ASR1002

Tue Jan 19 13:59:32 UTC 2010

Inline (and diverse) replies, as it's more of a rant, but slightly
relevant to the list ops if not the OP topic:

1 - On Tue, 2010-01-19 at 15:50 +0800, NetYourLife2007 wrote (well, at
least his mailer declared itself to be...):
> Mailer: 
> Foxmail 6, 15, 201, 22 [cn]

Kenny's mail client may be slightly unfamiliar to most nanog users :)
Not sure if that's relevant but it may be a contributory factor.

Maybe the problem is that we're all too old and can remember what
headers are and what they're useful for, but developers of these
"modern" mail clients just want to hide all feature that even so much as
_look like_ they have come from a CLI client. 

For example, I know several otherwise competent people who glaze over
and fall asleep when I mention the Reply To: field.

2 - On Tue, 19 Jan 2010, Jim Mercer wrote:
> 
> > i still read most of my mail with mutt, but in my experience, many 
> > "modern" interfaces (gmail/thunderrbird/etc) don't make it intuative to 
> > find and/or read the headers.

agreed, after 18 month of trying to comply I still can't drive this
Evolution thing that most "new Linux-on-the-Desktop" users get as a
default install. I couldn't even find out how to bind the "h" key to
headers after a month of looking, for example. I live in hope for a Mutt
Bindings `extension`, if some developer can wake their grandparents for
some memories. 

  On Tue, 2010-01-19 at 09:50 +0100, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote: 

> In gmail you click "show details" and then there is a "unsubscribe from 
> this mailing list"-link you can click. Might not be perfectly intuitive, 
> but it's full functionality and quite easy.

Thank you, I've now (and only now) just found a similar thingy in this client.
18 months down the line....grrr
Yet just testing it, it works for nanog, but not for 2 other lists I'm in, with similar correct headers 8-{

Are we (or rather the developers) losing the plot? 
I think many of today's "web-users" may consider email old-fashioned, so if the new `app-for-that` culture doesn't provide  
easy/basic access to `old-fashioned` features, things may slowly turn into interface soup.

And while I'm ranting, why has my client suddenly borked into 132 column mode? <sigh>

Ahem
now, rant off/relevance on:
Prediction:
We may have to, in the coming years, for the above reasons and more, reduce the monthly FAQ posting to bi-weekly if the unsubscribe-to-(signal+noise) ratio increases significantly.
Or a single-line howto unsubscribe message biweekly. Or something. Meh.

de Gord
[in a bad, bad, depressive mood due to huge IMAP restore issues out of my control]

--
Sudo is prior art. 
Fools or thieves? You decide.