"stop sending me messages" complaints

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David Alex Lamb (dalamb@qucis.queensu.ca)
Tue, 10 Feb 1998 10:41:59 -0500 (EST)

I think I've figured out why some of us are getting people demanding that we
stop filling their mailboxes with our FAQs. The people with whom I've been
corresponding are enormously confused, so I'm not entirely sure, but it is at
least plausible.

Netscape Communicator 4.0 integrated the "collabra" discussion group (news
reader) with their "messenger" mailbox handler, so that you get a long list of
mailboxes to read including your "inbox" and all the newsgroups you subscribe
to. Also, if you click on a link that happens to refer to a news: URL, that
gets added to your list of newsgroups. Thus newbies can easily be fooled into
thinking our FAQs are reaching them as mail messages, and get upset that we're
repeatedly dumping large irrelevant messages into "their mailboxes".

I don't know what to *do* about this particular theory, but it may at least
explain some of the complaints I've heard a few people mention on this mailing
list.