> Dear Seniors
>
> I would like to know your points of view on the following issues:
>
> 1. Concerning Noise of the nature "Take me off this ... list",
> "John, send me copy of ..." and the like): How (if at all) did you
> turn down such interferences ?;
>
> 2. Concerning junk mail of the nature: "Yes, me too", etc. How did
> you turn down such traffic ?;
I am the maintainer of the BPR-L list with almost 1400 users that vary
a great deal. I did several things to cut down interference:
1. Make sure the Reply-to: address for individual messages is the
SENDER of the message, and not the entire list (this list is set up
in this way). If users casually Reply with their mailer, the message
is not sent to the list. Of course this does not work for digests.
See more on that below.
2. Make sure your introduction letter is GOOD and contains some etiquette
issues on how to use the list.
3. I remind the users of the most important issues by including a HEADER
on ALL DIGESTS. The header looks as follows:
*******************************************************************************
* BUSINESS PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING MAILING LIST BPR-L *
* Delft University of Technology *
*******************************************************************************
* You can send a message to all members of the mailing list BPR-L by sending *
* an e-mail to the following address: BPR-L@IS.TWI.TUDELFT.NL. *
* *
* It will be distributed AUTOMATICALLY to ALL members of the list, so be *
* careful what you submit! Trim down your messages as much as possible!! *
*******************************************************************************
* You can ask the list processor to perform various tasks for you by sending *
* an e-mail to the following address: LISTSERV@IS.TWI.TUDELFT.NL *
* *
* This e-mail should contain commands recognizable for the list processor, *
* examples are given below: *
* *
* INFO BPR-L (for obtaining the info letter) *
* GET BPR-L BPR-L.FAQ (for obtaining the Frequently Asked Questions list) *
* UNSUB BPR-L (for unsubscribing) *
* SET BPR-L MAIL ACK (for getting individual messages instead of digests) *
* *
*******************************************************************************
* SEND YOUR COMMANDS ONLY TO LISTSERV@IS.TWI.TUDELFT.NL, NOT TO BPR-L@IS.TWI. *
* In case of problems, send e-mail to listman@is.twi.tudelft.nl (A.verbraeck) *
*******************************************************************************
The above header is included automatically on EACH digest, and helps the
users to avoid the most stupid problems.
4. Every time a users does something stupid, I have some 30 files ready
that inform the user about the thing he or she did. The messages are
polite, but very clear. An example is included below. The only thing I
have to do is reply to the "offender", include the file, and send it
off. Most users thank me for being pointed at the problem instead of
receiving a flame, and I hope this helps to improve the level of
knowledge of the users of my list in general. An example:
========================================================================
Dear BPR-L user,
You use an "out of the office" reply that gives some problems
with e-mail lists like the Business Process Reengineering list.
Your "answering service" is not recognizable as such for the
(fully automated) listprocessor. When your auto-reply states that
you are out of the office when receiving e-mail from the BPR-L
list, the reply is returned TO THE LIST and re-distributed to
ALL MEMBERS of the list, including yourself. You can imagine that
thousands of e-mails might get distributed to hundreds of list
readers in a few hours, bouncing between your autoreply and the
list that automatically distributes anything it gets, to all the
1300+ members...
Fortunately, the list usually intercepts such messages before they
are sent out. The listserver did, however, not recognize your
"out of the office" message but interpreted it as an ordinary e-mail
message sent to the list as any other. There are several reasons
for that:
1. The e-mail message is a "new" message and not a Reply to the
original message.
2. No part of the original message is therefore included that may
be recognized by the listprocessor as being suspect.
3. The title "Stand-in notification for ...") is not recognized as
being suspect.
SUGGESTION: Include one of the following word combinations in your
automatic reply, for instance "Away from mail, stand-in notifica...":
auto reply
automatic reply
away from mail
out of town
can not reply
can not answer
on vacation
via vacation program
Any of those word combinations is recognized by the listserver (and by
most other listservers) as an automatic reply, and not the reply of a
flesh-and-blood human being.
If you use a standard auto-reply utility, can you also notify the system
manager of the abovementioned problem?
If you need any more information (on this problem or on the BPR-L list
in general), please contact me.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Kind regards,
Dr. Alexander Verbraeck
List Manager BPR-L
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Dr. Alexander Verbraeck Delft University of Technology Faculty TWI
Dept of Information Systems PO Box 356, 2600 AJ Delft The Netherlands
Tel: +31 15 783805 Secr: +31 15 784475 Fax: +31 15 786632/787022
e-mail: A.Verbraeck@is.twi.tudelft.nl OR winfave@duticai.twi.tudelft.nl
http://www.twi.tudelft.nl/People/A.Verbraeck.html >dynamic modelling info
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I hope this helps you (and maybe others) to improve the quality of your
list.
Kind regards,
Alexander Verbraeck.
References:
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