in Yahoo Groups to allow public viewing of Photos or Files.
A Nonmember can go to the LCBNO Home Page and view messages, Links, or anything else in the left sidebar that does not require membership.
An "Email Member" does NOT need a free Yahoo ID. One can become an "Email Member" of LCBNO by one of the following:
An "Email Member" can do everything a nonmember can do.
A "Web Member" MUST have a free Yahoo ID. One can become a "Web Member" by one of the following:
A "Web Member" can do everything a nonmember or an "Email Member" can.
See Yahoo Email and the Message Archive Help. You can also search for keywords in the "Search Help" text box that may also help answer your questions.
When you sign up for a Yahoo ID, you get a Yahoo email account. To have LCBNO email sent to your non-Yahoo email account:
If you are receiving individual emails from LCBNO, and you would like to receive fewer emails, you can choose to either receive a Daily Digest of all emails or become a "Web Only" or "No Mail" member. To do so:
Send an email command to the appropriate email address at the top of this page.
or
"Web" members with a Yahoo ID can click the link "Change settings via the Web" at the bottom of emails from LCBNO or go to the LCBNO Home Page, Sign In with their Yahoo ID, and click the link "Edit Membership" in the line just above the green LCBNO bar. Then in "Step 2. Message Delivery" change their subscription delivery frequency. "Web" members can choose to be Web Only (No Mail) members--they could still then view messages and archives at the LCBNO Home Page, Sign In to view and upload Photos, and continue to post to LCBNO.
or
Both "Email" and "Web" members can click the link "Switch delivery to Daily Digest" at the bottom of emails from LCBNO to change to receive one email message that includes all emails for that day (i.e., a Daily Digest).
First, it is important to verify that you are not receiving LCBNO messages. There will be days and perhaps even several days in a row or a week without any messages being posted to LCBNO.
To determine if you have not received LCBNO messages, go to the LCBNO Home Page and see if you have received the recent messages there. If there is a message a day old at the LCBNO Home Page that you have not received, it is possible that your Internet Service Provider is slow in delivering it.
If you verify that you are not receiving email from LCBNO, there could be several reasons--see Yahoo's response to this question for all groups.
One of the reasons may be because your email account refuses to accept email from other accounts (i.e., your email account "bounces" email), so that if a Yahoo Group sends you an email, the message is returned to Yahoo with an error from your Internet Service Provider (ISP). If LCBNO messages sent to your email address are returned to Yahoo! Groups as undeliverable ("bouncing"), your Yahoo! Groups account may be temporarily disabled.
To determine if your Yahoo Group email is bouncing and to manually reactivate your account, see instructions at Yahoo's "How do I reactivate my Yahoo! Groups account?"
For more information in Yahoo Help about "bouncing," see "Bouncing" at Yahoo Email and the Message Archive Help. You can also search for keywords in the "Search Help" text box that may also help answer your questions.
Click the "+" in front of "Email Preferences" to see the drop-down menu with questions about these formats in Yahoo Email and the Message Archive Help. You can also search for keywords in the "Search Help" text box that may also help answer your questions.
An "Email" or a "Web" member can change received email messages between "Traditional" and "Fully-featured" formats by clicking "Switch format to Traditional [or Fully Featured]" at bottom of an email message from LCBNO.
See "Posting & Formatting Issues" at Yahoo Email and the Message Archive Help. You can also search for keywords in the "Search Help" text box that may also help answer your questions.
See Yahoo Help for this question.
There is no option in Yahoo Groups to allow public viewing of Photos. Only "Web" Members (i.e, those with a Yahoo ID) can view photos. They can do so by going to the LCBNO Home Page, Signing In, and clicking "New Photo" on top or "Photos" in left sidebar.
Someone in the LCBNO group may be able to make an identification or give a recommendation on where to try to find an answer, if they see a photo. However, no one in LCBNO may have the expertise to identify any animal or plant. In particular, insects--web sites such as What's That Bug! or InsectIdentification.org can be helpful. Perhaps, members can compile links helpful in identifying animals and plants that we may find here.
Photos can not be added as attachments to emails because attachments are NOT allowed on LCBNO to prevent viruses and because they can be unmanageable for dial-up members. Members can upload photos to LCBNO (see "How Can I Add Photos to the LCBNO Home Page?"), to a photo-sharing site (e.g., Flickr.com; one of several photo-sharing site reviews), or to another web site and announce the location (URL) in the member's email posted to LCBNO. A member can also offer to email photos to anyone who is interested.
