UNSUBSCRIBE YOURSELF, was [CLUE-Tech] Please Unsubscribe

[Kirk Rafferty]

On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 09:40:15AM -0600, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
> What, because it's a Linux list we have to bend over backwards for
> people who are too damn lazy to follow instructions? It's one thing if
> he'd tried to unsubscribe and there was an error -- but just being too
> damn lazy? 

Unsubscribing somebody is hardly bending over backwords.  Login to
Mailman, select "Membership Management" and unsubscribe.

By the way, is "Administrivia Filter" turned on for the list?  It's in
General Options, and probably would have caught this post.

> I've got news for you, very few mailing lists are tolerant of this kind
> of crap. This is netiquette 101 -- if you opt-in to a mailing list, you
> take the responsibility to opt back out. If you can't be bothered, maybe
> you don't belong online. 

I agree.  Lazy people bug me.

But do the means really justify the end?  We now have a severly off-topic
thread (of which I am a gulty party), tempers are high, and nobody really
knows why Chris can't or won't unsubscribe himself.

I have a customer who is blind.  He uses some sort of brail interface
to his computer.  When he first contacted us, I couldn't understand why
he was so resistant to using our web interface to signup.  His email
was poorly formatted too, and I could easily have written him off.
Turns out his brail terminal has a hard time with HTML, and tends to
format email strangely.  Yet he's hardly someone that doesn't "belong
online."  We tend to make assumptions that may not always be correct.
Again, perception is not necessarily truth.

> If this is a CIO, they'd go with Windows because Linux would seem too
> hard anyway...if they can't handle a simple Webpage to unsubscribe from
> a mailing list, they're not a prime candidate for Linux either. 

This sounds elitist to me, and pretty much feeds the FUD that Linux is for
techno-snobs.  If we wrote off every manager who fit the "Windows" profile,
Linux would still be a backwater OS running muds in our basement.

Regards,
Kirk