subscribing those who cannot send email
David W. Tamkin
T> Anyone incapable of answering email is no asset to a mailing list ...
Chuq objected,
V> Sorry, David, but that's a very bogus, elitist attitude.
Not at all. People who won't write email don't contribute to the list,
neither publicly nor privately. There's nothing bogus nor elitist in that.
"People who need help learning how to send email will never be assets to the
list" would be bogus and elitist.
Perhaps my induction from inability to reply to email to inability to send
email at all has exceptions, but usually it's easier (or no harder) to reply
to mail one has received than to initiate a correspondence; I've more than
once had people ask me to write first, or thank me for having written first,
because they did not know how to send email except by replying to something
they've received. I've never known of anyone capable of addressing fresh
email but baffled at how to send a reply, so it's pretty safe to say that
someone who can't answer a message can't send one either.
V> e-mail savvy does not translate to competency on other topics.
Do you think I said it did? Of course it doesn't, but if people neither post
to the list nor send private replies to others' posts, then their competence
on other topics, however great and renowned, does not benefit the list, and
that's my point. A light hidden under a bushel doesn't show anyone else the
way.
Even so, the list can still be an asset to *them*, and that's usually the
reason that listowners want to put these people on: for what the list can do
for them rather than for what they can do for the list. Often these are
new employees who have to read company announcements but don't know their way
around the email system yet, or family members who should be told relatives'
news even if they never speak up on the family mailing list.
But I don't see what is elitist or bogus in saying that people who cannot
send email do not post to mailing lists nor write to other members, so they
don't do anything for the list.
OK, there is an exception: if the list sells advertising space, then the eyes
of lurkers are as valuable as the eyes of contributors. The fingers of mem-
bers who post may be more valuable than the fingers of lurkers, because the
listowner needs somewhere to insert those ads, but lurkers, even those who
can't write email, are fully capable of clicking on the links or dialing the
phone numbers in the ads. I have on rare occasions told an extremely con-
fused newbie that (s)he is really not ready to be on a mailing list and
wished him/her well while releasing him/her from the confusion that receiving
my list was causing; a listowner who sells ad space would never do that.
V> It might well be true on list-managers or majordomo-owners, but why in the
V> heck should it matter for South Bay Birds or Atlanta-Thrashers?
Do you mean, "It might well be true on lists that exist for their content,
but why in the heck should it matter for lists that exist for their ad reve-
nue?" Then we don't disagree. I meant that such people's subscriptions do
not benefit the other members, and granted, I wasn't thinking about what they
can do for the listowner.
Chuq Von Rospach
> When I wrote,
>
> T> Anyone incapable of answering email is no asset to a mailing list ...
>
> Chuq objected,
>
> V> Sorry, David, but that's a very bogus, elitist attitude.
>
> Not at all. People who won't write email don't contribute to the list,
> neither publicly nor privately.
First, you misrepresent my position. There's a huge difference
between "won't write email" and "can't master the jargon needed to
subscribe to a mailing list".
And second, lists are always supported by a few people, and the
majority (usually a huge majority) of users never contribute. Do you
encourage kicking off members who don't post to the list, too?
And third, there are more to mailing lists than discussion lists.
Sigh. Here we go again.
--
Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chu...@plaidworks.com)
Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:ch...@apple.com)
Pokemon is a game where children go into the woods and capture furry
little creatures and then bring them home and teach them to pit fight.
David W. Tamkin
| First, you misrepresent my position. There's a huge difference
| between "won't write email" and "can't master the jargon needed to
| subscribe to a mailing list".
Of course there is, and I have been writing consistently from the first about
people who can't send email at all. The matter of jargon was not mentioned
in my first post, your first post, nor my second post; you brought it up in
your second post, in the passage quoted just above. I don't consider the
words "reply" and "respond" to be jargon.
Chuq, really, we're not that far apart. You misunderstand me, that's all.
The subject under discussion was whether a list should support a direct-add
feature that does not require any action at all from the person being sub-
scribed. The argument given against it was that it facilitates spamming,
while the argument given in favor was that it lets a listowner subscribe
people who are too helpless with email to reply to a confirmation request.
