John Kaufmann wrote:
In a message dated 2009.11.16 14:53 -0500, Barbara Duprey wrote:
... I agree that brevity here is desirable. But there are some
differences I see as substantial, so let's discuss them.
* The fact that the responses come from volunteers, not a paid
support staff, I think is significant -- most of these people will
be unaware of that, and many may have been directed to the list as
paid support from one of the rogue sites that sell OOo. I think
this knowledge will color all their further dealings with the list.
Good point! - yes, I had not considered that. It should be mentioned.
* They need to be aware that a single users-thread message will
probably not be sufficient. If that isn't explicitly stated, they
may well think that they will continue to get new copies of the
digest whenever a new message is posted (and I really wish that
were so!).
Yes. And if it were so, then we would not need to do any of this. Hmm...
* The terminology of "digest," "thread," "post" is very likely to be
unfamiliar. Hence my description of what to expect.
True, though there may be a limit to how much hand-holding can be
done. IAC, I tried to introduce the words in a self-evident context
(but may not have succeeded).
* Reading each message from its attached file is more cumbersome
than reading the inline messages, and there may well be no need
for them ever to open an attachment. If they get their answer with
no need to follow up, why complicate things for them?
Ah. I thought the thread digest was the essence of this approach. Of
course, if it's not needed...
The thread digest is indeed the essence of this approach. But the digest
has all the messages streamed inline as well as having the separate
attached files, and it's much less cumbersome to read them inline. In
many cases, no response from the unsub is required at all, and it's only
his responses that require use of an attachment.
* As we've seen elsewhere on this thread, depending on the person's
mail client and the environment from which they are posting, the
attachments may not be passed on, and even the digest message may
be blocked. They need to have information about what to do in that
case, hence my reference to a linked article.
Yes, I did think that needed to be there, and was not in my version.
* The most natural action for most people is Reply; that will work
from an attachment, as I described, as will Reply All. But I think
they need to be warned not to reply (either way) to the digest
message -- that would just go to users-help.
Actually, I don't believe that Reply will work; it will send a message
to a poster rather than to the list. Reply All will at least CC:list,
but will still go to individual email as well, unless the To: is deleted.
Reply will work if the author's name is replaced by the list address,
but Reply All is probably less error-prone. My rewording is in my other
reply.
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