At 4/16/02 6:42 AM, Ken Joy wrote: >Well, that's been suggested before; I myself *hate* form based emails on >websites, and will often not work with a company that only offers that form >of 'contact us'; what do others out there think of the idea?
Ugh. It's horrific, and I doubt it would work in terms of eliminating end-user messages to OpenSRS support. People who think they need to write to OpenSRS about their domain are going to write to SOME address they find on the OpenSRS Web site, and you're going to have to answer them. So a form would just be another email-prioritizing scheme, which doesn't fix the real problem. The specific issue at OpenSRS is apparently END-USERS writing directly to OpenSRS for support. Changing how RESELLERS write to support isn't going to make any difference to the quantity of end-users who do so; any such solution is just a prioritization scheme which doesn't really help in the long run. OpenSRS should focus on lowering the number of end-users writing. I submit that the actual problem is that end-users go to "www.opensrs.org" (or its new tucows.com equivalent), click the "support" link, then scroll down to "Contact Us" and see the magic words "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" with nothing saying that end-users shouldn't write to it. No wonder so many are writing! How about this: replace that "contact us" link with a page that says "Quickly find the correct address to contact us!". Then it would have a form with three buttons: o I am the owner of a domain name o I am an existing OpenSRS reseller o I am interested in becoming an OpenSRS reseller If people choose the first button, a second page asks them their domain name. Then it shows them the contact information of their RSP, with small print that says to contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] "for assistance with reaching your reseller" only if you can't reach the RSP within X days. The second button would refer the reseller to "the support address in the reseller Web interface", with "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" as an alternative if they can't log in. It should say "this address is for resellers only". The third button just shows "[EMAIL PROTECTED]". It should say "this address is for potential resellers only". I bet this would significantly lower the amount of end-user mail, which would be much more effective than accepting it, prioritizing it, and answering it days later. -- Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies "The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was."
