[Mailman-Users] This is unixstuff warning

[Chuq Von Rospach]

On Wednesday, June 13, 2001, at 11:38 AM, Phil Stracchino wrote:

> They don't want you to teach them how to fish ...
> learning is hard, and they might hurt themselves on the hook.

many times, this really means we need improved fish hooks.

Frankly -- while list server software has made big improvements, much of 
the time, we forget that what's obvious to us as techies isn't to the 
people we're calling idiots. And is that their fault? Or ours, for 
building software that isn't easy to use by people who aren't techies?

As I noted earlier today when people were ripping the guy saying "just 
delete *@foo.bar" -- mailman doesn't give an admin any way to find what 
address a message is sent to, other than waiting for the monthly mailing 
(unless the mailman system has turned off monthly mailings; and when 
Barry rolls in the ability for a user to turn that off individually, 
THEN what?).

Is that the admins fault? No. He's working from the info we're giving 
him.

Is it the idiot's fault if they can't figure out how this stuff works? 
sometimes. But to assume it's always their fault -- go have your mother 
sign up for a bunch of mail lists and see how easy she finds it.


--
Chuq Von Rospach, Internet Gnome <http://www.chuqui.com>
[<chuqui at plaidworks.com> = <me at chuqui.com> = <chuq at apple.com>]
Yes, yes, I've finally finished my home page. Lucky you.

It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of
Karma to burn off.