Announcements-only list

[Julian Field]

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I will subscribe the discussion list to the announcements list.

At 23:50 19/03/2004, you wrote:
>Peter Bonivart wrote:
> >
> > John Rudd wrote:
> > > Right, I understand that.  The question is: will announcements still go
> > > to this list, or just to the announcements list?  For some projects, the
> > > discussion list is subscribed to the announcements list, so
> > > announcements go to all.
> > >
> > > I don't think I can actually think of an arrangement that ISN'T like
> > > that.  But the wording of this discussion sounds like it might be the
> > > case that announcements wont actually keep going to this list (thus the
> > > reason we all need to be subscribed to the announcements list
> > > individually).
> > >
> > > I would prefer to see the (to me) usual method: discussion list is
> > > subscribed to announcements list, and those who only want announcements
> > > would switch themselves over.  Though, it seems to be a moot point now.
> >
> > Every user of MS should first subscribe to the announcement list and
> > second to the tech list (this one). That's how it's usually done on Clam
> > and SA for example.
> >
> > I don't understand your problem,
>
>Who said anything about having a problem?  I thought this was a
>discussion of techniques?
>
> > would it save you subscribing to one
> > more list with maybe one post every month? You're already subscribed to
> > it so you will not miss anything and it's not like we're not going to
> > discuss the new releases here. We always do. ;-)
>
>1) And if someday I, or someone else, decides to leave the community,
>they now have to remember 2 unsubscriptions (one of which they may never
>have undertaken, so they may not have any specific instructions about
>that list in their records, or at least not in the place where they
>specifically put those records).  They may not even conciously know
>they're on two lists (if, say, they only skim this list right now).
>This creates some amount of confusion for the subscriber which can be
>avoided by the technique I mentioned.
>
>2) What about people who use mail sorting filters (such as procmail) to
>divert messages into different folders?  For some (like me) unexpected
>messages are handled in a special way.  For example, the announcement of
>the new list went into my "might be spam" folder.  If this was at home
>(where I'm much more agressive about this) instead of at work, procmail
>would have put it into my "awl-blacklist this un-solicitied list
>subscription" folder, and I might have never noticed it.  I wouldn't
>know that I was subscribed to that list, but it would have been (very
>slightly, but still there) wasting my bandwidth.  And eventually, it may
>have been picked up by my "too many tries from a awl-blacklisted site"
>process and blocked in my sendmail access list.  Which would have then
>caused other headaches (bounces for Julian, I would stop receiving a
>list I _did_ want, etc.).
>
>Given the choice, the more I thought about it, I would have preferred to
>see the tech list be subscribed to the announcements list, and had that
>be the mechanism for getting announcements to both groups of people.
>But, like I said, it's moot at this point.  I'm not complaining, I'm
>just saying, I think that technique would have been better.

--
Julian Field
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