New year; Old editor
by Bob Collins

(Jan. 3, 2009) -- Every now and again I write one of these editor page things, although it's more "again" than "now." It looks like the last one was written in May 2007 which a little while ago didn't seem like that long ago. But it's 2009, or -- as we like to say at my house -- "The Year of Three Years After When We Thought My RV Project Should Be Flying." Or "Year of the Dog." Your choice.

But I haven't written much in this space because most of my RV writing has been included in my blog, Letters From Flyover Country. But since I'm only passing along some housekeeping things, it didn't seem appropriate to fill peoples' RSS feeds with housekeeping details.

First, I'm continuing to troubleshoot the problem some people are having with spam filters and such and have come to this conclusion: There's nothing more I can do about ISPs that filter out the RV Builder's Hotline as spam. It has to come from you. There are too many ISPs and too many possible configurations to troubleshoot at this end.

I have two different ways of emailing the newsletter through two different routes. Some of you get the Hotline no matter which system I use (on those rare occasions when you get two, it means I used both), some of you only get it when I use one system, some of you only get it when I use the other. And some weeks, all of the groups flip-flop.

Some large ISPs -- like Comcast -- are indiscriminate. They don't let you make the choice of whether something is spam or not. They make the choice for you. Comcast is also notorious for not delivering e-mail to you in a timely matter, so quite often there is no indication at this end that your copy of the Hotline didn't go through.

Even in the old days of the Hotline, bounced messages were a problem, we just didn't realize it.

If your Hotline has been steadily delivered, you don't need to do anything. If not, I suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed of Letters From Flyover Country because I always announce when the Hotline has been posted. If you're a fan of Twitter, you might want to follow @N614EF for the same reason.

And effective with this issue, I won't be sending the html version by e-mail anymore. This also relates to the problem of filtering by ISPs (and by some of your email programs). Instead, I'll simply be sending you a notice of the availability of the Hotline along with a link. In effect, it requires you only to click a mouse. If you feel strongly about this decision, let me know and I'll certainly reconsider.

As of today, the Hotline has 1,918 subscribers. I encourage you to let your EAA chapter newsletter know about the Hotline and ask him or her to run a short notice about its availability.

Finally, this update on the RV BBQ at Oshkosh. Let's just remember it as it was when we last held it in 2007. It really can't get any better and, besides, other than a few volunteers to help cook, no solutions to the problems I outlined in a Letters From Flyover County posting in early November were forthcoming.

But the cold weather in Minnesota automatically makes me think of Oshkosh so I'm coming up with new ideas. One would gear efforts to the people who can't be there, rather than the people who can. So I'm planning on daily online chats each evening with those of you who won't be able to make it. And I hope to produce a few more videos and slideshows than I did last year, that can be uploaded on a daily basis. Of course, this all depends on EAA making continuing upgrades to its wiFi system.

As always, I hope you're finding some value in the RV Hotline. Again, please send me any articles, threads, pictures and links that you think your fellow builders will find interesting.