UNSUBSCRIBE YOURSELF, was [CLUE-Tech] Please Unsubscribe

[Kirk Rafferty]

On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 10:50:52AM -0600, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
> To heck with it Chris, don't bother -- and while you're at it, park your
> SUV in the handicapped space (make it two!) so you're that much closer
> to the door next time you go shopping. Throw your cigarette butts where
> ever the hell you feel like it, toss the soda cans out the window, let
> your dog crap on the sidewalk -- we won't say a word, because that would
> be rude!

Wow, nice rant. :)

By the way, this is hardly an epidemic.  I think this is the first
"unsubscribe me" post I've seen here since...I can't remember the last one.
I could be wrong though, sometimes I have to clean my CLUE folder out
without reading.

> Like I said, I could understand sending a mail to the list if he had
> issues unsubscribing -- but it seems to me that he just can't be
> bothered. I went and looked at his site before I "said" anything. It's
> full of graphics and he has "Alaska photos" and "Denver blizzard" under
> "Hobbies" so I kind of doubt that he's blind. 

I didn't suggest he's blind, I suggested that our perception of a
situation isn't necessarily reality.  It's the old "when you ASSUME, you
make an ASS of U and ME" adage. (no, I'm not calling you an ass.  Or me.)

> > 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.
> 
> No -- I'm not trying to be elitist, I'm just saying that I doubt that
> someone who's too lazy to bother unsubscribing to a mail list is going
> to buy into a system that would seem more complicated than Windows. 

Again, this feeds into the myth (perception again, woot!) that Linux is
somehow harder to use and maintain than Windows.  I find Windows
(NT/2k/etc) to be a much more complicated system than Linux.  IMHO, anyone
starting from ground-nothing would have an easier time learning to run
and maintain a modern Linux distribution.

As it turns out (read Chris' reply), his reason for not unsubscribing was
that the link at the bottom is obscure.  And while I don't think I'd have
a problem with it, he might have a point.  After all, even if he followed
the link, Mailman isn't exactly the most intuitive interface when you want
to unsubscribe.  It's at the very bottom of the page, easily overlooked if
you're a techno-noob.  After all, there's a "Subscribing to CLUE-Tech"
header, but not a "Unsubscribing from CLUE-Tech" header.  That's not very
intuitive. (Also not CLUE's fault, this is how Mailman ships.)  I'm willing
to bet my mom (a Linux user) would have a hard time unsubscribing if she
had to.

This is the 21st Century.  The BOFH is dead.  If we continue to be crusty
*nix curmudgeons, we will become obsolete.

Regards,
Kirk