Pauline,
I believe you have an excellent suggestion. However, I'm not very
opimistic about it working. I place very clear instructions at the
bottom of each list my firm sponsors or maintains. My experience, is
that AOL users refuse to follow the instructions. They continue to
insist to send messages, "GET ME OFF THIS DAMN LIST!"
Then when others attempt to help them and point out the
instructions at the bottom, they are sent vulgar messages by the AOL
subscriber. Then the AOL subscriber will invariably send
20 or so messages, in a row, that they want to get off.
I have tried sending them detailed instructions on how to
unsubscribe, that doesn't work. I have set up a webpage where they
can go to unsubscribe by simply inputing their email address and
clicking on the button. But, they don't seem to be able to do even
that.
I've wasted a lot of time and resources on AOL subscribers which
is why I was forced to finally ask AOL to take us off their
directory. I am the first to admit that not all of them are like
this. However, a majority of them who subscribe or attempt to
subscribe to our lists, are. They account for 3% of subscription
base, contribute less than 1% and are responsible for 90% of the
problems.
Now, my figures may differ from yours. I've had a few list owners
tell me they never have any problems with AOL people. But, then
again, their lists are for programmers, software developers, etc...
These people, usually have more savvy than the "normal" AOL
subscriber.
I believe that many of ua can agree that there are problems. Not only
with AOL but perhaps with others coming down the pike. What needs to
be discussed are solutions. Solutions we can use now, rather than
solutions that AOL and others promise sometime in the future. I think
your comments were a very positive step in that direction.
Leonard
On 3 Feb 97 ,Pauline Price insightfully wrote:
> What if
> - there were a standard listmanager protocol for commands
> - mail clients knew that protocol, and how to query list-servers
> about supported features
> - mail clients maintained lists of active subscriptions, and
> provided intelligent support for posting, suspending,
> un-subscribing, etc
>
> Then our clueless users would have push-button support for what they
> want to do. And we would have less headaches all around. I suppose
> the world looks much different when you happen to have a stake in
> the technology/internet world as well as the personal happiness of one
> of the 'worst offender' types.
>
> We know it's not impossible, we've seen what the web and http have
> become. I do alot just using the template feature of my mail
> client in the office now.
>
> What would it take to get from here to there?
>
> -Pauli
> > -Allen
> >
>
>
>
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