Then I said that someone that helpless with email won't be an asset to the
list; later I modified it to say that if the list carries ads, then the
person's eyes might be an asset to the listowner even if his/her thoughts
never get to benefit the other members. And while I felt it implicit even in
my first post, in my second post I specified that the list can still be an
asset to such a person.
You seem to have the notion that I was saying that people who cannot issue
the commands to join a mailing list on their own cannot contribute to it.
No, I did not. The people in question -- and it seems I'll have to remind
you of this several times -- are those who, when the list manager issues an
add command that requires the subscriber to confirm, cannot confirm, and will
get onto the list only if they are added in such a way that doesn't require
any action from them at all.
But there's more. Many subscription confirmation systems want to be sure
that they're not hearing from an autoresponder, and they require the re-
spondent to alter the subject or the body of the reply in some small way
for it be a valid confirmation.
But the host about which Ron complained was eGroups. The host under discus-
sion where I've seen listowners up in arms about the suggested removal of
direct-add has been Onelist. On those two systems (which now belong to one
corporation but still operate separately), when a list manager uses add-with-
confirm, all the potential subscriber has to do to confirm is just send any
message, such as the default text of a reply or even a null body, to the
Reply-To: address. The only email skill the person needs is to choose Reply
and then Send in the MUA. There is no need to edit the reply (which could be
the incoming text quoted or cited in any form, or could be empty: it doesn't
matter, so no editing skill is needed), nor to make sure that the subject
meets any specific requirements. All the person has to do is get any message
to the reply address. (And yes, there have been incidents when people who
don't want to join send back, "What the hell is this about?" and find them-
selves subscribed and receiving the list's mailings.)
So yes, I was talking about people who absolutely cannot send email. Not
people who can't subscribe themselves; not people who can't carry out con-
firmation instructions that involve changing the body or the subject or the
return address; but people who cannot select the Reply and Send commands in
their MUAs. The first two groups might post; the third will not until they
learn or dare to use their MUAs to send as well as read (if they even read
their email -- if a person doesn't even read email, then there truly is no
reason to put such a person onto a mailing list).
If all you have to do is choose Reply and then Send in your MUA, mastering
mailing list jargon is not the issue.
| And second, lists are always supported by a few people, and the
| majority (usually a huge majority) of users never contribute. Do you
| encourage kicking off members who don't post to the list, too?
Talk about misrepresenting the other party's position! (Some lists do have
posting requirements; those I've run have not, ever.)
All my lists have had loads of lurkers, but they all had written to join, and
if they hadn't they wouldn't be on; what's key is that they opted in. Except
perhaps when where I took over a list that someone else had started and I
didn't ask how the members already on it got there, I've never added anyone
who didn't send email expressing interest. When members ask me to add some-
one else, I write back that the person has to ask for him/herself. (Then I
write to the person, saying that so-and-so said [s]he'd be interested in our
list, and that if [s]he wants to join [s]he can reply to let me know. Very
rarely has there been a response.) Once I met someone on a chat service who
expressed an interest in the topic of my current list and I invited him to
join, but I still asked him to email me first (OK, not so much to prove that
he could send email as to give him some time to think about it and not pres-
sure him to decide right there).
When listowners say they need the direct-add feature because they have to put
people on who can't write email, one must conclude that these subscribers
didn't email the listowners to ask for help with subscribing. It is one
thing to allow someone onto a list who asked to join but won't post; it is
quite another to plop someone onto a list who didn't ask and who won't post.
Your extrapolation to lurkers who joined voluntarily just doesn't work.
So why do these listowners want to subscribe people who cannot send email
and thus not only won't post but also didn't write to try to join? Are they
truly opting in if they've never expressed an interest in the list? Maybe
it's a corporate announcement list that all employees must read. Maybe they
asked to join by some communication means other than email. Those are a
couple of the possibilities I was covering when I said in my second post that
sometimes the list that is an asset to the subscriber even if the subscriber
is not an asset to the list.
| And third, there are more to mailing lists than discussion lists.
Of course. Again, sometimes the list is an asset to the member even if the
member isn't an asset to the list. However, most of the listowners whom I've
seen say that they need the direct-add feature run discussion lists, so there
was a reason that my posts have leaned toward the case of discussion lists.