Jeffrey Goldberg asked,
| As someone else asked, I'd be curious to know what circumstances lead list
| managers to make us of this feature (or similar practices with other
| MLMs).
There are a number of possibilities. Requiring renewals reduces the CPU use
and bandwidth of sending the list to people who aren't reading it any more
for reasons such as these:
1. they have lost interest but haven't bothered to un5u65cr16e;
2. they set up filters to bit-bucket the list instead of un5u65cr16ing;
3. they want to un5u65cri6e but can't follow the directions, so they just
ignore the list and delete their copies of list distributions;
4. their sysadmins are bit-bucketing the list because they think it's spam
or because they don't want non-business use of company email, and the member
thinks the list just dried up and never said anything to you;
5. their addresses are undeliverable but a non-compliant or malfunctioning
transport is failing to send you bounce notices;
6. they went into nomail or vacation mode, forgot about the list, and never
went back to normal delivery [OK, no copies are being sent to such people,
but they'll either get out of vacation mode and read the list again or let
you clean their names out of the list rolls];
or any of many other possibilities.
Invariably there will be members who ignore the renewal request and then
weeks or months later ask you whether the list shut down or why they were
kicked off. Unless the list is all techies or net.veterans, there will also
be people who can't understand the renewal request and ask you what it means
and why you're threatening to kick them off. So not a lot of lists have
such policies. One thing for sure: any list that sells advertising space
and needs to brag about its membership figures will never, never require
renewals. [You'll be lucky if it lets you un5u6.]
I have run only two renewals. For both, I sent reminders after ten and
twenty days to those who had not yet responded; still, true to form, some
ignored the original renewal request and both reminders, got dropped, and
wrote to me a month or so later wondering why they weren't getting the list
any more.
One happened when Hotmail was rumored to be ashcanning a lot of mail, and
the list had had no posts from any members at Hotmail addresses in a long
time, so I required all members at Hotmail addresses to answer what was
essentially a renewal notice. Only a handful responded and remained on the
list.
In the other case, I made a significant policy change that, I felt, was so
different from the previous policy that it needed the consent of each member
to stay on the list under it, so I gave all members a month to consent to
the new rule or to be un5u66ed with my best wishes. About 2/3 of the
members consented; of those who did not reply, I do not know how many zoned
out [except for the two who wrote after the response period ended to wonder
what happened to their su65criptions], how many blew it off as just not
interesting any more, and how many actively disagreed with the new policy
and quietly chose to be dropped (nobody actually wrote to say, "No thanks; I
disagree with the new policy"). I think one person quit during that time,
and (s)he did not say why, so maybe it was the new policy or maybe it
wasn't.
References:
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