On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 20:35:47 PM -0800, NoOp ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> When you add something to the subject, and this is a good idea,
> *please* leave the [moderated] or [users] tag in place. Some (many?)
> of us that do assist unsubscribed posts do not wish to wade through
> each header to find out if the post is subscribed or not. The
> [users] and [moderated] tags flag that it is from an unsubscribed
> user, so it is easy to then cc the poster without having to look at
> the headers.
First of all, my request has nothing to do with moderated messages,
even if (sorry!) the examples I myself provided initially have that
tag. If a subscribed user posts a subjectless message and gets ten
subjectless replies it is exactly the same problem: which is people
not adding text, much more than people removing it.
Second, a hystorical note: I have also complained two or three times
here, since 2003 or 2004 IIRC, about all the absolutely useless manual
work which is required to all subscribers to make sure that
unsubcribed posters notice the replies to their posts. Which is one of
the things that drove several contributors away back then.
And I didn't just complain, I did suggest a method, which for several
reasons I couldn't implement myself then, to automate such
notification without this crap of looking at tags or headers every
time to decide if a CC copy should be sent.
Every time, the majority feedback was some more or less explicit
combination of:
- "but I like to waste my time anyway, what's wrong with it?"
- "I couldn't care less if subscribed volunteers who only have metered
Internet connections have to pay twice every time I resend again to
the list a whole message with that dumb "Forwarding to unsubscribed
posters" note on top"
- "I explicitly acknowledge or make self-evident from the content of
my answers that I have no clues about how email works or can be
managed, so I can authoritatively conclude that what you suggest is
impossible"
eventually I grew disgusted enough of this attitude to let the whole
issue drop, also because I unsubscribed for a long period for
unrelated reasons, and today whether I send a CC or not when I reply
on this list has (on principle!) nothing to do about the person I
reply to being unsubscribed or not. But the explanation of why this is
a dumb practice is all in the archives, automated solution included.
This said, I do agree that leaving those tags there is certainly
needed to not make offering support here even more inefficient than
already is.
Marco
--
Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
software is used *around* you: http://digifreedom.net/node/84
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