[tdf-discuss] Re: Mail List issues

On 03/10/2011 05:09 AM, Christian Lohmaier wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 6:17 AM, NoOp <glgxg@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > On 03/09/2011 06:16 AM, Christian Lohmaier wrote:
> > ...
> > > And you mentioned that one could have learned from OOo lists:
> > > Ha, that is a good one. The OOo lists have explicit unsubscribe
> > > instructions in *every* footer, but still people complain about not
> > > knowing to unsubscribe. So having that in the footer will not help *at
> > > all*
> >
> > And you have experience on the OOo user list?
>
> The OOo user list is not the only list in the OOo project.

No. But the issues I refer to are primarily from 5 years of posting on
the OOo user list.

> > . When you think you are qualified
> > to share your expertise with us, without calling people stupid or
> > ignorant, come back & feel free to comment.
>
> They /are/ stupid, as they don't bother to read instructions. No
> excuse at all for this.
> They might be very intelligent otherwise, but when it comes to
> unsubscribing, they're too ignorant.

Really? I suppose that you/we could dig up the archives and take a look.
I reckon that in the majority of cases the issue is with users that are
not experienced with mail lists. But then again, when you have a broken
system that: 1) allows unsubscribed users to begin with, and 2) have a
link on your (OOo) support page that simply states:

http://support.openoffice.org/index.html
Users Mail List (Subscribe / Archives)
OpenOffice.org Project community support provided by a network of
hundreds of experienced users. You must be subscribed to post messages.

It's quite conceivable that you'll get users that haven't a clue what a
mailing list is, or how to get out of it.

Let's take a look at LO's help page:
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/
> For user support, we have:
>
> Mailing lists: the user support mailing list address is our main
> channel for LibreOffice users needing help with a problem:
> users@libreoffice.org. You need to subscribe to the list first before
> you can post a question. To do that, just send an empty message (no
> subject line, no message body) to users+subscribe@libreoffice.org.
> Instructions will be mailed back to you immediately (check for new
> mail, and check your spam/bulk mail folder just in case). For
> information about our other mailing lists, please visit the global
> mailing list index.

Let's recap:

"You need to subscribe to the list first before you can post a question."

However that doesn't seem to be that case, does it? Unsubscribed users
are (as in the OOo case) are posting away on the lists. On top of that,
gmane.org nntp posters are *required* to subscribe before they can post
on the list & then figure out the:
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/
<quote>
In the case of the GMANE interface, you can also post messages to the
lists; to do this, you need to provide your e-mail address (to protect
our lists from spam). You have the option of signing-up to receive each
posted message individually (the most-commonly chosen option), or to
receive them batched together as a daily digest (which you might
consider as defeating the purpose of using GMANE).
</quote>
bit. Hint: *nothing* in requiring gmane.org nntp posters to sign up
first prevents spam, gmane.org does a better job on it's own.

> /NEVER EVER/ has there been a technical problem with unsubscribing. It

Really? I think that you are mistaken. There are multiple posts from
long time OOo users (that can read) that have had issues with
unsubscribing.

> was *always* the user being too stupid to either mail the unubscribe
> address in the first place (they instead write stuff like "STOP THIS,
> I DON'T WANT ANY MORE MAILS!!!, I'LL SUE YOU"), or they're too
> dumb/stupid/ignorant to read the automatic reply asking for
> confirmation (i.e. another reply).

No disputing that you'll get those for the very reasons I've mentioned.
So what are the plans to prevent that happening on the LO lists?

> The one situation where unsubscribing is "difficult" is when the reply
> asking for confirmation to unsubscribe is flagged as spam and thus not
> sorted to the user's inbox, but then again that's not the fault of the
> list-management.
>
> They are stupid/ignorant because they did receive an introductional
> mail with the various commands to unsubscribe or get help when they
> did subscribe. They throw away that information without reading it.
> And instead of asking nicely, they immediately start "shouting" on the
> list. I call this stupid and/or ignorant.

And I'd ask again: you have experience on the OOo user list? And I point
out that you'll get those here for the very reasons I've mentioned. So
what are the plans to prevent that happening on the LO lists?

> The /only/ exception to this rule is
> * People not speaking english, those are excused. (OTOH they managed
> to subscribe to the list nevertheless, and that works the same way as
> unsubscribing would)

Really? Perhaps you'd care to rethink that. When you have a link on the
support page that hooks inexperienced users up to a list you'll
experience the problem whether they speak english or not. See the
mention of the LO help info above.
...


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