(no subject)

[eirias]

So after multiple annoying emails from our friends at noreply@cwru.edu, I finally tried to change over to their alumni system, as my long-beloved POP mail address will expire in one month. But the link I followed from their email sent me eventually to a password-protected page for which my CWRUNet ID and password apparently do not suffice. Anyone here know what's going on with that?

Also, they say that cwrunetid@alumni.case.edu will work, but what about cwrunetid@po.cwru.edu? It does me zero good to set up forwarding in the first place if it won't forward from the address I've actually been using - I might as well let the account lapse, and the spam with it.

Comments

[exilejedi.livejournal.com]

Whoa, deja vu. I tried their instructions as well, had exactly the same experience, and am annoyed and frustrated for exactly the same reasons.

Apparently, though, we already have active @alumni.case.edu addresses, which forward to the same place that our @po.cwru.edu addresses do. I tried it when the first email went out, though as you say, it doesn't do me much good if the address that I've actually used goes away.

I think texodore may have made some progress trying to talk to the Help Desk about it.....

[thekat03.livejournal.com]

alumni should still be able to use their @po.cwru.edu addresses, though i would not be surprised if someday they stop allowing the po part to work (since nowadays, they recommend @case.edu instead)
i don't recall having any problems signing up for the alum account a couple years ago, but i'm guessing stuff has changed since then

[suzyq72.livejournal.com]

I think its possible for alum's to set up their @po.cwru.edu addresses to be permanently forwarding...I got an e-mail about something about that a month or two ago and I just set mine up to go through my yahoo account...but it is quite annoying since I found something from when we graduated talking about the benefits of being an alum including e-mail for life...

[thekat03.livejournal.com]

it's annoying, but understandable, i think
the university implicitly gave people email for life, but as far as i know, there's no formal statement saying that
there are tons of alumni who never use their email after they graduate, and the university doesn't want to spend resources on maintaining all those unused emails, especially with the expanded mailbox sizes and paid-per-user spam filtering
i'm just glad that ITS managed to figure out how to keep forwarding rather than dropping alumni email altogether (something that had been seriously considered until lots of alumni started complaining to the alumni affairs office)

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I don't think it's about the alums who don't use their email. It would be pretty easy to delete accounts that have been inactive for a certain period of time, and would have generated less resentment among alumni. I think it's about wanting to cut costs, basically, and seeing "lifetime POP mail" as an unnecessary and not-well-bounded cost.

Still makes me really sad, though. Over seven years I've had this email address, and it's been (mostly) reliable and accessible from anywhere. I've never really liked using multiple email addresses, so the forwarding thing doesn't thrill me either, although I suppose it's better than not being reachable by people who aren't sure where else to find me.

[thekat03.livejournal.com]

i guess the forwarding doesn't bother me as much since i've had 2 main email addresses for several years (@cwru and @thekat.org), and have been forwarding my cwru mail for about as long as well
i guess most free lifetime email addresses that people can get don't let you use your preferred From: address though, which makes forwarding more noticeable and less seamless

[rshruti.livejournal.com]

So there are two steps to this process. First you have to register in their alumni network thingy at https://www.cwru.edu/cgi-bin/cwruser-application-ssl.pl. Once you get confirmation of registration you can set up forwarding. It's not really that bad, it's their instructions that suck.

And as far as I know, there are no plans to get rid of the "po" any time soon, but you might consider gradually switching over to cwrunetid@case.edu, just in case po or cwru do ever go away.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

I will probably not bother changing subscriptions, regardless of what they do to cwru.edu; free lifetime email forwarding is not particularly special (I can get the same crappy service from half a dozen webmail providers, or marginally better service plus privacy invasion through gmail) except insofar as it allows me to prevent having to change all my subscriptions. So, you know, having to change all my subscriptions to take advantage of it? Not worth the time. If/when I do change subscriptions on things, it will be to somewhere more permanent, or at least more immediately useful.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

(but thanks for the signup instructions - that will probably be useful!)