Kent West said:
> issues, ranging from Debian issues to Windows to Maytag washer repair
> issues, and have come upon the "To submit your question, you must
> register first."
But we're not talking registration. We're talking subscription.
Registration to me means filling out a form with your name, your
address, your birthday, your email address, you phone number(s),
unchecking the politely worded options to spam your email address and so
on. Subscription is "here's my email address so I can receive the
replies to my inquery".
Remember, in spite of Anand's poor example of rules breaking the default
preferred behavior as expressed on lists.debian.org's FAQ of Debian-User
is to not CC the poster. So if they don't subscribe and are unaware of
that rule they might wait a very long time for a response.
Yes, of course, they can check the archives or the newsgroups which are
gatewayed but by and large the "send in email, get response in email"
method will not work without subscription.
If they were demanding registration as above like many commercial
entities do I would be right there with you. Trust me, I detest it as
well. But that's not the case when it comes to mailing lists.
What they should be doing is instead of leatting the lists privates flap
in the breeze look at enacting this simple, common-sense and often
called for control and then look to resolve the problems that people
come up with.
For example I said that subscription is a simple click on a web form.
Since I hadn't done it in years I really didn't know and decided to
review the process. I was wrong. From www.debian.org there is a link
to "mailing lists" under support. So far, so good. But that link takes
the user to a page which describes the mailing lists. It has embedded
links which don't really stand out. But it does say "to subscribe" with
subscribe being a link. So I click on that and am directed to
lists.debian.org's main page. Not the subscription page. The main
page. On the main page is a subscription link. Click it and you get a
page describing the process and somewhere in that mess is another
embedded link to the web form to subscribe to mailing lists. Click that
and you have a HUUUGE list of all the Debian mailing lists with
checkboxes and a subscribe button presumably somewhere on the page (I
honestly didn't ask).
So for a web subscription from the main page takes 4 clicks just to get
to the web form then a daunting task of finding the help list (ain't on
top) check it and the button. After that presumably there is more
steps.
We have the list mantainers saying that the list subscribers have to put
up with the junk that gets through because signing up is too hard. Yet
have any of them really thought about making subscribing any easier than
the above? Somehow I doubt it given the holier-than-thou attitude the
list maintainers project any time they feel we're worthy to read them
pontificate on their trials and tribulations.
--
Steve Lamb
--
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