About the Email Thing

We are aware that you all are not receiving emails anymore and that this is a frustration for you.  I, too, find it frustrating, as George and I feel it’s only right to send individual apologies to you when you write to us about stuff like this and it takes time.   

The problem is we can’t fix it, for a variety of reasons, which I will explain in more detail, below. 

There is no longer a setting for this in our system.  It may have been inadvertently disabled at some point because our system is so old (13 years, if you can believe it).

Our system has also been heavily customized by different people throughout the years.  We don’t have one of those “plug and play” templates people use today.  Even doing mandatory Word Press releases is a problem, and we’re often months (if not years) behind.

The people who are responsible for the original coding are the only ones who can weed through the system and tweak it but they’re priests who have their hands full with their parishes and other Church endeavors so they just don’t have the time to help us out unless it’s a bonified emergency; especially when there is an easy workaround: 

Load our URL as a favorite in your browser and click once to get to our site when you get that “Monomakhos itch”. 

We could go to a new system but we’d lose everything.  Monomakhos is one of the few sites (perhaps the only site) that is so old, we have the history to “remind” people what was really said and done and the documentation to prove it.  What fun would there be in losing that?!

I have hired contractors (a suggestion from the blog) in the past who later return my money because they can’t navigate our system.  I was even contacted the other day by someone who offered to manage our contact list for $75 an hour. 

The problem is we don’t have a contact list!  LOL

We have no way of identifying people on our site, on purpose.  We made a promise to you a long time ago to maintain your confidentiality and the best way to do that was not to track you.  Our contact list is just me, George, and Teresa, bless her heart, so she can always get into our system. 

On a positive note, we have provided multiple links to other sites on our page so you don’t have to back out of our system to get to another site.  Hopefully, this offsets the loss of emails by saving you time, as well as bringing traffic to some of our fellow bloggers.  

I’m not sure people realize this, but our emails (when we had them) went out once a day so they were not real-time as they might have been 13 years ago. 

We usually have something waiting in the queue for you to read but we have to give you an opportunity to catch your breath before we hit you with something new.  We don’t want you all having heart attacks!!!  We have to give you time to process.

However, if you just pop in when you’re bored and looking for something to do, there is always something of value for you to read on Monomakhos.  

For example, we have some extraordinary commentary.  I mean these people are truly in a league of their own.  There is little “tit for tat” going on anymore (unless it slips by me); just some solid discussion.  I am told that even the people who hate our blog, READ it so if you want to make a point, Monomakhos is the place to do it. 

We really do put a lot of effort into what we do and we are so appreciative when people tell us our site has some value because the actual work is the equivalent of writing a term paper, several times a week!  I kid you not.  Not only do we have to do the research, but we also have to talk to people up the food chain to ensure we get it right.      

This is kind of funny, but the only time I remember people saying we majorly screwed up was when George posted that April Fools joke.  He called it “satire,” which may be technically true, but he left a lot of people mad and in tears.  (I promise you I won’t let him do that again!) 

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the link:  https://www.monomakhos.com/ep-to-recognize-ocas-autocephaly/  

It’s worth mentioning that in all the time Monomakhos has been in existence, we’ve only received (maybe) $200 in donations and it’s expensive to maintain software.  We’ve thought long and hard about a nominal subscription fee to help offset the cost of improving our site but we’d have to do it in a way where, again, we’re not tracking you.

We’ve been approached to put ads on our page, which we’ve managed to avoid but just barely.  Anyway, I’m not sure the money you can make that way is enough to justify the intrusion.

George works part-time and we like to entertain guests from out of town so the clergy has a place to stay when they come through Tulsa.  I usually pull out all the stops with the china, silver, and food, because I love to entertain and people enjoy a break from eating off paper plates once in a while.  

Like you, we also tithe and help out people in our Church, etc., so the Michalopulos’ are on an extremely tight budget when it comes to the blog.

In our defense, we do try to make up for it by contributing our time (lots and lots of it).  It’s truly a labor of love on our part.  

In closing, please forgive us for the email problem.  We appreciate your understanding and hope this rather lengthy explanation will bring the matter to a successful close.  Please know, that the last thing we want is to lose readers over an email problem!    

Mrs. M   (AKA Gail Sheppard)