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List:       list-managers
Subject:    inability to send email != joining+lurking
From:       "David W. Tamkin" <dattier () Mcs ! Net>
Date:       2000-01-09 21:58:24
Message-ID: 200001092158.PAA03636 () Mercury ! mcs ! net
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When I wrote,

T> Not at all.  People who won't write email don't contribute to the list,
T> neither publicly nor privately.  There's nothing bogus nor elitist in that.

Lou responded,

M> Ah, but (1) you never know when one of them might suddenly make his first
M> post -- this is my first-ever post :)

It's not just a matter of someone's first post, it's also a matter of some-
one's first email.  Remember, I wasn't talking about all people who don't
post to the list but solely about people who absolutely cannot write any
email at all and thus won't respond to a confirmation request and have to be
forcibly added.  That's not just no email to the list; it's no email at all.
When they receive a confirmation request for joining a list because the list-
owner used add-with-confirm instead of direct-add, they don't follow through,
because selecting Reply and then Send in their MUAs is too daunting.  Will
they some day get past that fear?  Perhaps.  Then they can confirm sub-
scriptions and perhaps post as well.  For now, if they can't confirm, how
can we be sure they actually want to be on the list?

M> --  and (2) no one has been in a position to judge whether I've derived
M> benefit during the couple of years I've lurked here;

That's right; I said that even if they are not assets to the list, the list
might be an asset to them.  But didn't you join list-managers because you
wanted to, Lou?  And didn't your act of joining involve your sending some
email, either the Majordomo command for joining or a request to the list
manager to put you on?  Unless someone has expressed an interest in joining,
where does the listowner get off deciding that another person will benefit
from the list and adding him or her in a way that doesn't require any sort of
agreement or confirmation from the person being added?  What is the listown-
er's motive in doing so?  When I said that people who cannot send any email
at all are not assets to the list, what I meant was that the membership at
large will gain nothing from such a person's being on.  (After all, such a
person won't write private responses to others' posts either.)  The listown-
er's motive in adding such a person is clearly not what such a person will do
for the members.  So what is it?  More eyeballs to claim when selling ads,
perhaps?  Or is the listowner a spammer?

There are some legitimate exceptions: the person may have asked the listowner
to add him/her by some other means of communication than email.  Maybe it is
a corporate announcement list that all employees are required to read, or an
academic list that all students must be on.  But I would imagine that nearly
all of the last two cases are lists running on the company's or the schools'
own servers, not on Onelist or eGroups, and it was listowners on Onelist whom
I've seen howl at the notion of removing direct-add, complaining that they
need it specifically to get people onto their lists who are so helpless with
email that they cannot select Reply and Send to answer a confirmation request.

M> ... and (3) certainly no one but me can tell whether my list-subscribers
M> have benefited from the knowledge I picked up here.

Remember, the people under discussion are those who cannot email at all, not
those who join lists and lurk.  How many people who cannot send email at all
run mailing lists of their own?  I'd guess none.  It is way off-base to
stretch my words about people who fear to send email and who therefore must
be forcibly added to mailing lists to apply to those who voluntarily join
lists and then lurk.

M> No one should take my silence for inarticulateness, ...

Nobody did.  Even people who cannot send email might be articulate when they
speak or when they write on paper.

M> ... and nobody needs to arrogate unto himself the right to condemn people
M> who don't spring to their keyboards and fire off a response every
M> seventeenth message.

Nobody did.  Those who cannot send email at all are not being "condemned"
here.  I said simply that they won't be enriching the list, even if the list
enriches them, or they enrich the listowner.

M> There, now, have I adequately misrepresented everyone's respective
M> positions? :)

Let's see: you've called my words about people who cannot send email a con-
demnation, and you've said my alleged condemnation includes people who lurk
after having put out proactive effort to opt into a list.  I can't speak for
Chuq or Ron or anyone else involved, Lou, but you've done an excellent job of
misrepresenting mine.  Take that as a compliment if you'd like.


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