NFLUG Mailing List Issues

[Dennis J. Eberl]

JJ Neff wrote:

<--------------- snip --------------->

>
> I am confused by the above.

You are not alone, amigo.

> Why does the membership list (by this I mean
> people who actively attend meetings and want to be called) have to be in sync
> with people on the mailing list.  I join a bunch of mailing lists just to ask
> questions and offer ideas and have nothing to do with a physical group...

My point too. Amen.

> Also the ability to join and remove yourself from a web-site is very convenient
> and to avoid a 3rd party adding you to "Man-Smack" listservers against your
> wishes they require the "mail-back" BOTH for joining and unjoining.  If you
> added a button and said "unsubscribe" and used James' address HE would get the
> confirmation and ignore it or delete it or forward it to the web admin(list
> admin) to check it.

That is not my proposal. People who fill out the membership form should
automatically
receive email, verifying their identity and telling them how to join the list. IF
we add
a button to be removed -- NOT necessary in my opinion -- it must trigger a
mechanism
that verifies the identity. Otherwise, people will keep dropping me and Blinky
from dee
list, no?

I am not proposing buttons to join/leave the list. I am proposing radio buttons
and check
boxes to illicit more information from people when they join (computing related
info,
not personal). I'm sorry if the two proposals got blurred.

I don't know why James thinks their is such and urgent need to make it pushbutton
easy to join/leave our list. I think even newbies should learn to do it the old
fashioned way,
which will be useful to them when they join/leave other lists. The whole thing is
a non
issue as far as I'm concerned.

What is an issue, is the discovery that almost half of our members got dropped
from the
mailing list. I believe only four have filled in the form and gotten back on (I
may be off
by one plus or minus) out of some -- what -- twenty or so? This is slowly being
fixed.
I have contacted them all and instructed them to fill out the membership form as
the
gateway to verifying membership and receiving e-mail inviting them to get on the
list.
That's the present kludge for keeping the two lists in sync.

> Actually with the first step clearly spelled out (ie send a message to
> majordomo at nflug.org with e-mail in body and nothing in subject) then READ the
> response and follow instructions to respond.  That was relatively easy for
> anyone remotely interested in reading.  If they dont want to read a response
> then this is the wrong list (78 messages, most from a guy who can't decide if
> he's a flightless water fowl or not,  in 2 days !! eeks)

"Hey, mira, Bozo, watch it! " -- B.F.

> Just some thoughts.
>
> JJN
> >
> >
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
> http://im.yahoo.com

John,

I am trying to avoid end runs (i.e., directly subscribing to the list) by forcing
people
to go to the membership form. That way we keep the membership list and mailing
list in sync, make sure people know how to find our web site, and still provide
one
stop shopping for getting on the list and joining NFLUG as a member. I would think

you would have to be a member (or affiliate member from another LUG) to be
eligible to be on the mailing list. If this doesn't make sense to you, I am open
to an
explanation and alternate plan. I just don't like the idea of the two lists
getting out
of sync, except in the sense that someone may leave the list and want to stay on
as a member.

Dennis