The May newsletter may have sent via email instead of Forum PM

[Susan]

It appears that I may have missed checking the box that makes the newsletter send via forum pm, if so I apologize to anyone who that may have inconvenienced. I know I clicked it, but it may not have taken, and I assure you that it was strictly unintentional.  To make sure it is never missed again, I will be editing the forum source code, and making sure it is checked by default from now on.

Hi Susan
I received an email regarding the monthly newsletter but it was mostly code with a few working links but it never showed up in my PM's here at the site -
It's okay because I was able to muddle through it, but thought maybe I should let you know that it didn't post proper in case this happened to anyone else

Code Select Expand

We are sending this out as monthly forum private message, to keep you up to date on the web site and all the goings on. In this edition we will be covering:

[list]
[*] Welcome
[*] Secure Server
[*] Problems accessing the server
[*] Logo design contest
[*] We need your Support & Subscriber Drive
[*] Chat
[*] Forums
[*] Links
[*] Minecraft
[*] News
[*] Wiki[/list]

[b]Welcome![/b]
...

The BBCode only works via private message, and will not work on a newsletter which is sent via email; which should demonstrate that it was indeed unintentional.

Again you have my sincere apologies!

[Susan]

This is what you should have received in a Forum Private Message...

We are sending this out as monthly forum private message, to keep you up to date on the web site and all the goings on. In this edition we will be covering:

• Welcome
  
• Secure Server
  
• Problems accessing the server
  
• Logo design contest
  
• We need your Support & Subscriber Drive
  
• Chat
  
• Forums
  
• Links
  
• Minecraft
  
• News
  
• Wiki

Welcome!

We had a great month!

In Apr 2015 a total of 269,472 unique visitors made 503,887 visits accounting for 7,429,920 Page Views and transferring a total of 332.04 GB.  As near as I can tell we had a nice bump in visitors around the time of the new site's launch, but not much of a Jenner interview bump.

Search engines are just now indexing the new content we made public on April 15th, even with that in mind our news articles were viewed a total of 24,933 times; and I expect our growth in that area to be exponential.

Our top 4 articles for the month were

Views - Title
1,868 - Transsexual Liu Ting captivates China
1,327 - Was that Will Smith's son Jaden wearing a dress
1,078 - South Carolina Male-to-Female Transsexual Teen to be allowed to express Gender Identity in Drivers License Photo after Lawsuit
1,077 – The Battle of an American Soldier

We also added a translate option to the front page so our news content is now available in upwards of 80 languages. Which is to put it simply awesome! I plan on adding the same feature to our wiki very soon!

The redesign of the site is complete, and for the last several weeks I have been working out all the little kinks and issues, and fine tuning some of the elements.

For the links, I have purchased the new links software; and we are in the testing stages with that. Once we are ready, I have to write a custom links importer to transfer the links from our old software to our new links directory.

Secure Server

To help protect our members, and to enhance your privacy when you browse the site; I have added SSL encryption to Susan's Place. All communications between you and the server are now encrypted with 256 bit security. This means your ISP, your employer, or other parties cannot see what you are browsing when you are on Susan's Place. You will receive a warning, if anyone attempts to intercept your connection to the server.

Problems accessing the server

Some people using the Tapatalk app have reported issues accessing the site, if that occurs simply remove the forum, and  then re-add it by searching for https://www.susans.org/forums/.

If you are having issues but are not using Tapatalk, make sure you are using a SSL capable web browser, and/or clear your cookies and browser history. If you still have problems after doing so, email me at susan@susans.org.

Logo Design Contest

We have been using the "Susan's" girl at the top of this web site for 20 years. Some people feel that it projects the wrong image for the site, and  I can understand their concerns. However, I would be reluctant to give up that history unless we have something absolutely amazing to replace it with.

With that being said, I am going to give all the graphic designers out there a chance to come up with an alternative, or replacement logo for the site.

So if you are interested in participating, create a logo for the site; and send it to me via email by May 15th 2015. The header area for the logo is a maximum of 1128x228. However, it can be smaller if needed

Your submissions should include the full resolution PSD or Adobe Illustrator files used to create the logo complete with all of the layers used in its creation intact.

Please include with a 72dpi and a 300DPI+ flattened version attached to the email.  A much appreciated bonus would be to also include a twitter header, and a facebook header for the logo as well.

Do not post your submissions to the forums, instead send them directly to me at susan@susans.org with the subject "logo contest".

I will pick the ones that I like, and will share them with the members for their opinions.  If your image is selected, I will find a suitable reward of my choosing for the winners.

Please be aware that by submitting an entry, you are giving up all rights to the logo in question. All submitted logos become the sole property of this web site.

Good luck!

We need your Support

The redesign of Susan's Place was made possible by the generous support of members like yourself.

Everyone who has donated or subscribed since January deserves a big round of applause.

We are 5 days into a 31 day month. So far We have received $287.44 of the $2,000 we need to meet the expenses for the month. That leaves us with $1712.56 to raise before the end of the month.

If you are able to step up and donate or subscribe please consider doing so. Since the 1st of January I have been able to give my 24x7 attention to the site. Something only possible with your continued support.

I would like to establish a decent buffer to ensure that we don't get to the point that the bills won't be paid if we have a month were we receive lower than expected donations.

