We’ve received many questions over the past few days about the Families.com and DAGG merger and integration with Families.com. We’ve compiled some of the most common questions and their answers together in the following Frequently Asked Questions.

What happened?
DAGG's management will be taken over by Families.com. See the announcement at: http://www.dealagogo.com/showthread.php?p=330210.

Why?
The owners of DAGG, for reasons entirely their own, have decided to step away from its management and felt that Families.com could provide the space and environment necessary for the DAGG community to thrive.

What about all my posts and PMs? Am I going to lose everything and have to start over?
No. PMs and messages will stay intact. They will simply be transferred into your accounts at Families.com. Everything that you can currently access at DAGG will be imported to Families.com, so nothing will be lost to you.

What do I have to do?
Absolutely nothing. We’ll take care of all the moving and one day, when you log in to Deal-A-Go-Go, you’ll be automatically redirected to Families.com. Your PMs and posts will all be there just as you left them.

What about all the members, the mods, and the admins?
The DAGG Mods & Admin personnel who wish to will move as well. The current “Admin” personnel will be called the “Deals Managers” and the Moderators will continue to be known as Moderators.

When will this change become effective?
As soon as we can work out the technical side of things. It could be a few days or a few weeks. We are working to make it so you can continue to use dealagogo.com until everything is ready, and then it will move over. The main goal is to cause as little disruption as possible. (I guess that’s out the window, huh?)

Does this mean Deal-A-GoGo will soon be dissolved once everything is transferred to Families.com?
Deal-A-Go-Go is simply going to be inserted into a currently empty section at Families.com. The url www.dealagogo.com will still work and it will automatically redirect you to the new home of Deal-A-Go-Go at www.Deals.Families.com.

Will there be a new set of mods at families.com?
We currently have a team of Moderators working in our forums at Families.com but the Moderators you’ll work with in the Deals Section will be the same ones that you have had at DAGG. Your moderators will stay on and continue to run things just as they have. If there is a problem that requires assistance, they'll get in touch with me and I'll see to it that we accommodate them. Our intention is not to swallow DAGG or chew it up, but to provide it with the support structure, space and freedom to grow as it has been.

Does this mean you have sold Dagg's members info to this site?

Families.com is acquiring the community and yes, that will include the personal data you include in your profile. Families.com has never sold any information to any advertiser, and has no intention of ever doing that.If you want a member’s personal information from us, you’d better have a court subpoena. If this is an issue, you may feel free to remove your personal information from your profile prior to the actual transition which will not be for at least 48 hours from the posting of this FAQ.

Count me as one who does not want the e-mail address I provided to DAGG to be sold and spammed.
Families.com has never sent any spam email.

Is it possible to update or change our contact e-mail address before the changes become effective?
Sure. Do it now.

I do not think I want to be on another board...can we cancel memberships to DAGG before the changes are finalized?
Sure. Do it now.

Why didn’t you give us any notice?
We did. This is it. The changeover has NOT occurred yet and won’t for at least several days after the announcement was made.

The other website I belong to manages 10,000 members w/out selling out to a bigger company and possibly compromising so much personal information. Maybe there is another way?
The owners of DAGG were faced with a decision of closing the site or selling it. They put their hearts and souls into DAGG. It is a passion for them but it was begun as a hobby and has since taken on a life of its own. They reached a spot where they were unable to provide the resources for this community to be maintained, much less grow how they wanted it to. So, they agreed to merge the DAGG community into Families.com to help it have the additional support resources that it needs to continue to run properly.

There's always reference to DAGG as community, family, close ties, etc., why weren’t members given the option to choose how they want their personal info handled?
You are being given the option now. Your information has NOT been imported into the Families.com system.

I'm not sure what DAGG has to do with families in general. Many members have families, but there are plenty of single members as well.
Families.com is a place to build and strengthen many different types of families, including family units with one member. We consider Deals, Coupons & Frugal Living to be one of the areas where we would like Families.com to focus.

Is this the end of DAGG?
Families.com realizes the incredible community that Deal-A-GoGo has, and is committed maintain and grow this community. I certainly hope this is not the end of DAGG. I hope this is the beginning of a new chapter with exciting new growth for this community. We'd love any feedback you have as to how we can help this transition happen smoother and what we could do to make DAGG even better.


What is Families.com?
Families.com is a community dedicated to strengthening families. Families.com MySite allows you to build a free website to share journals and photos with friends and family.
Families.com Blogs offers 40+ blogs on family-related topics. We also offer forums, reviews on family-related products, and comparison shopping.

Where do I send suggestions?
We welcome your feedback about what we can do to make this transition as smooth as possible, and what ideas you have to help grow the Deal-A-GoGo community to be even better than it already is. Please send your suggestions to lisap@families.com.

What if Families.com disagrees with a DAGG mod, can they delete posts and ban?
As the Community Manager, I'm responsible for keeping the Mods happy. I don't
Micromanage. They know what they're doing and certainly don't need me telling them how to do it. Unfortunately, the DAGG mods have become used to taking a certain degree of abuse from members. Moderators are volunteers and will not be expected to take abuse. If I see someone abusing a moderator, I won’t hesitate to tell that moderator to ban the person. After all, if they have the nerve to abuse a moderator, what might they be doing to other members? We are much less lenient when it comes to abusive behavior at Families.com. We have a family-friendly site and we intend to keep it that way. That means, for example, that explicit talk about sex, drugs, violence and anything promoting illegal activity has no place within our site. We will not allow our members to be trolled or harassed.

