Mike Scott wrote:
Michael Adams wrote:
...
Both this list and the user list have been intentionally made as easy to
contact with questions as possible. This is to ease the way for newbies.
Regular contributors on the list know to reply to both the list and the
OP when a non-subscribed email hits the list (in my mail client i have
filtered unsubscribed posts to a seperate sub-folder). In that way we
become a help-desk without flooding the OPs email address with all the
other emails unrelated to their question.
It works, it just takes some getting your head around.
I beg to differ about that last statement. The subject comes up a lot
on the 'users' list.
That list gets a large number of queries from unsubscribed people. The
/ONLY/ way of seeing whether or not a poster is subscribed is to look
for the moderators' header - which is tedious for a 'replyer' and so
frequently overlooked, and not everyone knows how or should be
bothered to 'colour' inbound messages (not 100% reliable in, eg TB,
anyway, but that's another issue). The result being a significant
number of posts saying 'forwarded to OP' or the equivalent which
clutter up the list. Then there's the sheer mechanics of getting both
list address and OP's address into the recipient list, especially when
following up to a reply that's forgotten to include..... well, you get
the drift. Many times I've noticed a thread drifting on, OP well and
truly out of the loop, and no doubt wondering why the 'help desk'
hasn't replied.
IMO I think the lists should stop pretending to newbies to be a help
desk. They're not, and never will be. In the long run, I don't think
it's helpful to those newbies; and it's potentially harmful to OOo's
standing when the "help desk" cannot provide the instant answers they
want (/especially/ when pointed in our direction by unscrupulous
vendors of wrapped-up versions of OOo wanting to offer support on the
cheap to their often-duped paying customers).
IMO again and following on from that - I think unsubscribed posters
should get a polite message to that effect, explaining the status of
OOo, of the list, and inviting them to subscribe should they /really/
wish to post to the list.
I really have to agree with the above! I believe that a lot of us,
myself included simply don't know when a poster is unsubscribed and
waste our time answering their post. My feeling is that if you are not
in fact subscribed your post simply should not appear.
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