On Thu, May 21, 2009 22:22:33 PM -0400, Dave Post wrote:
> I've written an AppleScript for my email client (OSX Mail 3.6) that,
> if activated, will respond automatically to messages that contain
> "moderator for users@openoffice.org" in a Delivered-To header field
> by sending a modified version of the original message to the
> originator and the list.
Dave,
I understand and appreciate your good will, but please do NOT increase
the number of messages that every subscriber gets from this list.
Nothing I write below this paragraph is your fault, of course. I
myself suggested several times in the past that the only way to cope
with this ridiculous situation would be some kind of autoresponder
that worked invisible in the background. So OK to your script, as long
as you only send extra messages to unsubscribed posters, NOT to the
list OR to single subscribed posters, thanks.
Here's why.
Almost ten years ago, the powers in charge decided that what should be
some online, WEB-BASED helpdesk system, that is free support for
unexperienced OOo users who don't even know what a mailing list is,
would be delegated to a mailing list of volunteer subscriber, who
would get no support whatever (*) from the hosting provider or anybody
else.
I think to things like "unsubscribed users can only ask for help
through an helpdesk form which has a backend (written by who is paid
to provide a web presence to OO.o) which handles all this "forwarding
to unsubscribed users" stuff without harassing people who give their
own time for free to help"
The result of this policy is that, over the years, both the amount of
effort that a volunteer user should spend to make this "support"
system work (looking at who's unsubscribed, cc or not cc, struggling
to invent email filters that no other list requires, etc) and the
extra list traffic ("forwarding to unsubscribed OP") have become
ridiculous, much higher than on ANY other volunteer list I know of.
This has caused many people to just give up OOo support through this
list. Nowhere else a volunteer is asked to waste time, create custom
email handling setups, or endure duplicated traffic like here.
Years ago, there were very expert people who helped here (limiting
myself to names that probably every OOo not-novice users know, I can
mention Bruce Byfield and Jean Weber, but there were many more) and
have now practically disappeared from this list. My feeling is that
one of the reasons for this loss of experienced supporters is just the
absolutely unnecessary set up efforts and extra traffic caused by this
way to (not) manage unsubscribed users.
A useful variant of your script may be one that, whenever some
**subscribed** user resends to the whole list a message that all
subscribers HAD ALREADY RECEIVED with the "cc to unsubscribed user"
justification, sends to *that* subscribed user a note saying, more or
less:
"please don't increase list traffic in this way, it will only drive
subscribed users away and generate endless discussions. Complain with
Collabnet, OO.org, Sun, whoever, instead, because they don't write a
web frontend which takes cares of this without ridiculous burden on
unpaid volunteers"
Final note: when, in the very little time I can devote to support, I
answer a question on this list, I NEVER spend one second to check if
the poster was subscribed or not. And I REFUSE to waste one second to
put together convoluted mail filters (which would never work in all
possible cases anyway) to figure who I should reply to. On this
particular list, when it's a NEW message, I always "reply to all". If
it's a reply, instead, I only reply to the list.
I strongly suggest every other subscriber to do the same. The only
real solutions to this problem are a) Collabnet or whoever is in
charge earning their money by coding a web frontend for this or b)
volunteers running some background script like Dave's.
Marco Fioretti
--
Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
software is used *around* you: http://digifreedom.net/node/84
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