SA Skeptics Newsletter

Skepticism General Skepticism
1

Hey there South African Skeptics

I offered to help bluegray with the society and one of his suggestions was to start producing a newsletter.

A few quick questions;

  1. Would you like to receive such a newsletter?
  2. Are there any specific features you would like to see?
  3. Would you be willing to contribute?

Please let me know so that I may start planning this beast :slight_smile:

SD

2
3

I have a suggestion, I’d like to know what everyone thinks about this.

I currently have subscriptions to all sorts of newsletters, and generally I only scan a few of them and then delete them. Even for newsletters which appear really interesting I say “I’ll get back to that” and weeks go by before I even remember that I received something that I wanted to read. My mailbox can be quite unmanageable at times. I would hate for hard work like this to get ignored.

Perhaps here on this forum there should be a new category (under “General Skepticism” I guess) just for Newsletters. The category should have particular security settings so that only particular users can start topics but that anyone can respond. I don’t know if SMF supports that but I have seen it on a number of other fora (like the JREF). Is there an alert facility to notify interested members when a new post is made to that category? I do visit this site almost daily or at least three times a week (even if I don’t log in) so I would find a new newsletter without being notified.

I think that the only downside to this suggestion would be the limited capability to layout / theme the newsletter and the length of posted content.

Anyone agree or disagree? Are there other suggestions?

4

I did not see this post when I returned, but I see it kind of died.
What sort of things would go in the newsletter?

5

Well, my idea was to start off with a single article written about something skeptical. Either something in current news or addressing a specific pseudoscience / medicine topic.
I’d feature a pick of the monthly skeptical carnival.
And a skeptical puzzle.

Those are my ideas so far, but I’m not really prepared to put a lot of time into it if no body is interested.

6

Yeah, judging by the response to this thread, I don’t think I would invest much time either.
I think it was a good idea though :wink: