Yesterday, I sent out the fifth installment of an email series about keywords. It should have gone out BCC, but it didn’t so each and every recipient received contact information about all of the other recipients. While this is not the end of the world, it should not have happened. Of course, I have prepared a list of several hundred excuses to explain away this mistake. Yet, for this one time only, I’ve decided to simply admit that this was my mistake, to say I am sorry it happened, and – in this web log post – explain procedures that I have taken to prevent it happening again, as well as other procedures that could be undertaken if it, unbelievably, should ever happen again.
In addition, I am providing some more general thoughts on the challenges facing content creators, and the distribution of their works.
Web-log vs email
I feel more comfortable writing a web-log post, than an email. There are two important reasons for this. First, writing content in a web-log post is almost a pleasure, because of the editing facilities found in web-log software. In comparison, Email editing facilities are second-rate. Second, content written in a web-log post can be updated as required, even after it is published.
This web-log uses WordPress as its platform. Recently, its new Gutenberg editor has been used to write posts. While some features (such as links) still require use of the Classic editor, Gutenberg is a superior editor. Mozilla Thunderbird is used for emails. I work on both a Chromebook laptop and a Linux Mint stationary machine. Both programs allow me to transition between these machines as often as I want, and the updated post or email I am writing follows me.
One of the major differences between an email and a web-log post is that an email is immutable. It doesn’t change. If one has written something foolish it remains in that foolish state, in that email, forever. This is not the situation with a web-log post, which can be edited and updated. This is very useful for a person, such as myself, who has difficulty spelling words correctly.
Please note, that from Keywords 06 and onwards, keywords content will be posted on Brock at Cliff Cottage. Only a link will be sent as an email.
Thunderbird
At Cliff Cottage, the Mozilla Thunderbird email application, runs under Linux Mint. David White, provided a Use BCC Instead add-on for Thunderbird. If the Always Substitute BCC for TO and CC option was enabled, any recipients addressed using TO or CC were automatically changed to BCC before the message was sent. This was a great help for people such as myself who can be forgetful.
Unfortunately, the Use BCC Instead add-on, was not updated when Thunderbird V60 was released in August 2018. TO was the default setting. This meant that every email had to have BCC selected manually. I failed to do this when Keywords 05 Brands was sent out.
Current Fix
The English language recipients of Keywords were stored in an address list titled Keywords. Similarly, the Norwegian language recipients, were stored in Nøkkelord. These two lists have had their respective names changed to BCC-Keywords and BCC-Nøkkelord. Hopefully, when I add the name to the TO: field, this name change will be sufficient for me to change TO to BCC.
Permanent Fix
If I make the same mistake again, a more permanent fix is to downgrade the version of Thunderbird to 57. This version allows Use BCC Instead to function as an add on.