Floribama Riders

When we migrate to the new site, I would like to simplify the account creation process for our members. I remember some people had trouble signing up for the forums at http://www.floribamariders.com/cs/forums, and anything we can do to make things easier would be gravy.

I have access to the current membership list from Woods. See http://www.floribamariders.com/member.htm

Auto-signup via e-mail

What do you all think about *automatically* signing up people for access to the site? We would import a list of members who are up-to-date on their payments. The system would notify the member at their e-mail address of the new account, and that person could log in to add their blog posts and see the private forums on the site.

The only downside is you're not supposed to send unsolicited e-mail. If anybody reports this message as spam, it would be a pain to sort that out. But our members did provide an e-mail address so we could contact them occasionally. I think it's reasonable to notify them of their access to the new site.

Snail mail

We could also use snail mail, either instead of or in addition to the e-mail. Two weeks after the e-mail went out, we could send a hard copy letter to those users who had not yet logged in. This letter would contain their username and password and remind them to check out the new site.

Three months later

After a few months, we could disable any accounts where nobody had logged in yet. Now that I think about it, I dunno why this is desirable. If they're a paid-up member, they should retain the account, even if they're not actively using it. Anyway, it's an option to disable these.

Thoughts?

Is it ok to send the e-mail? Is it worth sending a snail mail follow-up?

-Ice T