On Thu, Apr 30, 1998 at 12:03:55PM -0700, Jason Rasku wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
> > Name three.
>
> I know you only asked for three, but I gave
> you aproximately 20 that I know for sure, and, probably close to a
> thousand other lists. [...]
Yes, you did.
However, you did not answer the question. (It's a flip question,
but I do see Ron's point, and would like to see a real answer to it.)
> Most of us, have picked up our list admin skills not from some
> technical manual, but from actualy admininstrating a list. Quite often
> this is a matter of having some limited technical background in computers,
> and some knowledge that is worth having a mailing list for. What you
> apear to be sugesting is that only people with a ``cectificate of list
> admininstration'' be granted the right to run a list.
I don't think Ron is suggesting any such thing. I think what Ron is
suggesting is that people who do not know the difference between "listserv"
and "a mailing list", what an MX record does, what EXPN and VRFY are
and what they do, and similar bits of information are simply not
competent to run a mailing list.
This does not make such people Bad People, simply incompetent in one
particular area of life. The remedy is to either (a) convince them
to achieve competency or (b) get them to turn the reins over to
someone who is.
The problem is that many of these newbie list managers don't recognize
their own incompetence and stubbornly insist on inflicting it on themselves,
their subscribers, and (and here is the key) *the rest of us*.
You wanna be on a badly-managed, screwed-up, hosed mailing list? That's
fine. I have no problem with that -- really, I don't. But when said
mailing lists' screwed-up state impacts *me*, I have a huge problem
with it.
And this is starting to happen -- to me, and to other third parties --
far more often than before. Hence the need for list managers to either
know their stuff *or* get someone who does to handle the mechanics
of their list(s).
Unfortunately, various software vendors/web sites/etc. are exacerbating
the problem by propagating the myth that Anyone Can Run a Mailing List (TM)!
And with their point-and-drool interfaces that make Setting Up a Mailing
List a Snap (TM) they are responsible for some of the worst dreck out there.
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
