At 6:55 AM -0700 6/18/98, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> Hmmm. That's 9 addresses per mailing list, which is going to mean
> a heck of a lot of aliases for sites that operate hundreds of mailing lists.
So? Is the idea a system easy for the user? Or the administrator? FWIW,
my mail list setup uses an average of 23 aliases per list (including
the -digest paired list). Some are admin or interface aliases. Some are
things like list-subscribe and list-unsubscribe. And there are aliases
covering the various places I've found users THINK might be an admin
address -- better I do what I can to get them a reasonable response
than slim things down and make it easier for me...
> I'm not sure I see why this is a win over a single address for
> list administration to which directives are sent.
Two ways. First, it makes interfacing from a web site a LOT easier,
since you can pretty easily write an interface that goes to
list-subscribe/list-unsubscribe and save yourself a lot of custom
hacking to make things work. Second, you can simply embed the
list-unsubscribe address into your messages to make it as painfully
easy as you can for users to deal with your lists. Because with
list-subscribe and list-unsubscribe, they dont' need ANY memorized mail
list commands. and users, I've found, appreciate that.
I don't do this instead of the regular interface. I do it ON TOP of the
regular interface. So I can add functionality ot make life easier for
the users, without taking away anything from the folks who know the
traditional interfaces...
Seems like a no-loss situation.
--
Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? <http://www.plaidworks.com/hockey/>)
Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
<http://www.plaidworks.com/> + <http://www.lists.apple.com/>
