INSTRUCTIONS, even when clearly written, seem to be impossible to follow, for some people.
After our last issue of CoN, many users wrote back complaining about the size. In fact, CoN Issue 7 was probably one of the biggest issues ever, passing the 60K mark, rather than following the usual 25K average.
Anyway, writing back and complaining is not a problem. User feedback is always welcomed here and it is a way to determine where we went wrong and prevent from repeating the same error twice. In fact, this time we learned that CoN should maintain it's ?short and nasty.. err.. sweet? attitude.
Some of the e-mails we had received complimented us, others where not so polite, and a few more wanted off the list.
Now, unsubscribing from CoN should be easier than slicing a loaf of sliced bread (1). Now, we'll gladly help a user out if he or she is having trouble removing themselves from the list, however, on a normal situation we cannot sit there and manually remove everyone who writes us so. This is why we provided an automated subscribing/unsubscribing service.
The instructions on how to unsubscribe are at the end of this issue. In fact, they are at the end of every issue. And since the majority of people can't spell the word ?unsubscribe?, we've changed the e-mail address that handles this to ?leave?.
Of course we never expected people to read the entire zine and discover the helpful, clearly written instructions on how to remove themselves from this distribution list. Therefore when a user first subscribes, he receives a welcoming message that informs them, of all things, how to unsubscribe. And for those particularly lazy, replying to the welcome message will get them removed from the list as well. What more could you ask?
Well, apparently this is not enough. Several e-mails of extremely rude, and particularly ignorant former readers arrived, first cussing the fact that CoN was suddenly too long, and that they wanted off this list immediately since they didn't recall subscribing in the first place(??!).
I'm not surprised of this too much. In both my jobs, I have to deal with plenty of individuals, may they be people I work with or for, or just plain customers, that don't reason. They may be standing right in front of the milk section, and they will still ask where the milk is. The shopping carts are of the type where you insert a quarter to free them, and even though instructions (on each cart I may add) graphically explain the correct procedure to insert the quarter, people still sit there struggling, while complaining that freeing the buggies is too hard. I can only raise my eyes, and shake my head...
THE LAST DINOSAUR ? okay, it was too long. Some people told me they didn't read it in fear it might've sucked at the end. So, my question to the readership is... how many people have actually read the whole thing? I'm curious to find out.
ALT.SPAM ? Spam will significantly decrease in your mailboxes. After the last ISP has cancelled it's contract with CyberPromotions, one of the biggest spamming sites on the net, its president Samford Wallace(aka Spamford) has finally abdicated. Mr. Wallace apologized for what he has done, after realizing the damage he had been doing to the virtual community of the ?net. But even as this giant has been stopped and new bills are being decided to put an end to illegal soliciting, spam will not just go away. For further info on these stories, visit the following links:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980413S0020
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980416S0009
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/human_interest/oddly_enough/story.html?s=z/reuters/980416/odd/stories/spam_1.html
This marks the end of this week's editorial. Special thanks to all of those that have helped, without who, this issue would never have seen the light. And thanks to those that just didn't unsubscribe because one story was a wee bit too long. Have a great one.
--(1) Sliced bread is obviously already sliced. What we are trying to say is that unsubscribing from CoN is an easy thing to do, not the next best thing to sliced bread. Let's get our facts straight here, eh!
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