Newsletter Feedback

[sneeuwklokje]

A little correction to the birthdaylist: HRH The Prince of Orange's (WA) birthday is not on september 1th, but on april 27th (1967).

[Zonk]

Originally Posted by sneeuwklokje

A little correction to the birthdaylist: HRH The Prince of Orange's (WA) birthday is not on september 1th, but on april 27th (1967).

Thank you...I have corrected the newsletter!

[amandamrgt]

The newsletters are wonderful; I learn a lot of things about royals from other countries!
This month's newsletter is one of the best from the ones I've managed to read so far. Other favourites are the ones dedicated to the gardens, older royal couples and male consorts, I did enjoy all of them. the A-Z newsletter was monstrous - how did you manage to fit in so many stuff in one edition?!

[Elspeth]

The editors managed to twist a lot of arms in order to get contributions for that edition!

[sgl]

I really liked the topic of this month's newsletter. I think it is very interesting that many royals are sending their children to ordinary schools with non-royal children. I imagine that the youngest generation of royals will grow up to be very well-rounded people who are able to relate more easily to their subjects. I would like to see more information about royals and education.

[amandamrgt]

Originally Posted by Elspeth

The editors managed to twist a lot of arms in order to get contributions for that edition!

I think there is a separate thread for this, but I thought I just might ask the question here;would it be possible to twist more arms and get some sort of an A-Z newsletter for separate countries? Some sort of a basics about different Royalties? I guess people who join the forum don't really know that much about all royals, just the ones they are interested in.

[Warren]

When we did the A-Z various Admins/Mods each did a separate country or countries, or a general A-Z of interesting facts. After some discussion we took the decision that it was better to amalgamate the completed work rather than have separate entries. It wasn't quite "six of one and a half dozen of the other" as the combined list flows more smoothly whereas a separate countries A-Z with general A-Zs would have appeared disjointed.

There was a lot of work done by the whole team in compiling all of the information and I agree there are some advantages in having separate A-Zs, but overall the combined list was the preferred option.

[amandamrgt]

Originally Posted by Warren

When we did the A-Z various Admins/Mods each did a separtete country or countries, or a general A-Z of interesting facts. After some discussion we took the decision that it was better to amalgamate the completed work rather than have separate entries. It wasn't quite "six of one and a half dozen of the other" as the combined list flows more smoothly whereas a separate countries A-Z with general A-Zs would have appeared disjointed.

There was a lot of work done by the whole team in compiling all of the information and I agree there are some advantages in having separate A-Zs, but overall the combined list was the preferred option.

It is a great list, which personally I enjoyed immensily, leave alone learn quite a few things. It was a wonderful and impressive job!
I guess what I meant was creating some sort of a fact-book about separate royal families. I mean, I had no idea who Marius was before joining the forum, and you are talking about the eldest son of the future queen of Norway. Of course, pretty much everyone here knows way more then I do, but I guess it might have been a good way for the new members to get to know who-is-who in the Royal Families, especially the less famous and non-reigning ones.

[Warren]

There are probably a lot of things we could do to get together, for example, a "Who's Who in the House of Windsor" and "Introduction to the British Monarchy" type of compilations but it involves a lot of work and a lot of time. To ensure the consistent overall-Forum approach we would have to do these for each reigning House and quite a few of the non-reigning ones.

Marengo and norwegianne have put a lot of work into creating historical profiles for many of the Dutch royals and Scandinavian monarchs respectively, but this too is an ongoing project. With a Forum this size and our efforts to increase coverage in the non-European monarchies and give a greater emphasis and depth to the historical areas, there is always a wish-list of things we could do to make the Forums even better. That's on top of the Picture of the Month, the Royal Articles, the monthly Newsletter, the Royal Book Club and the day-to-day moderating and behind the scenes tasks that the team performs, so you can see it's much easier said than done.

