On 30 Nov 2001 Ben Parker wrote:

> As has been said here a number of times, if you don't find the message text in
> the *.MAILTPL file(s) or other templates (*.WWWTPL) then it is hard coded in
> LISTSERV and cannot be modified.  The above text is hard coded and not
> changeable.

Thanks Ben, and sorry if I missed the earlier comments on methods for figuring out what is
changeable.  Sometimes things are in places we don't expect so that's why I was asking.

What is or was the logic behind making most but not all of these messages available in the
template files?  From a list owner point of view there is zero difference between the "you can
subscribe anonymously" message and any of the others that we can edit.  Is there some internal
technical reason for this?  Or is it just that someone guessed at which ones list owners would care
about, and got it (from my POV) wrong?

If the latter, it reminds me of a lesson that those of us in the shareware developer community
learned back in about 1987, which is that you can't predict what people will do with your product,
so leaving what the developer thinks are "non-essential" features out of a trial version to induce
people to pay doesn't work.  (The people who don't need the features aren't induced to pay by
their absence, and those who do are induced to throw the whole thing out because they can't try
out the features they need.)  This is particularly true of a quality, flexible produc t-- people will and
should use it and want to change it in ways the developers don't imagine.  I know the motivation
here has nothing to do with inducing payment, but the point stands -- there's no good way for
LSoft to predict which text people will care about changing, translating, etc., and which they won't.
So, within reasonable limits, if you are going to make some of the messages that list subscribers
receive changeable but you don't do it for all of them, a bunch of people are going to be unhappy.

-----
Tom Rawson           [log in to unmask]