Harold Fuchs wrote:
Barbara Duprey wrote:
Harold Fuchs wrote:
2009/11/1 Barbara Duprey <[email protected]>
Just a thought -- there is a link that can be provided into the
archives
for a particular thread. What if either (in order of preference)
the list
manager, a moderator, or anybody on the list who knows how, sent a
message
to the unsubscribed poster containing that link? The poster would
not have
to subscribe (thereby getting what could potentially be a dismaying
number
of messages -- and often leading to a "please unsubscribe me"
message). Yet
they'd be able to follow the discussion, wouldn't they, to see any
responses
on the thread?
I *think* that the main source of the problem is that the
moderator's e-mail
program and/or his/her installation of the list management software is
mis-configured.
The list management software is called "ezmlm" ("Easy Mail List
Management"
or some such). The ezmlm manual is on-line at
<http://www.ezmlm.org/manual/>.
Section 1.6 discusses replying to a message from an ezmlm mailing
list (see
http://www.ezmlm.org/manual/Replying.html#Replying>). It suggests quite
clearly that a "Reply all" should go to the list *and* to the
unsubscribed
originator of the message.
Perhaps the moderator has overriden the default "reply to" address
in the
ezmlm config file(s) and/or in his/her own e-mail program ????
In the immortal words of Sandy Powell: can you hear me, mother?
The Reply-To header is forced to the list only. Whether that could be
changed or not, it's been discussed here many times and nothing has
ever happened -- I don't think mother hears us! I'm also not sure how
good we'd be at remembering to use Reply All, or whether it would
carry throughout the discussion. If somebody just used Reply, and
then somebody deeper in the thread actually answers the OP's
question, we'd be back where we are now, right? I almost never use
Reply All myself, I'm pretty sure I'd sometimes forget! From what
Paul (a? the? moderator for this list) has said on-list, the
moderators really don't have any say in what the ezmlm setup is, and
I think the approval process is outside of the normal e-mail client
use. The responsible person or group, and the list owner, remain
mysterious (at least as far as I've seen here). One of the reasons
I'm exploring the archive link is that it could be accomplished as
part of the list management protocol, or by the moderator, or by
people like us -- depending on who we could get to listen.
I agree that it's not 100% but if mother would listen it might be a
simpler solution to implement. Any "reply" or "reply all" directly to
the unsubscribed poster ("UP") at least gets to that poster. I agree
that a "reply" deeper in the thread might get lost as far as the UP is
concerned but perhaps that's less important. The difficulty, if it is
one, is that a simple "reply" to the UP does not get noticed by the
list so it might look as if the question hasn't been answered. This
might lead to multiple responses but IMHO that's erring on the right
side.
It sounds to me (please correct this if I'm wrong) that implementing
the "active link" requires work in the ezmlm (list management) area
which would have to be done by the same moderator as the one who would
need to change the "reply to" configuration. Or have you got a cunning
plan that implements the "active link" without touching the
moderator's system?
Cedrtainly not a cunning plan! If we could get to ezmlm config folks,
they could certainly implement the Reply-To change, and possibly the
archive link (though that's not ceertain; depends on when what is done,
I think). I don't think the moderators have any influence over the
Reply-To (they are not involved in ezmlm config, from what Paul has
said, and they don't exactly Forward messages; I don't think their
e-mail clients play a role in the approval), but if they were willing,
they could certainly send a message to the OP with the archive link.
Finally, absent any cooperation at all from ezmlm or moderators, we as
individuals could provide such a response to the OP when a new thread
has been started, and thus give the OP access to the whole thread
regardless of how anybody else replies.
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