LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Greg  <grog@lemis.com>
  To  : Daryl Pilkington <u3232@home.dialix.com>
  Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 08:51:01 +0930

Re: Format of ListServ messages, (Was: unsubscribe)

On Monday, 27 May 2002 at 12:21:57 +1000, Daryl Pilkington wrote:
> NO!, NO!, NO!

Huh?

> SMH alert does this, so you have to scroll through a page of
> rarely-used stuff to get to the good stuff, its a PITA & have told them
> so.
>
> It is not acceptable that many people will be disadvantaged purely
> because a few folks are too lazy/ignorant/sloppy to *read*.
>
> Just like a technical report which has an appendix, it can be referred
> to, if necessary.
>
> Reading *comprehension* seems to be spiralling downward, perhaps its
> because the Aussie Education budget is poor & targeting fee-paying
> overseas students.
>
> We need more $ on education, encourage skilled Asian immigrants who
> want to make babies with Aussies. Solve a lot of problems...
>
>
> On Mon, 27 May 2002 11:13:55 +0930, dmdeflui@subcorp.com.au wrote:
>>
>> David,
>>
>> I've often wondered why the Linux SA group hasn't done what hundreds of
>> other mailing lists do and that is put the unsubscribe instructions at the
>> top of the body of the mail message rather than at the bottom.
>>
>> This would then fix your continued gripe about people being unable to read
>> the bottom of the mail message.
>>
> SNIP
>>
>
> Regards,
>
> Daryl  Pilkington
>
> //// The PC-Therapist, Business Computing Integration
> O<O  AUSTRALIA
> \_/
> <O>  OS/2 Warp, Redhat Linux, DB2
>      IBM Certified Systems Expert
>
>         email: darylp@pc-therapist.com.au
>           Mob: 0425-251-300
>
> --
> LinuxSA WWW: http://www.linuxsa.org.au/  IRC: #linuxsa on irc.linux.org.au
> To unsubscribe from the LinuxSA list:
>   mail linuxsa-request@linuxsa.org.au with "unsubscribe" as the subject

The real problem I see is that so many people put so much mess in
their mail messages, and sequence it so badly, that people don't
bother reading to the end.  There should be a message there.  Take
this one, for example.  mutt tells me that it was 51 lines, including
the unsubscribe info.  I'd have found it a lot more intelligible if it
were written like this:

> On Mon, 27 May 2002 11:13:55 +0930, dmdeflui@subcorp.com.au wrote:
>>
>> David,
>>
>> I've often wondered why the Linux SA group hasn't done what hundreds of
>> other mailing lists do and that is put the unsubscribe instructions at the
>> top of the body of the mail message rather than at the bottom.
>>
>> This would then fix your continued gripe about people being unable to read
>> the bottom of the mail message.
>
> NO!, NO!, NO!
> SMH alert does this, so you have to scroll through a page of
> rarely-used stuff to get to the good stuff, its a PITA & have told them
> so.
>
> It is not acceptable that many people will be disadvantaged purely
> because a few folks are too lazy/ignorant/sloppy to *read*.
>
> Just like a technical report which has an appendix, it can be referred
> to, if necessary.
>
> Reading *comprehension* seems to be spiralling downward, perhaps its
> because the Aussie Education budget is poor & targeting fee-paying
> overseas students.
>
> We need more $ on education, encourage skilled Asian immigrants who
> want to make babies with Aussies. Solve a lot of problems...

That's only 36 lines, and it also makes it clear what you're talking
about.  At the end, you're at the bottom of the page, where you should
be.

Greg
--
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