| From: | Avenger <Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | OT: Mindless Mail Problems - reply |
| Date: | Tue, 1 Apr 1997 05:10:26 +0100 |
miavx1.acs.muohio.edu (miavx1.acs.muohio.edu [134.53.7.10]) by
athos.itribe.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA29913 for
<SHADOWRN@********.itribe.net>; Mon, 31 Mar 1997 20:24:43 -
0500TEGTMEBC@******.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU writes
> Paul (Hope you don't mind me using your first name but Mr. seemed too
>formal), have you tried to use a filter to get rid of anything that has OT in
>the subject? That might get rid of some of the excess drivle (sp?). Most people
>are pretty good about putting the OT in the title when it calls for it. As for
>the people like me who can't change the subject when resonding to mail, just
>filter us out if you want. That way, you can still get all the stuff you joined
>for, and won't have ungodly amounts of mail piling up. I don't know if
>you already tried this or not, but it's worth a shot. Better than losing out on
>the important stuff. Just a thought.
Well, in Pauls defence, the software he's using is _very_ good at
filtering mail, from people, subject lines, content, all sorts of
things, however, it relies on a certain amount of consistency. Also,
where the software uses SMTP for delivery, so that it can be sorted into
multiple mail boxes without secondary interference from third party
software, he still has to download all the mail in order for the
software to filter it. There are advantages and disadvantages to SMTP
over POP3. He gets charged for the use of his telephone line to
download 300 messages, so that his mailer can trash 200 of them. Where
Paul, like me, uses several email names, and sorts his mail into their
own mail areas, POP3 is not an option, so deleting from the server
before delivery would not be viable, also, he still gets charged for the
use of his phone line, for that on-line time. (Yes, we in Britain have
to pay for local calls)
A suggestion was made earlier this year by one of the most guilty people
for OT threads, to place OT in _all_ mails which weren't directly
related to Shadowrun. This started, and as Gurth predicted, failed to
continue. Pauls main problem is one that has cropped up before. When
you get a group of self deluded "comedians" who decide that everything
they do and say must be of humourous content, and invariably, if they
don't have anything constructive to say about a topic will post
something off topic and pointless rather than not commenting at all.
This isn't the only list it happens to, but it does get very tiring
after a while, and is part of the reason I unsubscribed twice last year.
As regards a kill file for a particular poster, again, if this was a
newsgroup, no problem, but for a mailing list, this sort of filter
doesn't work for us, again a problem associated with SMTP as opposed to
POP3, where the kill file lives on the server, and prevents download of
that persons material. In both Pauls, and my case, our mailers shovel
Shadowrn mail into a shadowrun mailbox, using POP3, it shoves it all
into our personal mail boxes, mixing it happily with private mail.
Also, there is a good chance that at some point that person may have a
valid point to make about something, and it gets missed.
Lately, as in the last month or so the off topic posts relative to
Shadowrun related posts has grown massively, almost to the point of a
50% share, a lot of posts are getting fully quoted over a couple of
pages, with an aimless "I agree" or "he he yeah, funny" attached to
the
end, all of which ultimately wastes bandwidth, server space, and for
some of us, money. That's part of the reason you don't see many posts
from Paul or myself, we are of the opinion that if you don't have
something constructive to say, why waste time saying nothing?
Now that's not to say I'm blameless, I am guilty of OT posts myself, but
not to the extent that they inhabit this list at the moment, contrary to
the FAQ and statements from both Mark Imbriaco (list owner) and Fro (FAQ
and executioner).
Nobody minds the _occassional_ OT post, and it would be inhuman to
expect perfection, all Paul is saying, is that OT is getting out of hand
here, to the detriment of the list, and Shadowrun in particular.
</moaning>
<hunting for more coffee to eat>
--
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A Dark Shadow in a Dark World |___/