[norwegianne]

Originally Posted by amandamrgt

It is a great list, which personally I enjoyed immensily, leave alone learn quite a few things. It was a wonderful and impressive job!
I guess what I meant was creating some sort of a fact-book about separate royal families. I mean, I had no idea who Marius was before joining the forum, and you are talking about the eldest son of the future queen of Norway. Of course, pretty much everyone here knows way more then I do, but I guess it might have been a good way for the new members to get to know who-is-who in the Royal Families, especially the less famous and non-reigning ones.

Well, as Warren said - there are various special threads all over the forums, and some of the forums have FAQs as well.

For example, a project Mandy and I did in 2005 as moderators in the Norwegian forum was to write biographies of the Norwegian royals since 1905 when the current family came into being: The Norwegian Monarchy 1905-2005: Biographies and timeline

Making the forum better and providing threads on interesting things, royals and topics is certainly an ongoing project, but it not something that should be exclusive to the moderating team - after all, anybody can start a thread or ask a question in an existing one

[Elspeth]

We've got a historical list under way for the British forum, but it was being done by three of the mods, two of whom are no longer on the team, which means that I'm pretty much trying to do it myself at the moment. We'll get there one of these days, but as Warren said, these things take time!

[amandamrgt]

Thank you all for responses! I understand the work for a Forum of this size would be monumental. Besides, I've found quite a few of Who-Is-Who type of threads in different forums, like the mini-biographies on the siblings of King Abdullah of Jordan and their families. I have to say those were quite informative!

P.S. Thank you for The Norwegian Monarchy 1905-2005: Biographies and timeline norwegianne, that is trully monumental!
P.P.S. Since this is a newsletter feedback thread after all, thanks for the May 2007 Newsletter: Royal Patronages - I never knew tiniest friction of it, not even for British Royals. As a woman, I realy enjoyed reading August 2007: Some notable Royal Women in history. Glad to have found Margaret of Habsburg among them, by the way; she's my absolute favourite! Right now, I'm trying to dig in September 2007 Newsletter: Queen Victoria and King Christian's descendants, but that's going to be difficult!

[sgl]

I really enjoyed the December 2008 article about the royal orders, especially the orders of Brazil and Portugal. It was really interesting, and the author did an excellent job of describing the vestments, sashes, mantles, etc. I would have liked to see photos of some of these orders accompanying the text, but otherwise, this article was excellent.

[JulieS]

Originally Posted by sgl

I would have liked to see photos of some of these orders accompanying the text, but otherwise, this article was excellent.

I agree with sgl. Some photos would be very appreciated.

[Elspeth]

Well, we'd be running into the same problem that we have with the threads - we can't use copyrighted photos, and there isn't a lot else out there. But we can probably add some links to official websites and so on.

[Leslie2006]

you missed a December birthday:

17 - James Mountbatten-Windsor, Viscount Severn (2007)

[Elspeth]

Thank you; I've added it. Well noticed!

[alex001]

Originally Posted by sgl

I really enjoyed the December 2008 article about the royal orders, especially the orders of Brazil and Portugal. It was really interesting, and the author did an excellent job of describing the vestments, sashes, mantles, etc. I would have liked to see photos of some of these orders accompanying the text, but otherwise, this article was excellent.

I originally thought this would just be what I already knew, but it actually turned out to be really interesting, as I don't know anything about the Brazilian or Portuguese orders. Great job!

[RhapsodyBrat]

I have a little thing to point out in the March 2009 newsletter.

In the entry for Queen Zein al-Sharaf, King Hussein's mother, the writers keep referring to Jordan as "Jordania." If I remember correctly, Jordan has never used that name; instead the country was previously known as Transjordan until its name was shortened to its current form after WW2.

The newsletter also has one "Frederika" who is referred to as the mother of Queen Sofía and King Constantin and another "Frederica" who is referred to as the grandmother of both. I believe Queen Sofía and King Constantine's grandmother would have to be the former Princess Sophie of Prussia, who married their grandfather Constantine I of Greece in 1889.

[Elspeth]

Thanks, I've updated the entries.