The unsubsribe does not work. This is first of all obvious from the number of complaints to the list. It is beside the point that the process sometimes or even usually works. Counting the number of people it works for is pointless. Instead count the number who have complained.
The first unsubsribe email works, at least to the point where one receives the auto confirm. That there even is a confirm is madness. It is also quite possibly illegal as removing oneself from auto mailers has been regulated. From the moment a user wishes to absent themselves from this list and going forward you are spam. Of course, like all spam the response is "well you signed up". That doesn't change the fact that you're spamming. The auto generated response contains the instruction to reply. When one does (and the process fails) the result is a parse error at the server resulting in a auto generated help response. My mailer flags the email address on the help page as invalid. I will not defend my mailer, but simply point out it is vastly deployed. It is too much to hope for, I know, that after so many months of complaints anyone will take the issue seriously. However it is an issue and further more it seems to be unique to this list. I monitor several other lists with similar infrastructure and there is never a complaint. If someone is willing to do more than shrug I have the following suggestions, in order of likelihood of success. 1 lose the two part process notification is enough it's free to sign up. 2. revamp the confirm message and inductions. 3. provide a backup html solution.
