On Sat, 2 Sep 1995 13:28:00 -0400, Mike Holloway wrote:
>Now AOL has thrown up a new obstacle to their customers making
>use of mail lists, and made it much more difficult for me to insist that the
>AOLers use digest.
>
>The AOL management may think its saving money by discouraging use of mailing
>lists, but they're simply shooting themselves savagely in the foot.
 
It might be appropriate to address your question/concern directly to a
responsible member of AOL management, [log in to unmask] (David B.
O'Donnell)--LSTOWN-L subscriber.  In my experience, AOL management is one
of the better net citizens (thank goodness!).  They address problems caused
by inept or inapproriate behavior of their users quickly and answer email
enquiries promptly.  If every postmaster was as conscientious, list
administration would be a breeze.
 
Exactly what is the problem with digests arriving as mail attachments (text
files presumably)?  It simply means the digests have to be read with a word
processor or text reader (there are about a zillion shareware
undigester/readers for the Mac and I *assume* for the PeeCee also).  Having
the inexperienced read email with something other than mail software may be
a blessing as the reply key ALWAYS points back to the list (no "reply from"
option) and the subject line is invariably some form of "LSTOWN-L Digest -
1 Sep 1995 to 2 Sep 1995" (lotta help that!).  If digests are read by
another program, then readers have to actually *think* (what a concept :-)
about how whether to send the reply to the list or the person posting a
message, what subject to use, and whether to bother pasting a quote.
 
On top of that; on most lists a large majority of subscribers are 100%
lurkers.  A digest reader would appear to be to their advantage.
 
What about teaching AOLers (and many others) how to use INDEX (talk about
efficient use of bandwidth!! ;-)
 
/s Murphy A. Sewall <[log in to unmask]> (203) 486-2489 voice
   Professor of Marketing                          (203) 456-7725 fax
   http://mktg.sba.uconn.edu/MKT/Faculty/Sewall.html