Re: Dealing with random questions

Al Gilman (asgilman@access.digex.net)
Wed, 25 Jan 1995 17:41:47 -0500 (EST)

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From: Nancy McGough <nancym@ii.com>
Subject: Dealing with random questions
Message-Id: <Pine.ULT.3.91.950125094553.11282D-100000@chinook.halcyon.com>

Another problem, related to the question of FAQ requests, is how to
best deal with random questions that people send you because they think
that you are the helpdesk for the Internet. I'm thinking about starting
to post under a different email address, maybe info@ii.com, and then,
when people respond, have an autoreply message that says:
* how to get my FAQs via the Web, ftp, and mail
* general questions should be posted to appropriate newsgroups or
mailing lists
* faq suggestions and comments should be sent to faqs@ii.com
* my personal email address if they still want to talk to me

What do people think of this idea? What do you think are good email
addresses to use? I'm thinking about this:

From header When posting
=========== ============
info@ii.com anything other than an FAQ

info@any_domain_name should always be supported by an
auto-responder with an overview and pointers-to-more-information
for all services offered for free and for hire from that domain.
Send mail to info@access.digex.net for a reasonable example.
[I _don't_ work here. This just happens to be _one thing_
they did right.]

If you want to cite info@your_native_domain as the return address
for a FAQ, you should coordinate with
postmaster@your_native_domain that there will always [=up to one
year after you cease maintaining this FAQ] be an automatic
response provided from this address and that it will include a
_reasonably_ convenient way to learn how to retrieve the FAQ and
any supporting information associated with the FAQ.

Mail received at info@... should also be passed through for
manual review, but with the clear understanding that mail for
which the automatic response is generally sufficient will not be
manually answered. This convention should be propagandized until
demand pressure raises it to ubiquitous. This is a matter for
the postmaster community, not the faq-maintainers. How do I
get this message to postmasters at large?

[info@... should be _owned_ by postmaster@... etc.]

faqs@ii.com FAQs

I'm not sure that I like info@ii.com but right now I can't think of
anything better...

Thanks for any suggestions for dealing with this,
Nancy

If you don't want random netrangers importuning you for
information, _don't_ put your personal email in anything widely
distributed. Signing a FAQ announces to the world that you KNOW.
The world is full of spongers. If you are not going to be
willing to turn a deaf ear to people that Know your Address,
don't give it to them. You can be responsive to more worthy
requests than you can handle by lurking behind the right logicals
and stepping into point-to-point communication as you choose.

IM_not_so_HO

Al Gilman
asgilman@access.digex.net

Next message: Lani Teshima-Miller: "Re: Dealing with random questions"
Previous message: Nancy McGough: "Re: Dealing with random questions"
In reply to: Nancy McGough: "Dealing with random questions"
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