[Mailman-Users] AOL redacts user addresses even with VERP and full personalization enabled

[Mike Starr]

This has been a fascinating discussion that I've been enjoying very much.

However, one thing we need to remember is that we, as list administrators, usually (but not always) have far greater insight than the average user into the realities of what spam is and what spam isn't. Most of us understand the technical definitions of what spam is. But there's a massive amount of users who don't have a clue. They may believe that the email that expresses an opinion (conforming to the TOS of the mailing list to which they're subscribed) that they vehemently disagree with *is* spam. They also may have never even scanned the bottom of each email they receive from their mailing list and noticed the (usually) clear instructions for unsubscribing from the list. How often have we all seen an email posted to one of our lists that says "Unsubscribe me from this list" or perhaps "stop sending me this crap"?

Many of the mailman cognoscenti are highly skilled technical folks with little respect (and often little tolerance) for clueless users. Sometimes you just have to choke back the bile and lovingly correct those who have less understanding. Perhaps the unsubscribe message should also contain something like "The email messages you've received as a subscriber to this mailing list are *not spam*. Messages from new users are all approved by the list moderator until that moderator is convinced that the subscriber is not a spammer.  If you reported a message from this list as spam to your email provider we'll unsubscribe you as soon as we find out about it. If you reported a message as spam accidentally and don't want to be unsubscribed from this mailing list, click *here*."

Best regards,

Mike
-- 
Mike Starr                             WriteStarr Information Services
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