I just helped someone get off of this list.
Names are changed to protect the innocent:
>Nick,
>
>I am sending you this message because your latest post to "list-managers"
>shows that you are maybe the best person to ask.
>
>I have been trying for months to get myself removed from list-managers. I
>tried following the exact procedure that was in the welcome message that I
>got when I joined. It did not work. I tried every possible variation on this
>procedure that I can think of. I tried sending messages directly to the list
>asking for help. I got no reply. Can you figure out how I can unsubscribe
>from this list or who I can request it from?!
>
>Thanks,
[elided]
>
>PS. Below is the welcome message that I received when I joined.
>
>
>
>
>
>Welcome to the list-managers mailing list!
>Your password at Majordomo@GreatCircle.COM is
>aabbCC
>
>To leave this mailing list, send the following command in the body
>of a message to Majordomo@GreatCircle.COM:
>
>approve aabbCC unsubscribe list-managers "Joe Nobody"
>JoeNobody@hotmail.com
Well, I told him that I was not the right person to ask, and after
significant hesitation, I suggested that he send:
unsubscribe list-managers
to majordomo@greatcircle.com
That worked. Frankly, if he tried every variation he could think of and
did not try "unsubscribe list-managers", well, maybe he does not have much
imagination? I was actually worried about having made that suggestion -
because, essentially, I felt like I was calling him a liar.
We corresponded after he got off of the list. The actual fact was that he
sent
approve aabbCC unsubscribe list-managers "Joe Nobody"
to the majordomo address. It apparently never occurred to him to tack on
the second line or to send variations that included his address.
So, I said all that, to say this:
What have people found regarding the right way to format this sort of
message? The original majordomo messages would always talk about tacking
messages together with backslashes to make up for the effects of word
wrapping. That seemed to confuse a lot of people. Are you better off
offering a simple alternative? Thorough or simple?
There are two things that seem to be hard for the average
user: Subscribing and unsubscribing. It is not just the confirmation
issue, it is the whole mess.
I personally found that my manual help requests went way down when I
offered a "do it all link" in my majordomo confirmations. The system I am
using dropped that --- you now click and then push a button. Not too bad,
but you still have to offer people an e-mail response, and simply being
offered an alternative confuses people.
(I remember a friend who had a two year old. She said that they could
answer a question like, "Do you want hamburgers or hot dogs for dinner?"
but not "What do you want for dinner?" since contemplating the universe of
possibilities confused them. This seems to indicate that the average user
is not as smart as her two year olds.)
Is there a good way to format this sort of message? Something that makes
it possible for users to understand it and do the right thing?
Why did this user have so much trouble with this message, when all they had
to do was to send in a simple unsubscribe message?
--
Take The Boulder Pledge Today
"Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the
result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chain letters,
petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others.
This is my contribution to the survival of the online community." - Roger
Ebert -- nor will I vote for any candidate who solicits my vote via e-mail.
Nick Simicich - njs@scifi.squawk.com
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