Re: u-n-s-u-b-s-c-r-i-b-e

[P3D Gregory J. Wageman <gjw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Peter van Zuijlekom writes:

>We have all seen, the last couple of weeks,
>how difficult it is to 'u-n-s-u-b-s-c-r-i-b-e'.
>First you have to practise 'reading' which is not given free
>to all of us. Then you have to, either
>
>- Go to the bottom of one of the last 70 or so digests
>  to find out what exactly the instructions are.
>  How difficult which one to choose . . . Only 70 . . .

Peter, not everyone gets this wonderful list in digest form.  I don't,
so I never see the "unsubscribe" instructions unless some unlucky soul
posts an entire digest.  Of course as a good netizen, I have the original
subscription message saved away, so I know just where and how to cancel,
should such a bleak day ever come...

And while what you say is true, if someone is receiving mail from this
list unintentionally (have you ever heard of "subscription spams"?),
they may very well not have a clue where the appropriate address is
to write to cancel it.

"Subscription spam" is when somebody jokingly or maliciously signs
one up to every mailing list they can find, at the same time.  This
results in the unfortunate victim being bombarded with unexpected
and usually undesired e-mail.  This can easily amount to thousands of
messages a day, and as you might imagine, undoing such a prank can be
very tedious.  If it were only one digest, you might expect such a
person to read every e-mail to find out how to unsubscribe, but if you
have a mailbox full of thousands of such messages, that's expecting
quite a lot.  So lighten up a little.

Many mailing list administrators have adopted an email confirmation
scheme, whereby when you subscribe you are sent a confirmatory message
before the subscription actually begins, giving one a chance to evade
subscription spam.   It's been a while since I subscribed, but I don't
believe this list uses such a procedure, making it vulnerable to such
tactics.

        -Greg


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