[Mailman-Users] This is unixstuff warning

[Chuq Von Rospach]

On Wednesday, June 13, 2001, at 12:08 PM, Phil Stracchino wrote:

> What gets me frustrated is the
> people who actively *don't want* to understand, because no matter how
> simple it is, they want it done for them

why is the internet supposed to be immune from real life? you've never 
seen people who are too busy/important to stand in line at a store? who 
are annoying/obnoxious/abusive to a clerk? Name your favorite poison -- 
jerks exist in real life, and the internet gets its share.

It's a small percentage of users. It's unfair to paint all users with 
that broad brush (but we do). We also shouldn't 'let the turkeys get us 
down' (but we do). But it's always important to try to separate the "we 
don't know" from the "we don't give a shit what you think", and treat 
them separately (but do we?)

> Simple lack of understanding is, well, understandable, and more or less
> excusable depending on various factors.  The combination of determined
> ignorance and wilful laziness, IMHO, is not.

So, how do you deal with each group? And perhaps more importantly, it 
seems like a good time to sit back and think about how mailman can be 
improved to better deal with both groups?

What can be done to clean up mailman's rough edges and make it easier ot 
use, especially by the end-user who's not a techie? where is the 
documentation weak? or missing? Where are the web pages unclear? What is 
non-intuitive? It's a damn good MLM -- what does it need to make it 
better?

and for the turkeys -- what kind of stuff can be written into mailman to 
minimize their ability to annoy/abuse admins and/or list members? How do 
you pull the fangs, or at least isolate them from the rest of humanity 
and/or stuff gags in their mouths? there are ways you can enable even 
THESE people, by giving them fewer and fewer excuses to rationalize away 
being jerks about it, and use technology to build a firewall between 
them and the poor schmucks they're abusing.

We're techies. Rather than complain about why non-techies aren't 
techie -- use tech to find ways to make it unneccessary for them to be...

--
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.

Shroedinger:
  We can never really be sure which side of the road the chicken is on.  
It's all a matter of chance.  Like a game of dice.

Einstein, refuting Schroedinger:
  God does not play dice with chickens.
Heisenburg:
We can determine how fast the chicken travelled, or where it ended up, 
but we cannot determine why it did so.