FW: confirm unsubscribe from cygwin@cygwin.com

FW: confirm unsubscribe from cygwin@cygwin.com

[Dave Korn]

    Afternoon all!

> To confirm that you would like
> 
>    dave.korn@artimi...
> 
> removed from the cygwin mailing list, please send an empty reply
> to this address:
> 
>    cygwin-uc.1155911681. [...snip...]


  I just went through several rounds of off-list email exchanges with a guy
who was having trouble unsubscribing from the list.  It seemed like he was
doing everything right, but what it turned out in the end was that he was
receiving all these mails that said "confirm unsubscribe from ..." and reading
that as meaning that the mail confirmed he was unsubscribed, so he wasn't
replying to them.  His English wasn't very good and that phrase isn't
immediately obvious that it's an verb rather than a noun, to a non-native
speaker who isn't aware of the subtle differences between 'confirm' and 'a
confirmation'.

  Could we perhaps tweak the subject lines so that it says "Please reply to
confirm unsubscribe from <listname>@<domain>" instead?  It would more clearly
indicate to non-english speakers that further action is still required on
their part.

    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....

Re: FW: confirm unsubscribe from cygwin@cygwin.com

[Christopher Faylor]

On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 06:04:52PM +0100, Dave Korn wrote:
>    Afternoon all!
>
>> To confirm that you would like
>> 
>>    dave.korn@artimi...
>> 
>> removed from the cygwin mailing list, please send an empty reply
>> to this address:
>> 
>>    cygwin-uc.1155911681. [...snip...]
>
>
>I just went through several rounds of off-list email exchanges with a
>guy who was having trouble unsubscribing from the list.  It seemed like
>he was doing everything right, but what it turned out in the end was
>that he was receiving all these mails that said "confirm unsubscribe
>from ..." and reading that as meaning that the mail confirmed he was
>unsubscribed, so he wasn't replying to them.  His English wasn't very
>good and that phrase isn't immediately obvious that it's an verb rather
>than a noun, to a non-native speaker who isn't aware of the subtle
>differences between 'confirm' and 'a confirmation'.
>
>Could we perhaps tweak the subject lines so that it says "Please reply
>to confirm unsubscribe from <listname>@<domain>" instead?  It would
>more clearly indicate to non-english speakers that further action is
>still required on their part.

No, I don't think so.  The language in the response is pretty clear:

  To confirm that you would like

  !A

  removed from the <#l#> mailing list, please send an empty reply 
  to this address:

  !R

This is the same language that we've been using for ten years so I don't
rebuild ezmlm just because one person thought they didn't have to read
the contents of the messages they were receiving.

cgf