On Sun, Jun 21, 1998 at 08:54:53AM -0700, Chuq Von Rospach wrote:
> At 5:53 AM -0700 6/21/98, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
>
> > Actually, that's *not* my version of reality. *My* version of reality
> > includes a standard which eliminates the differences between the
> > command syntax and semantics of majordomo, listserv, listproc etc.
> > by codifying them in an RFC.
>
> first, ain't not gonna happen. too much history here now. Second, not
> really necessary. Most users simply aren't that heavy users of list
> services. Good, easy to use documentation and clear instructions and
> making things easy help a LOT more than trying to make everything the
> same.
Sadly, I think you're right (about it not happening).
But I really do think it's necessary. Let me see if I can't justify
that statement.
Usenet is becoming (already is) unusable. A lot of folks -- including me --
have retreated to mailing lists, where it seems to be easy to create
and maintain a sense of community and to hold discussions. Chat doesn't
cut it, for a lot of reasons, including the fact that it's synchronous;
and web-based discussion groups are clunky. *And* they're not accessible
to the people who don't have access to the web, which is still a heck
of a lot of people. (I'm growing more and more concerned about that
group, and I would dearly love to know if it's growing or shrinking.
My guess, my *GUESS*, is that it's growing due to the number of places
which are connecting to the 'net but not passing through HTTP either
because they don't run TCP/IP, they don't want to handle the traffic,
or they simply don't have the facilities to handle it. Add to that
all the people who have trouble using the web due to the lack of
handicapped-enabled browsers and sites -- and like just about every
other demographic group on the 'net, they've got to be growing...
and well, there are a lot of people that use mailing lists.)
And new lists are popping up all over the place; I just checked
today's mail on NEW-LIST, and there are eight more listed today.
(And I'm sure lots of lists are never announced there.) I think
mailing lists are, for all their creakiness, *the* place to be
to communicate just now. (Until you hatch whatever you're
working on. ;-) )
In spite of all this, we still see the same problems. I think part
of that is because users are very confused by the difference
implementations of MLM's which fundamentally perform the same
functions (from the user's point of view) but which accept different
syntax and semantics.
On top of making it hard for the users, this makes it hard for
people trying to create front-ends -- whether web-based, script-based,
or whatever -- because they must know which MLM software is running
which list in order to talk to it. If *nothing* changes about the
list except the MLM, the front end will probably break.
Compare this to FTP, where these problems don't exist. (And the
biggest gotcha is probably people transferring files and forgetting
to use "binary" mode.) All kinds of front ends have been written
for FTP; this is possible because all FTP servers accept a well-known,
standardized basic set of commands. And users quickly figure out
the half-dozen-or-so commands that most of them will ever need,
and whaddayaknow, they work on every FTP server on the 'net.
Maybe you *are* right, and the horse is out of the barn. But I
can't see who is served by continuing to propagate and exacerbate
these differences. I care far less about whether it's called
"unsubscribe" or "signoff" than I do that it be called the SAME
thing in everyone's MLM, so that users only have one set of commands
to cope with. Heck, even though I don't like your scheme of
embedding the command in the address, I'd settle for that, too:
*if* all the MLM's used it.
Look, I've dealt with MLM software since there has been such a thing.
And *I* have to keep my reference notes handy whenever I try to
do anything beyond the fundamentals -- or when I try to interact
with some of the rarer species of MLM software out there. For the
teeming millions (apologies to Cecil Adams), this is all really confusing.
A lot of the people that I've interacted with have ended up in
my mailbox (so to speak) because they've bumped into this.
They've asked, out of naivete', what I think is a brilliant
question: WHY are they different?
Answering them with "because of historical reasons" is unsatisfying,
even though I know it's at least partly correct. It's
unsatisfying intellectually, *and* because sometimes they come
back with "Then why are they different NOW?", which is another
pretty darn good question.
I would dearly, dearly like to see the half-dozen most-used
commands standardized across all MLM's (with backward support
for the old names as appropriate). I think, more than anything
else we could do, that would give the biggest bang for the least
effort: because then we could tell users that these ~6 commands
will work everywhere, at which point they only have ~6 things to
learn, not (~6) * (the number of MLMs).
My guess at the half-dozen? Ummm...
help
lists
subscribe [<address>] [<listname>]
unsubscribe [<address>] [<listname>]
which [<address>]
info [<listname>]
Note: "my guess". YMMV.
My other guess is that if...lessee...majordomo, listerv, listproc, and
smartlist all agreed on this, that it would provide sufficient impetus
to convince others to go with the flow.
> By the way, the users have changed a bit since 1991. Just so you know. (grin)
Oh, *fine*. There you go again, bursting my bubble. Next you'll
tell me there's no Easter Bunny. La la la la I'm not listening. ;-)
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