Alternatively to the "Select Files" option, scroll down and select link in "Want to use our basic uploader?" Do 40 character "Photo Name" and can also add a longer Description (112 characters show easily). Range thinks the process for the Basic Uploader is more straightforward.
Other Notes for Adding Photos:
For more help, select "Photos" at Yahoo Group's Web Only Features to see Photo topics or enter keywords for your question in the "Search Help" box.
At the LCBNO Home Page, click the Help button in the top right corner or go directly to Help. Additionally, if you go to a specific Yahoo Help Page (e.g., Joining and Participating in a Group), enter keywords in the "Search Help" text box to find help for questions.
A "Web" member can change email addresses, change email delivery (options: individual emails, daily digest, or "web only" [which is good for when on vacation and don't want email messages), or change "Message Preference" between "Fully Featured" and "Traditional" (see help about these formats) by
An "Email" member can change email addresses by emailing a Moderator (LCBNO-owner@yahoogroups.com) and requesting the change.
LCBNO Group Settings permit only the moderators to edit, add, or delete Links. However, it would be very helpful if you could send an email to the moderators (LCBNO-owner@yahoogroups.com) if you have a new Link or you have found a Link that does not work!
It is inappropriate and unethical to forward private emails or emails to a nonpublicly available email list to LCBNO without the permission of the author.
However, it is appropriate to forward emails with Lincoln County observations from a publicly available email list to LCBNO. For example, postings to Oregon Birders OnLine (OBOL) with Lincoln County sightings or a weekly summary of sightings of rare birds in Oregon are likely to be forwarded to LCBNO. OBOL postings are publicly available to members and nonmembers (subscribe to or see OBOL archives; recent OBOL postings are also at Birdingonthe.Net). OBOL receives so many messages that many people interested in Lincoln County observations don't join it.
The "Observation Log" on the left side of the International Brant Monitoring Project web page can also include Lincoln County sightings and is publicly available. These observations are also sent out on their email list. Lincoln County observations will be posted to LCBNO. Yaquina Birders & Naturalists is a Project Partner for this project.
LCBNO members who are also members of OBOL or who receive postings about Lincoln County Brant from the International Brant Monitoring Project can identify these from the Subject lines and not read them.
Yahoo Groups allows for several features such as those listed. However, at this time, these features are not being utilized on LCBNO, so they are turned off. If they were turned on, members could waste time searching them for information that is not available. If these features are used in the future, they will be turned on, and the membership will be notified.
"Groups Labs (Beta)" is also not currently used, but we have not been able to turn it off.
Currently, the Group Setting is for Files to only be used by Moderators--this may change in the future. This is to reduce the risk of a computer virus or malware being uploaded.
There are already several natural history, environmental, and even email lists for groups in Lincoln County (see Links). However, the focus of LCBNO is on observing birds and nature and as serving as a bulletin board, not as being a group.
At one time, it was being considered to affiliate LCBNO with a Lincoln County natural history group. However, many lists have had difficulties with disruptive behavior of list members. When a list is sponsored by an organization, such problems can cause stress within the organization, and much time in business meetings can be wasted in debating how to respond and how to develop appropriate list membership and moderation policies. By keeping this list independent, the moderators are free to act according to their best judgment.
Perhaps LCBNO will be affiliated with a particular group in the future.
LCBNO is cryptic, and receivers of an Invite to LCBNO or searchers of Yahoo's Directory may be puzzled. However, the purpose of LCBNO is easily determined by going beyond the acronym. Some groups have longer more descriptive names (e.g., YamhillBirders and BirdingCalifornia). However, group names appear at the start of the Subject line in each message, and a long name takes up more space so that less of the Subject line is visible to receivers. Many email readers view the Subject line to determine if they wish to read a message or not.
A short name like LCBNO (or OBOL for Oregon Birders and Naturalists) at the start of a message allows more space for more of the Subject line to be visible.
The ads on Yahoo are distracting, but Yahoo has an option to not allow attachments, Google did not. Attachments can be a problem because they can contain computer viruses. They can also create problems for dial-up users because if the attachments are large, they, at best, can take a long time to download, and, at worst, can jam up their Internet connection.
Additionally, Yahoo Groups has more flexibility to deal with individual members than Google. This is especially important for disruptive members.
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