The sequence reveals that no moderator is both monitoring this list and willing 
to respond to the request, and possibly the listserver is not working properly.


Yes, the user should be able to handle his own unsubscription and is being 
obtuse, repeating a message, insistently, to people who can't do anything about 
the situation, and perhaps not following instructions that come with every 
mail, or if he is, he is not requesting help, describing the specific problem 
encountered, he is merely demanding that someone DO SOMETHING TO FIX THIS!


A common reason would be that the user no longer has access to an account for 
sending mail, but is still receiving mail to that account. If that is the case 
here, then Harry isn't telling anyone what the account is. The complete headers 
from a list mail to him would show what's happening. (Below, I figure out that 
this is not the case here. It's commonly a case with open mailing lists, this 
list is, however, closed.)


STOP and all that does absolutely nothing. The instructions below do say how to 
unsubscribe. One of Harry's mails seems to be a response to a mail from 
wikiversity-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org and it looks like the subject was not 
created as instructed for unsubscription.

If Harry tells us what he has done, and what happened, we will then know more 
specifically what to do about it. I'm not personally going to file a complaint 
with the overall wikimedia.org listserver administration unless I can verify a 
problem. And they are quite likely, given the massive subscription lists, to 
ignore complaints written in all caps that don't provide adequate information.


To find out if the listserver is operating, I entered a number of commands 
through the web interface, which is *public*. I merely need enter the 
subscribed email address. The page is at 
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l

On that page, in the "Wikiversity-l" subscribers section, after entering my 
subscribed email address, I pressed the "unsubscribe or edit options" button.

I got a member options page acknowledging my email address as a subscriber, and 
one of the buttons was unsubscribe. I pressed the unsubscribe button, and, 
after a few minutes' delay, I received a confirmation mail. If I had responded 
with no changes to that mail, I presume I'd have been unsubscribed. I'd 
forgotten my password, which is not needed for unsubscription, so I then 
pressed the password reminder button and my password was emailed to me. Using 
the password, I logged in to the member options page. There is also an 
immediate unsubscription option there (since they know it's you because you 
logged in with the password.)

So I did the same, using the Harry address from the mails. I then pressed an 
unsubscribe bottom, which, if Harry is a subscriber, would send him a 
confirmation mail, with instructions that, if followed carefully, will 
unsubscribe him. On the other hand, I tested this with a ridiculous 
subscription address. The interface does not reveal if the person is a 
subscriber or not.

If Harry does not receive a mail, he can then strongly infer that he is not, 
under this email address, subscribed to the list. That, then, means that 
*nobody* can help him, unless he provides the subscription mailing address.

However, it is very likely that Harry is a subscriber, because the list will 
reject mails from non-subscribers. I just tested that. Harry's mails, from his 
gmail address, are not being held for moderator approval. (If a moderator has 
set automatic approval, it would go through, but he'd also be getting the 
message held for approval message. I've seen a moderator set up automatic 
bounce approval when the moderation didn't want to surrender control but also 
didn't have the time to actually manage the list.)


Harry, when you are in the middle of an amygdala hijack, you may not be able to 
respond to instructions clearly. See if you can do whatever you know to do to 
relax, have some tea or coffee, get to a place of calm, and then try 
unsubscribing, reading everything carefully. You may find that this fixes the 
interface, in a way that shouting doesn't.

The amazing thing here is how long the hijack has lasted.

Plus, I'm getting that we don't have a moderator who is regularly watching this 
list and ready to fix problems.








>________________________________
> From: Shujen Chang <i...@blue.cat>
>To: Mailing list for Wikiversity <wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org> 
>Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2012 8:28 AM
>Subject: Re: [Wikiversity-l] Wikiversity-l Digest, Vol 58, Issue 4
> 
>
>You can just unsubscribe this mail list, if you do not want to receive any 
>letters from the mail list again.
>
>
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