As some Retraction Watch readers have known, we’ve had off-and-on technological issues with the site. At least in some cases, those problems seem to have been due to DDOS attacks. We’ve been taking steps to ensure the site’s reliability, and we’re taking another one.
Since our inception in 2010, we’ve offered a way to receive an email alert about every new post as it is published. We know that for some readers, such alerts are the preferred way to learn of new posts. However, the various ways to do that all create vulnerabilities on the site, which in turn offer bots ways to compromise us.
As a result, we’re phasing out our email per post subscription, the one that you may have signed up for using the “follow” button that appears on the bottom of your screen. At the end of October, we will no longer offer it.
But fear not — there are many other ways to stay on top of what we’re posting, including a daily email that we think will work even better for our regular readers. In The RW Daily, usually sent about 7 a.m. U.S. Eastern time Monday through Friday, we include the day’s post as well as links to pieces elsewhere that will end up in Weekend Reads. It’s offered through MailChimp, which is more stable software that allows us more control over what is sent out, and provides better list management tools for us and for readers. (We also have occasional requests for a weekly email, and while we would like to offer that, we are not in a position to do so at the moment given our current resources.)
Please sign up for The RW Daily here — and feel free to ask any questions by emailing us.
Thanks for reading.
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