[Talk] Re: auug.org.au mailing list memberships reminder

[Greg Rose]

At 11:00 AM 8/1/2002 +0930, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>On Thursday,  1 August 2002 at 11:04:13 +1000, Greg Black wrote:
> > Nobody on these lists is so incompetent that they can't work out how
> > to unsubscribe for themselves.
>
>I frequently respond to messages of the form "unsubscribe" sent to
>mailing lists instead of majordomo, despite the fact that *every*
>message sent to that list contains unsubscribe instructions.  You'll
>understand, therefore, that I disagree with your claim.

I can see this discussion degenerating fast, so I guess I'll get in early :-).

Anyone with a milli-clue can unsubscribe successfully without this mail.

Anyone with less than a milli-clue, that is, anyone who would send an 
unsubscribe to the list when every mail message already contains 
unsubscribe instructions, is highly unlikely to be able to find a message 
that was sent to them, on average, two weeks previously, telling them how 
to unsubscribe.

This lunacy has reached the peak for me with an IETF mailing list, which 
promises:
>You must know your password to change your options (including changing
>the password, itself) or to unsubscribe.  It is:
>   <expletive deleted>
>If you forget your password, don't worry, you will receive a monthly
>reminder telling you what all your ietf.org mailing list passwords
>are, and how to unsubscribe or change your options.  There is also a
>button on your options page that will email your current password to
>you.

Back to Groggy Greg:
>I'm sorry if you don't like our choice of mailing list software.  It's
>open source, though, so if you feel like adding a knob "don't send me
>unsubscription reminders", I'm sure we'd find a way to incorporate it.

I might take that on... I need a distraction from standards documents. But 
it'll almost certainly need a tweak to the database too, nu? This might not 
be as trivial a change as it sounds. Anyway, point me at it.

Greg.

Greg Rose                                       INTERNET: ggr at qualcomm.com
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