Subject: Re: irrelevant posts & consider this...

From: "Colin J. Raven" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 19:23:30 -0000

OK that solves one matter alone Mike....it deluges *that* individual with
mail which says that they've posted to the wrong list. Agreed without
reservation. Yessir...that tells 'em...noooooo question about it!
However, the larger issue is not what you do to Joe Schmo, the one poor
schlemiel who gets 99,000 emails (98,999 of 'em from Robin!) telling him
he's in the wrong place, but what you do to *avoid* getting irrelevent posts
to begin with.
IMHO *that* is the issue, and where we're heading by trying to figure out if
there should be two lists, one for newcomers (er inexperienced NEWcomers)
and one for the folks who realize fully what the heck the list is for, and
who post on (or close to) topic.
A Regarding moderating the list...well for starters, a few boilerplate email
text files would certainly reduce the workload considerably. Time to
accomplish this? I dunno...anyone have any estimates on this??
Oh well...back to the iron foundry
-Colin

>Hello all,
>
>Here's a thought.  How about just sending a message that reflects the
>following sentiment.
>
>"Wrong type of question for this forum."
>
>When the individual gets so 'MANY' responses back from the entire (lots
>anyway) pine group they will have figured out that 'hey, maybe this is
>the wrong group to ask'.  This might be preferred instead of other
>options (no names) that have been used in the past to try to turn people
>away.  All that does is - well - nothing.
>
>OK it might be frustrating at first but you are reading your mail
>anyway, aren't you???  Like this one for example...
>
>...and as mentioned before, who has the time or really wants to moderate
>a list for a large group like this?
>
>Mike...........
>