On 3/12/08, Nils-Helge Garli Hegvik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I believe the old WW forum approach (an announcement containing some > > do's and don't's, links to the Jira, Wiki, archives, etc ..) was quite > > efficient and hard to ignore (some still managed, though). > > > Yeah, the WW forum was quite efficient for filtering out most of the noise... > > > > Of course, > > such a thing is quite hard to enforce since we're on a mailinglist, > > unless we indeed were to go with a daily/weekly/.. mail. I believe the > > number of daily mails would be sufficient not to generate too much > > noise (and even then, maybe we could tie it to the number of topics > > posted .. eg. every 50 topics). > > > > > I'm not familiar with the mailing list software that is used, but is > it possible to send an auto response to the first post a user has to > the mailing list (not a signup confirmation or anything like that, but > as a response to their first post, with RE: <your topic> in the > subject and everything...)? A regular mail would certainly be a good > idea, but you still won't catch those who just sign up to get that one > problem solved (URGENT PLZ).
There are two things we should consider: do we aim to reduce the number of already-answered-before-please-check-the-archives-or-do-your-own-work-posts, or do we want to provide a service for new users ? Since there is no way to catch the diehard newbies (since they'll happily ignore everything anyways), we should consider how to deal with clueless users that are willing to do some research/effort to get an answer. For them, an automated mail at their first post might indeed help them, but wouldn't prevent the post from hitting the mailing list (unless we can configure the mailing agent to somehow filter that one out). A regular FAQ mail is less intrusive, but causes some noise. Blocking the first mail for a user, and returning an automated reply with the FAQ and some helpful links would be my weapon of choice, but this of course heavily depends on the configuration possibilities of the mailing list agent. Phil -- Software Architect - Hydrodesk "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." - Randy Pausch --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
