On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 18:47:22 PM -0600, Barbara Duprey ([email protected]) wrote:
> M. Fioretti wrote:
> >... Why waste any more time over this investigation?
>
> For one thing, I'm learning a lot -- and collecting it in a form
> that should be useful to others. I don't consider it a waste of my
> time.
Excellent point. No problem over this. I am still sure that it won't
make management of the users list any better, or that if it will it
will be a terribly unefficient way to do it, but organizing knowledge
is always good, no question about that.
> Now, could you please explain what you meant by "don't work in
> the digest-form case"?
I have no idea :-) I was just quoting what _you_ wrote, because the
way you wrote it it seems like another "special case" to deal with.
Before I continue, please do understand that everything from now on is
(even if the tone is a bit strong due to 6+ years frustration over
this) meant to be written trying to HELP you and the list in general
to be EFFECTIVE. When I write (or already wrote) "idiot" or anything
similar, is only a judgement about the proposal itself, not the people
like you believing it in good will. Now:
> By the way, all the solutions I'm looking at require exactly one
> message to the (unsubscribed only) user privately, and one to the
> list telling everybody not to bother with the CC'ing, etc.
NO, NO and NO. Whenever you write and believe anything like this, you:
a) (again, no personal offense meant) but you show not enough
understanding about what email actually is and how it actually
works. Email delivery and reading are ASYNCHRONOUS AND NOT REAL
TIME. Look at this sequence of events:
1) Unsubscribed OP John sends a message to the list which
we'll call X
2) Subscribed user Barbara sees the message, sends the
private answer and the copy (which we'll call Y) to the
list, telling everybody to not bother with CC'ing etc
now, will you please understand that there is no guarantee
whatsoever that when all the other subscribed users will open their
mailbox they will find BOTH X and Y in it? Email delivery is not
real time. It depends on the istantaneous status and load of all
the servers in the delivery chain, which is different for each
single subscribed user. It is almost certain that many times
several subscribed users, even after Barbara has done step 2 above
and sent Y to the list, will ONLY see X in their mailboxes and
therefore will act exactly as Barbara: net results, every
susbscriber receives more than one "Y" message
b) show you never stopped a moment to think about human psychology and
effectiveness. Even IF there never were more than one Y answer per
unsubscribed user message (which again, is impossible to
guarantee), what you suggest GUARANTEES that:
every subscriber receives AT LEAST two copies of every message to
every unsubscribed users, made in a way that is impossible to
filter out as duplicate, every day he or she remains subscribed.
This is ANNOYING LIKE HELL for the great majority of people, also
because (rightly) it NEVER happens anywhere else
In other words, you are taking the question
"how do we deal with people who, by definition, may only send one
message per month to the list and most often will only send only one
message in their lifetime"
And saying that this is a smart answer:
"in order to avoid the frightening possibility that those people (who
only take, not give) feel annoyed by getting, say, four copies of
answers to their ONCE-IN-A-WHILE QUESTION instead of one, let's work
in a way that a) demands that every subscriber endlessly fiddles with
their filters and b) is SURE to double (at least) the amount of
"messages due to unsubscribed users" he or she receives EVERY DAY TILL
THEY REMAIN SUBSCRIBED. Hey, if no other mailing list worldwide asks
its subscribers to behave like this, and if annoying other subscribers
like this would soon get you expelled from most other mailing lists
worldwide is a sure sign that all others are idiots, isn't it?"
and are even adding to this assertion the one (still unproved, mind
you!) that doing what you say causes more messages in subscriber
inboxes that what I do.
You think too much to unsubscribed users and almost nothing to
subscribed one, and this is BAD for OOo. What is more effective and in
the interest of all OOo users, to maximize or minimize the number of
people who feel gratified, not annoyed, by staying susbscribed to
provide as many useful answers as possible?
> They also all end up with the unsubs having a way to see whatever
> responses apply to their questions, regardless of where in the
> threads they appear.
Please deal with the fact that all this "strategy" has accomplished in
the last 5/6 years it has been carried on is to MINIMIZE the number of
useful answers sent from subscribers. Because all you and the others
before you who believe it could ever make sense have accomplished is
to bother away everybody else from staying subscribed.
Your workload from this list would be much smaller if you weren't
actively working to piss off lots of people, including potential
future subscribers. Again, please answer to the "Hey if no other
mailing list worldwide..." question above, before continuing. Oh, and
did already I mention that what you are suggesting is equal to greatly
increase the number of useless duplicates in the archives, making them
harder to browse, that is less useful, that is increasing the amount
of people who'll send unsubscribed questions to the list?
> In contrast, what you described (as Reply All, but let's take it as
> the manual copying that would actually be required) means the unsub
> would get exactly one message -- provided that his subject was
> useful, otherwise nothing. If that one message was not an actual
> answer, but perhaps asked for additional information so we could
> help, as is often the case, and he supplied it, and that led
> somebody to respond with an actual answer -- he'd never know
I'll bother with all the possible combinations the day I'm paid to do
it. Right now, doing what I say is a much more effective usage of time
and is much more respectful of other subscribers. You should not
assume that every subscriber will deal with this as if they were paid
help-desk staff. The easy, effective solution to all your worries
above is:
1) do as I say, so you won't annoy other subscribers
2) add whenever you answer to somebody whose name you don't recognize
2/3 lines with the polite version of "in case you aren't
subscribed, remember that you'll only see other answers if you
regularly check the archives at <URL> for a few days, or if you
subscribe to the list and unsubscribe as soon as you get your
answer. Sorry pal, we're doing this for free, you can't expect us
to jump back and forth for you till you're happy"
> I don't see a wonderful reduction in list volume this way, though
> the alternatives I'm looking at would have a real shot at doing that
It will never work as you hope for the reasons I gave above. The best
you'll obtain will be to remain you, Harold, Gene (IIRC) and a handful
of other equally good willing, but clueless (email-wise only, of
course) people to do all the work alone, in a way that fills the
archives of useless CC messages making them less helpful for the very
kind of people you're trying to reach. Try to go for a way that keeps
the archives as clean (=useful) as possible AND keeps as many people
as possible subscribed to share the support load.
Finally, there is one point when there is no real need to agree
100%. If you feel that deleting without opening all messages without a
clear subject is too much, OK, open them, no problem. Just remember to
never send to subscribers (which means also the archives) extra,
unfilterable copies of messages they already received. And please
remember to always FILL the empty subject line with something
meaningful when replying, so at least the archives will be easier to
search.
Marco
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