Will there still be so many separate forums on families.com? I really like having different forums for all of the grocery stores. It certainly helps me skip right over deals that don't pertain to me.
Yes, we will keep all of the same forums, and will probably add more.

So do we still log in here, or over there?
New registrations at DAGG have been temporarily suspended while we work through the process to merge the DAGG data into Families.com. If you are a member of DAGG you do not need to create a new Families.com account. Your registration will be automatically transferred once the move has been made.

I don't see much of anything grocery related at that forum, or am I just not looking in the right place?
You’re right. It’s all over here. We’re very excited about bringing DAGG to our community and adding that dimension.

Some sites require that you have X number of posts to be able to do certain things on the site. If Families.com is like this I hope that I get to keep my post count so that I can have all privileges.
It is our intention to keep move the posts and post counts over to Families.com in the transfer

Does Families.com support diversity?
Families.com members of all faiths, ethnicities, genders, nationalities, sexual orientations, and disabilities are welcome to participate in Families.com as long as they follow the Terms of Service.

What about the coupon database?
For now the coupon database is staying, although the content was not sold as part of this transaction. Yes there is member contribution to the database, but the original concept was that of the database owner, and she does 90% of the info regarding the inserts. The database owner has the option to make a decision on what to do with the database at a later date. As of the posting of this FAQ, she has not decided if she wants to continue doing it or not.

What about the money many of us donated to DAGG?
Donations to DAGG were just that. A donation. No one had to donate anything. The monies that Rick and Melissa received from the short period of advertising as well as donations were claimed on their taxes as personal income and were taxed. This money was used to help provide DAGG as a FREE community service which many of you did benefit from. If you donated money, we hope that you received a greater amount of savings from DAGG than your donation amount.

If you feel that continued membership at DAGG/Families.com is not for you and you didn’t receive anything of value for your donation, Families.com is prepared to act in good faith in an effort to keep good will. They will provide you with a refund of your donation and cancellation of your membership. Membership cancellation will be immediate so that your personal membership data is not transferred to the Families.com system and refunds, once confirmed, will be issued via Paypal within 14 days of your request. If you should decide to do this, please email your DAGG user name, paypal email address and donation amount to LisaP@Families.com.

How will the rules change?
Anyone who joins Families.com is expected to abide by the Terms of Service, which are linked at the bottom of each page. Much of what the moderators, and I do is enforce the following from the Terms of Service:

"You alone are responsible for the content of your messages, and the consequences of any such messages. Families.com reserves the right to terminate your registration if it becomes aware and determines, in its sole discretion, that you are violating any of the guidelines.

Any use by you of any other subscriber's information, personal or otherwise, for any
commercial purpose or to obtain direct financial gain (e.g. mass marketing) is prohibited.
Families.com is to be used by you for your personal use only. Commercial uses of
Families.com are strictly prohibited unless prior written consent from Families.com has been granted. You agree that you will not use Families.com for chain letters, junk mail, 'spamming,' solicitations (commercial or non-commercial) or bulk communications of any kind including but not limited to distribution lists to any person who has not given specific permission to be included in such a list.

You further agree not to use Families.com to send or post on message boards or any place on Families.com, any message or material that is unlawful, harassing, libelous, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, racially offensive, inaccurate, or otherwise objectionable material of any kind or nature or that encourages conduct that could constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law or regulation, or encourage the use of controlled substances.
Families.com reserves the right to delete any such material from Families.com.
Families.com can cooperate fully with any law enforcement officials and/or agencies in the investigation of any person or persons who violate the Terms of Service.
You agree not to impersonate any other person or entity, whether actual or fictitious, including impersonating an employee or consultant of Families.com. You further agree not to use an inappropriate member name.

You agree not to post or use Families.com to distribute or send any illegal material of any kind, including but not limited to, illegal material in the form of text, graphics, video, programs or audio. Posting content or participating in any form of discussion with the intention to commit any illegal activity is strictly prohibited."

So, this is it basically - our members are expected to not try to sell something, defame anyone, post objectionable content, harass people, encourage illegal activity, or engage in the sort of rudeness known as trolling, hijacking, baiting, interrupting, etc. If they do, the mods and I take appropriate action.

We are a nice community - a unique place on the web where a variety of people post their ideas, opinions, and questions.

What are you going to do with duplicate user names on Families.com and DAGG?
There were only a few people at DAGG and Families.com that had the same user
names. I'll be contacting those people personally about how we're going to accomodate them in that situation.

Why were the moderators and admins told about the merger before the general members?
We want a smooth transition, and we feel that keeping the same moderators and admins is an essential part of ensuring the smooth transition so that DAGG has the greatest chance to survive and thrive. We also knew that one of the first questions that would be asked by the community would be whether the admins and moderators were staying. We knew that we had the greatest chance for this to happen if we told the moderators and admins first. After we told the admins and moderators, we needed a little more time to do some housekeeping on Families.com so that we could make the best impression possible when the DAGG community came for the first time. We designed a new home page, fixed some bugs with Families.com MySite, etc. We were trying to lose 10 pounds before our class reunion.

What are Families.com Points?
Families.com members can earn points by doing things on the site, such as posting in the forums, referring a friend, commenting on a blog, or reviewing a product. It helps highlight the active members. We have plans at some point for the points to be able to be redeemed for things, such as special avatars or icons, virtual gifts for friends, etc. We also hope to use points to give extra privileges in the community.

I am sure that we are going to make some mistakes, and that there will be some hiccups in this transition. We ask for your patience in advance. If we make a mistake, or if there is something we could do better, we ask that you let us know, and we will work as quickly as possible to do to the right thing.