The below e-mail has meandered its way through cyberspace from England and is worth reading.  My apologies to those whom have received it via other channels.

I might add that John Raby's videos are excellent. There are many of light railway interest, in out-of-the-way places, plus heavier railway material. Might I recommend his Chinese "Jincheng Reed Railway".  If everyone who reads this subscribed he would reach the magic milestone. Subscribing to his YouTube channel costs nothing!  But it does give John some pin-money in return for the excellent service he renders.
I realise you have to endure a ten-second ad (which one can usually truncate) to reach the video, but, fair dinkum, I think it's worth it. Give it a go.

I hope you continue to enjoy his videos. 

cheers   Phil Rickard

Subject: A small request - YouTube

This is a revised version of what I wrote on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/john.raby.71

I will shortly 'go dark' on YouTube. Until 20 February 2018, I am able to 'monetise' my videos on YouTube and earn a small sum of around £60 every year or 18 months as a ‘reward' for my efford to record, edit and upload my videos to be watched freely on YouTube. I have 662 subscribers and 285,982 (assumed lifetime) views of my videos but that's not enough for YouTube. According to them: 

"On February 20th, 2018, ... On that date, channels with fewer than 1,000 subs or 4,000 watch hours will no longer be able to earn money on YouTube."

But I have only 662 subs!

My response will be to make all my videos unlisted. That way, I hope that YouTube won't be able to make any money out of my content. I can choose public, unlisted or private setting for videos and all are currently public. When I go unlisted, I would expect only those with the links to be able to see them. (Let me know if you need a link.) If YouTube sticks with its punishment of small niche videomakers, I will consider making my videos private or even deleting them... But, we are not there yet. My first step is to 'unlist' all of them on 20 February. 

Prior to that, you can see my videos on my channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Z8-l1CDAMKQR5QM4fVqOQ

In response to this post it was suggested that I might want to ask people to subscribe to get me up to the 1000 mark and numbers have crept up a bit to 675 subscribers. Well, I think reaching 1000 before 20 February is a tall ask but with this email, I’ll give it a try. I’d be most grateful if you would visit my YouTube channel and subscribe.

My videos on YouTube range from China and Java in the mainline steam era to the last train at Rongshan, UK preserved steam, Rumania, Eritrea and Cuba. Before the YouTube bosses decided to get vindictive, I was planning to put most of my DVD collection on YouTube and you can already see some of these there.

I hope you enjoy the videos (and please subscribe).

John

John Raby

Marigold Cottage
77 Church Lane
Sutton-on-Sea
Lincs   LN12 2JA

01507 442151

07480 414346

john@...
linesiding@...

http://www.linesiding.co.uk

http://www.rabylee.uk

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