On Tue, 27 May 2003 12:14:35 -0700 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > sure he can complain to his isp, but... > > i am amazed that, in this day and age, software developers will not > listen to usability complaints for what they are (referring to the > several replies to this note already posted on this list). > > it would suggest, or you could infer, that the default installation > parameters, which involve making suspected spam into attachments to > marginally readable reports about the reasoning of a program may be an > unpopular choice or wrongheaded. > > sometimes "improvements" with little user testing are not so. > > i would prefer more compatibility between dot versions, with optional > behavior controlled by flags which are *not* the default. > > treat user feedback as valuable information, please.
I don't see this as a usability issue or anything resembling useful user feedback. It's an angry man venting, apparently one who can't/won't read every instruction provided him. To give him some credit, I read the SA report attached to the email. This is the text inserted into messages tagged as spam (I'm running 2.55): "This mail is probably spam. The original message has been attached along with this report, so you can recognize or block similar unwanted mail in future. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details." This message hasn't changed substantially in over a year (see below for a trip through my archives of spam.) If you read http://spamassassin.org/tag/, you'll see no mention of the mailing list but plenty of statements that boil down to "Please contact your ISP if you are directed to this page." That's what it says now; The Wayback Machine (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://spamassassin.org/tag/) has two other versions (Feb 12, 2002 and June 5, 2002) that are substantially identical - mostly missing the big note to read the page fully and then contact your ISP. Even going to http://spamassassin.org, there's no blinking neon arrow to the SAtalk list, certainly not one that says "Vent your frustrations here!" If naive users/victims are being directed to this list, I'd like to see how. You have to work very hard to get to this mailing list and you have to ignore an awful lot of pointers to the solution to the problem. So while I sympathize with naive users, I can't shed too many tears for those that complain at the mailing list as their first course of action. Or, less compassionately, ... <sarcasm type="extreme"> Dear SpamAssassinator, I really didn't appreciate your response to Angry Semi-Coherent Non-Subscriber #473 (aka my Aunt Martha) this week. You're a pasty-skinned technogeek with bad eyesight and a brain the size of a family-sized watermelon - how can you possibly see through the eyes of poor Aunt Martha, who's still scared of the microwave oven and who, by all generous accounts, has a brain the size of a brazil nut, bless her technophobic heart? How can you be so rude to her and discount her perfectly valid if not precisely comprehensible criticism of your software? Somehow she's managed to find the SAtalk mailing list and accuse some amorphous 'you' of control-freakery and some ill-defined conspiracy to bugger her email. Or something. You really owe her a polite, literate, hand-holding response, despite her inability to read or comprehend any direction provided to her in her buggered email, on the website, everywhere. -- Miffed in Mequon Dear Miffed, You're right, we should at least be polite and literate and assume the best of her. Perhaps some freak lighning storm off the Azores caused Akamai to accidentally redirect her to the SAtalk mailing list, or maybe the phrase "please talk to your system administrator or ISP support desk" actually translates to "please vent your spleen at the SAtalk mailing list" in her native Boetian. However she found the list, she's here now. We have no excuse for being rude. Of course, neither does she. And as I recall, Aunt Martha is from Oconomowoc, not Boetia, so despite her thick Wisconsin accent, she should've been able to parse and internalize the eight or so references to "your ISP is responsible for using SpamAssassin, contact them first" on http://spamassassin.org/tag/. I hear Wisconsin's schools are pretty decent, and I believe they speak English. They my even read and write it. But as far as understanding Aunt Martha goes, I think two salient points emerge - first, she's not willing to read (she can write so I presume she can read) and follow directions, and second, she'd much rather complain than try to get her problem solved, whatever it is. The SpamAssassinator does what he can, but between ninja practice, meditation, and the occasional beheading, he has limited time to help people who won't first try to help themselves, especially when the solution to their problems is in floodlit letters, fifty feet tall. -- The SpamAssassinator PS: The Boetian translation is coming "soon". </sarcasm> -- Bob Apthorpe 2.11: SPAM: -------------------- Start SpamAssassin results ---------------------- SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future. SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. 2.20: SPAM: -------------------- Start SpamAssassin results ---------------------- SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future. SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. 2.30: SPAM: -------------------- Start SpamAssassin results ---------------------- SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future. SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. 2.31: SPAM: -------------------- Start SpamAssassin results ---------------------- SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future. SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. 2.41: SPAM: -------------------- Start SpamAssassin results ---------------------- SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future. SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. 2.43: SPAM: -------------------- Start SpamAssassin results ---------------------- SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future. SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. 2.44 SPAM: -------------------- Start SpamAssassin results ---------------------- SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future. SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. 2.50: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been attached along with this report, so you can recognize or block similar unwanted mail in future. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. 2.51: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been attached along with this report, so you can recognize or block similar unwanted mail in future. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. 2.53: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been attached along with this report, so you can recognize or block similar unwanted mail in future. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. 2.54: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been attached along with this report, so you can recognize or block similar unwanted mail in future. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: ObjectStore. 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