"Tom Neff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>No matter how much
>fun it is to conduct kitchen table debates over the merits/demerits of
>various email reading software, that's not a List Management issue. We are
>not in a position to "correct" the behavior of software like AOL. It is out
>there and most of us, with real lists to run, have to live with it.
Yes, there are two questions we have to answer:
1) Who's doing wrong: AOL or BestServ, and,
2) What can/should we do about it?
A handful of disgruntled list managers is unlikely to change AOL's
behavior, but I think it's important to at least identify the guilty
party and see if they're aware of the problem and able to fix it.
>We need to focus on what we can control. We can't control what email
>readers do. We can't control what intermediate MTA's do. And any list
>manager who says, in effect, "well that's their problem, I'm not going to
>change anything when they have a bug" is doing a disservice to her or his
>members. We all have our own standards and principles, but according to
>mine, the members come first.
That's great. Really. But how can we best serve our members (really
our customers)? By immediately bending to the whims of any large ISP
that recklessly breaks our list software? I don't think so. I think we
should at least point out the error of their ways to AOL and ask them
if they can fix their software. If they refuse, *then* it's time to
consider accommodating their users via a workaround of some sort.
Of course, if half of the people on this list don't even agree that
AOL is wrong to munge subject headers, we're a long way from
convincing AOL. Maybe when AOL breaks Majordomo, LISTSERV, ezmlm, or
Mailman, people will see the problem.
-Dave
