[HCoop-Discuss] RFC: Subscribing new members to help and discussion lists by default?

[Lauren McNees]

I vote for option A, subscribing everyone automatically and letting them
unsubscribe themselves if they really want to. Thanks for bringing this to
our attention!


On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 1:16 AM, Clinton Ebadi <clinton at unknownlamer.org>wrote:

>
> Greetings,
>
> It came to my attention, after a new hcoop member's post was held for
> approval to hcoop-discuss, that we have not been adding people by
> default to these lists for ... oh, the last *six years*. Which probably
> explains their pitifully low participation rate, especially since it
> seems nowadays folks don't like clicking around our beloved portal to
> find the "Preferences" page... (hell, even I had to sit there for a
> minute to remember where you set list prefs).
>
> I vaguely recall there may have been a reason... a few folks complaining
> about list traffic? But checking the subscriber list, it looks like
> almost none of our members from the last few years have bothered
> subscribing to any of the optional lists!
>
> So, my current thinking is that we should instead subscribe everyone by
> default to -discuss and -help, leaving a note in
> https://wiki.hcoop.net/MemberManual/GettingStarted/AccountCreated about
> *un*subscribing after signing up if the member cares, rather than
> subscribing... something about the relative worth of forgiveness and
> permission.
>
> I like it for another reason -- any new member that complains about
> receiving unwanted list traffic can be easily diverted back to
> AccountCreated, whereas the new member who didn't suffer reading our
> lengthy introductory material and now suffers in silence cannot. Also
> something or other about community building or whatever the hep cats
> call it.
>
> Another, possibly friendlier option: we can also just *invite* new
> members to join the discussion and help lists, leaving them free to take
> no action and also receive no mail while still making them aware the
> lists exist. The major downside I see is that the invite is not very
> descriptive -- the subject is "confirm $hash" where hash is a very long
> hex string, and a test send to gmail ended up in their "special offers"
> folder that they are using to spam gmail users now... (on the bright
> side, it looks like they don't flag our announcements and whatnot as
> spam any more! Go SPF records!) so, I think there's a big chance it
> would be ignored. Forced subscription also sends out a notification, so
> ...
>
> Thoughts? I think it is a big enough change that I hope at least someone
> has thoughts that disagree with mine (given that I sort-of disagree with
> even myself, already)! Or agrees, whatever. Just as long as I am not
> making decisions like this in an echo-chamber (I hear we're
> democratically organized).
>
> If I see no serious opposition I am leaning toward going forward with
> subscribing new members whenever we have our next member sign up, and
> also sending a message to -announce reminding everyone to check their
> list subscriptions because they could be missing out.
>
> --
> "Karen loved animals. Unfortunately the cheetahs betrayed her trust,"
> Libot said.
>
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>
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