On 01/08/07, Alan Lord <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> I do realise that this list in particular may well be the first time > these new users come into contact with OSS and the way things work, so > we do have a responsibility to be friendly, welcoming and not > patronising. However, there MUST be a way, surely, to provide new > visitors with links to FAQs, and some nettiquette explanations. > > One way some high-traffic lists do this is to automatically publish a > message (probably daily on this list would be necessary) which has a > subject line along the lines of: > > "NEW VISITOR? PLEASE READ THIS MESSAGE *BEFORE* POSTING" > > <snip>
The problem with this approach is that unsubscribed users won't see any message published to the list. And, of course, anyone subscribed to the list probably knows the elementary stuff anyway. I don't use many e-mail lists other than "read only" ones - newsletters and the like. Is it normal for user to *not* have to subscribe before they can post? This list almost encourages people to post without subscribing. Seems to me that this is the main cause of the problem. The difficulty with forcing people to subscribe is that it burdens the newbie with possibly 100+ messages per day consisting primarily, as far as s/he is concerned, of dross. I for one don't think that's appropriate. -- Harold Fuchs London, England Please reply *only* to [email protected]
