At 12:25 AM -0500 11/20/02, David W. Tamkin is rumored to have typed:
Also sprach Shanahan:
<snip>
| I mean, after all it's what he requested.
Not necessarily. If the post read, "How do I unsubscribe?" then that's what
the poster requested.
But if the post read "unsubscribe" (just the bare word in the imperative) or
"take me off," then the poster asked for service, not for information.
Actually, I'm with Shanahan - anyone foolish enough to post an unsubscribe
or test message to a mailing list is asking for _exactly_ that; a full
mailbox continaing complaints from every other subscriber on the list.
Some of these people need to be swatted up'longside the head with a
cluestick the size of a baseball bat before they stop pulling this crap. I
don't take kindly to people not properly unsubscribing or sending test
message to the non-technical hobby lists I maintain...I certainly expect more
from people who subscribe to a technical list like this one. (The unsubscribe
issue is less of a problem for me, since I use SmartList to maintain my
lists...SmartList is much better about redirecting misdirected unsub requests
than Mailman is. Of course, it doesn't have the mindless web-based admin
stuff for clueless...er...sorry, 'nough sermonizing.)
When one subscribes to a mailing list, one is given this information, and
asked to retain it for future reference. In every post from the list, one is
given this information, in many lists in multiple locations. If one decides
they don't need to spend a few seconds _finding_ this information and instead
just fires off to the only address they immediately see (or, for heavens'
sake, sends test messages to test their friggin' filters!), they _are_ asking
to receive complaints from EVERY other subscriber for wasting our time. If it
takes the form of a sarcastic "help" message, all the better.
Charlie (who is beginning to think there should be Internet
Learning Permits and a passed test before these fools
are allowed solo access to the Net - not to test computer
proficiency, just the ability to read and comprehend
simple instructions)
_______________________________________________
procmail mailing list
procmail(_at_)lists(_dot_)RWTH-Aachen(_dot_)DE
http://MailMan.RWTH-Aachen.DE/mailman/listinfo/procmail