John Kaufmann wrote:
In a message dated 2009.11.05 08:49 -0500, Barbara Duprey wrote:
The two approaches under discussion currently are
(1) ... always use Reply All ...
(2) Providing a message to the unsubscribed OP who is starting a
thread, containing a link to the OP's message in the archive and
some information about how to follow the thread that way. ...
Of the two complementary questions in this thread -
(a) how to get answers to questions from unsubscribed posters; and
(b) how to unsubscribe ...
- those "two approaches" only address the first question, and even
in that case may be an incomplete solution set. For example,
another approach is the simplest and most common: require
subscription to post.
As I've said before, the reason I don't favor the forced subscription
is that this list has an amount of traffic that can be a very
unpleasant surprise to somebody who is just "dropping by" to get the
answer to a specific question. ...
I'm not (yet, at least) advocating subscribe-to-post (even if it works
elsewhere and would improve the list's signal to noise ratio). I am
advocating that all options be on the table - that nothing be a priori
excluded - in view of the waste this has become. I used that most
obvious example as a simple way to say the proposed solution set was
incomplete and that it would be unwise, before hearing from the
moderators, to offer them a pre-packaged subset of choices. [A
negative example: Having seen the damage that a Reply-to-All
requirement can do to a list, I have my own reservations about that,
but it's premature to make that case.]
I completely agree -- it just sounded to me as if you were indeed
advocating that as the only viable alternative. Sorry I misunderstood.
And I'm sure that Harold and I, at least, are curious about those
"reservations" you have -- I don't think it's premature at all to
discuss them.
I hope the moderators will favor the list with their thoughts on
these two recurring wastes of time, that we might see whether a
proposed solution to one might aggravate the other (or cause a new
undesirable consequence). The premise of collaboration software,
after all, is that many heads are better than one.
Well, Paul seems to be willing to help out, per his communication to
Harold. But they don't want to just rehash old discussions, which is
totally reasonable.
Of course. We already spend too much time rehashing this old issue.
The point is to become serious enough to resolve it. Paul mentioned
that the lack of a "single approach" impedes a solution; we need more
substance to see what that means. This is not an intractable problem,
and failure to resolve it has caused tremendous waste.
John
Again, I agree completely.
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