Well, "unintentional trolling" is an oxymoron.
Harry, I'm cc'ing this mail directly to you. You are creating a huge amount of
useless traffic, causing harm to people who have no power to handle your
unsubscription request. If you actually want help, ask for it, and be
responsive to what people write, instead of just "yelling" STOP. A full
description of how to unsubscribe has already been given you today, and you
apparently did not read it. You would have received one or two unsubscription
confirmation mails, and if you had read them and followed instructions, you'd
have been unsubscribed, almost certainly.
The rest of this mail is to the list, in response to Joe Cornell's mail.
It is possible that Harry's actions are designed to cause enough upset that
*somebody* will do something, but the obvious goal is to resolve the
unsubscription problem. If there were an active list moderator, this would not
be happening. An international list should have enough moderators with enough
commitment that anything gets handled within 24 hours. Faster is better. These
breakdowns irritate people and some then unsubscribe for that reason.
I have deleted some of my mail from the list, but of what is still on my
yahoomail system, I saw an all-caps unsubscription message from Harry back in
July. Last Monday, six days ago, he wrote:
I HAVE UNSUBSCRIBED A MILLION TIMES! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, PLEASE STOP
EMAILING ME! STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP
STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Being in full-out hysteria mode, he's not able to accurately describe his
experience, such that people could actually help him.
He also, my guess, sees any mail from the listserv as an offense. That probably
includes the unsubscription confirmation mails that have been sent to him.
There would have been two of them today, at least. (Since anyone can initiate
that process, at least two of us have done it.)
I'd guess that he's not reading any of this list mail describing his problem
and giving advice how to unsubscribe, nor is he reading and following
instructions in the unsubscription confirmation mail.
He doesn't seem to understand that he is dealing with a robot, that can only
follow its programming. So he sends an unsubscription command by email, or uses
the unsubscribe button on-line, but isn't careful to read the instructions, and
doesn't respond as directed to the unsubscription confirmation mail.
He has not actually unsubscribed once, it's highly likely. Certainly not a
million times....
Being focused only on his own survival needs -- that's what the amygdala is for
-- he hasn't considered that list servers must confirm, in some way, that an
unsubscription command actually comes from the subscribed mail. It does this in
two ways: either the command is entered while logged-in with the password, or a
mail is sent to the involved mailing address, containing a confirmation code.
There are then two ways to complete the unsubscription, and simply replying to
the mail with the subject header unchanged and no response text will do it.
It's simple, but it must be done in a way that the listserv robot can
recognize. Yelling is like yelling at a tree, or, more to the point, your
computer or someone else's computer. Some day we will have computers that
respond to yelling. Not yet, or, at least, not this listserv.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax (413) 584-3151 business (413) 695-7114 cell
I'm so excited I can't wait for Now.
>________________________________
> From: Joe Corneli <[email protected]>
>To: Abd ulRahman Lomax <[email protected]>; Mailing list for Wikiversity
><[email protected]>
>Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2012 4:54 PM
>Subject: amygdala hijack
> [...]
>I think it's reasonable to consider Harry to be "trolling" at this
>point (even if not intentionally).
>
>
>
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