We are up 15 subscribers from the previous month. So we currently have 75 active subscribers. I would like to see number that increase to 250. We have 17,796  members, so surely that's not asking too much.

To help make subscribing a more affordable for those who are on tight incomes we have added a Bronze subscription for $5.00 a month. For those who want to do more, we have added a Platinum $50.00 a month option.  If you can afford to do so please consider committing $5.00, $10.00, $20.00, or $50.00 a month to help support Susan's Place. Subscriptions are budgetable, and that helps me to know where the site stands financially.

If you can't donate or subscribe, I understand fully! However, if you can even small amounts makes a big difference, when you add them all up!

Together we make the difference. Please Donate or subscribe!

Chat

Hooray, Hooray, The First of May! Spring may finally arrive! (and none too soon around here!)

There's not much to tell about the activity in the chat rooms this past month. It was pretty much the usual craziness in there!

We have over 10 channels in the chat rooms, channels devoted to cross dressers (#CDTalk), FtM identified people (#FtMTalk), significant others (#SOTalk), transsexual people (#TSTalk), people with intersex conditions (#ISTalk), a channel for non-binary (#Androgyne) people and even a channel for political discourse called #Soapbox.

Lastly, we have a channel called #Help which is for, well, you know! The funny thing is, these channels are rarely used! Everybody seems to hang out in the main room, in #Chat. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

We are still looking for people to join our staff, particularly those from the European, Asian and Pacific time zones. If you are interested, please contact me!  A forum PM or an email to emelye@susans.org will do it.

Let me invite you all to come visit us, maybe start a conversation in one of the other, less used channels? It's fun, informative and you'll get some great typing practice in! BCNU all there soon! (I hope!)

Hugs & Smiles

- HelenW
  Chat Administrator

Forums

Wow, another month flew past. The new site was launched and within seconds of going live the Forum was filling up again.

Popular posts included the Bruce Jenner interview, with most people being pleasantly surprised by how it was conducted and it seems to have been positively received in public.

We welcomed two new Mods, Katrinaw from Australia (yep another Aussie!) and Mariah2014 from the USA and I have two more female Mods who are about to join.

I'm still looking for Mods, particularly in the UK and Europe and I really need more male Mods so please contact me if you are interested and I will have a chat to you about what being a GM involves.

May is an interesting month, many of you are moving into Spring after a long cold Northern Winter while in Australia we are moving into Winter. No doubt I will have kangaroos frozen in snow drifts outside my house.

The new season means there are lots of new topics to post and lots of new friends to meet, so come on in and join in the fun.

- Cindy James
  Forum Administrator

Links

Another month of working on old listings, another month of combing through new ones. Time flies but the number of links helpers seems to be smaller still. And the amount of work seems like it'll take forever to do.

Which means we'll be open for links staff positions soon. If you don't mind carpel tunnel, throw me a pm. If you already have carpel tunnel and want to be in links, throw one anyways, even if it is painful.

- Flan
  Links Administrator

Minecraft

And yet another exciting month on the Minecraft Server!

This month we welcomed Yuriel (Fally) to the staff as a server moderator, and welcomed many new players! But, with more new players and a constantly changing server, we are always looking for some more staff!

There are two current positions open: Staff and Moderator. Staff need to be good builders who can dedicate time to contribute to server projects, but also have the maturity to moderate chat. Moderators have no building requirements, but need to be mature enough to moderate chat. If you are interested in becoming staff, send me (Matthew on the forums) a PM!

This month also saw the whole site redesign, minecraft server included! We now have an official server spawn! Go check it out! If it's your first visit to the server, you'll automatically spawn there, otherwise type /spawn into chat and see it for yourself!

I'm also excited to announce the contest for May! Drum roll please....... this month's contest is......

3D Pixel Art contest!

In December, our first contest was a pixel art contest and a huge success, however this time I'm going to challenge you all to something a little trickier!

Rules? Only rules we have is that it must be build on the platform in Contest (/warp Contest or via spawn) and it must be something clean! Apart from that, let your imagination flow!

The Contest will end 14th May, so hurry!

What are you waiting for?

-Matt
Minecraft Administrator

News

Spring is here and the days are longer and warmer.

There has a lot of change in the news department here: Mrs. Izzy stepped down as Administrator after leading us through the transition (no pun intended) from forums to the launch of Project Phoenix and the complete redesign of the site. The undertaking was enormous but the News Department was up to the task with her guidance and support. Hopefully I can help us continue to get bigger and better!

We are always looking for people to assist us as News staffers; both here on the forums and as main page writers. If anyone is interested please send me a PM to let me know. Hopefully some of our other volunteers will also return and join us in adding quality content to the page.

Happy Spring, everyone!

- Wynternight
  News Administrator

Wiki

Over the past month we have rolled out a whole new look and layout for the wiki. It is now more appealing and useable with content being updated and added on a regular basis.

Please welcome me in joining Birkin and Aleon515 to the wiki staff for this month!

With that being said, I am looking for eager users that wish to contribute their knowledge and researching skills. This is an important task and a great way to serve the community. Being a wiki staff member means making regular edits to change outdated information or fixing spelling errors/grammar and creating new pages.

Interested in the position? Just message me on the forums.

-Skyler
Wiki Administrator

That's it for this month! Hope to see you soon!

Regards,
The Susan's Place Transgender Resources Team.
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php

For the third time you all have my apologies!