[Mailman-Users] Sub. Invitation digest option

[Fred H Olson]

On Fri, 07 Feb 2014 Mark Sapiro wrote

>What Mailman version is this? Could it be Mailman 2.0.x? My confirmation
>page looks like <http://www.msapiro.net/Confirmation_page.png>, and I
>think it has looked more or less like that since the beginning of 2.1.

I wrote to my isp where the Mailman I use runs and got the explanation
below:

>We're using the current 2.1 series, so that's not the cause of what
>you're seeing.
>
>Rather, this is our fault: we've always had a custom "patch" to Mailman
>that suppressed the digest option on the confirmation page, because in
>the very early years of our service, customers told us it was "too
>confusing".


Their full reply is below including discussion of tradeoffs.
I continue to be more pleased with their support than I have been with
any other service I can think of.

Sorry for the confusion.

Fred

--
Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
     Email:        fholson at cohousing.org      612-588-9532
My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org         My org:
Communications for Justice -- Free, superior listserv's w/o ads

Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 13:26:52
From: Tiger Technologies <support at tigertech.net>

Fred H Olson <fholson at cohousing.org> wrote:

>I have not been able to find the current Mailman version number
>installed at Tigertech.

Thank you for writing! We're sorry to hear you're having trouble.

We're using the current 2.1 series, so that's not the cause of what
you're seeing.

Rather, this is our fault: we've always had a custom "patch" to Mailman
that suppressed the digest option on the confirmation page, because in
the very early years of our service, customers told us it was "too
confusing".

Specifically, customers complained that if we were going to force people
to confirm their subscriptions, we needed to make it as simple as
possible, with no options, for subscribers who "don't know what they're
doing".

So that's why it's like that. We haven't received any complaints about
the omission of that option before.

We'd be hesitant to add it back in globally, both because of the
potential complaints about "more complicated subscriptions", and because
(to be self-serving) we don't like digest mode much: when people use it,
they often complain to us about exactly the kind of thing you were
mentioning in the thread (in particular, poor quoting and incorrect
subject line in replies). In these days of easy filtering into folders
of mail programs, digest mode seems like something of an anachronism.

But all that said, I can certainly understand how someone would disagree
with this. Let us know if you feel strongly about it, and we'll see if
we can come up with some solution that allows it to work for specific
lists.

And of course, we also apologize for the frustration this caused you. We
can see that it would be very puzzling....

--
Robert Mathews, Tiger Technologies

Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 14:06:22
From: Tiger Technologies <support at tigertech.net>
To: Fred H Olson <fholson at cohousing.org>

Fred H Olson <fholson at cohousing.org> wrote:

>As usual, thanks for your informative response.

You're welcome -- glad we could explain it, at least.


>For now just knowing how it is set up is enough.  I'll think on it.

Okay -- do let us know. As I said, I can see how someone would think
that it's annoying to take away this feature, and I don't want it to
sound like we'd think you're wrong to ask.


>Can I post your reply or excerpts to the mailman-users list?

Sure thing. I suspect people will say "it's wrong for them to remove
useful Mailman features", and I can see their point. In our defense, all
I could really say is that our average customer is considerably less
tech savvy than your subscribers or the people on the Mailman list, and
people really did say things like "I run a list for retired people, and
when they see the question about digest mode they just stop because they
don't know what to do, so I can't get them to verify the subscription".
Ah well.

Don't hesitate to let us know if there is anything else we can do. Thank
you again!

--
Robert Mathews, Tiger Technologies