> Depending on the cause of the errors you mmention, your approach appears
> to be quite naive.  Do you not take into consideration the possibility that
> network or name-service problems may only be temporary?  Do you axe
> subscribers, only to find that their net connection is alive and kicking a
> week later, prompting them to send you messages asking to be resubscribed or
> reassured that their deletion was a mistake?
 
Michael, Brian, et. al.
 
This is a discussion I was having privately with Nathan.
 
My approach is to LOUDLY ;-) delete members after receiving error messages
instead of quiet DELing them or setting NoMAIL. Here are my points:
 
  1. I wait at least a day before deleting them to be sure there is a true
     problem. Even with 1500+ subscribers, it is not that big a deal to
     have a few extra error reports accumulate.
 
  2. If the person does somehow regain access before I delete them, then
     the (loud) DEL usually wakes them up and I get a message that says
     "Uh... Why did you delete me?". I then send them a humurous, but
     informational message explaining the situation and readd them.
     This message is likely similar to the stock message we all have
     for this situation.
 
     If I do a set NOMAIL, however, the user will simply see there mail
     cease to appear or a more curious message about not receiving any
     messages. In any event, the user will still likely contact the
     listowner asking what has happened.
 
  3. If the subscriber does not get the message, they will still
     likely respond to the listowner directly or resubscribe manually.
     If they do the later, there is a chance for duplicate addresses
     to be in the database if there address has changed cosmetically
     if they were set to NOMAIL instead of simply DELed.
 
  4. Lastly, the main reason why I use DEL over NOMAIL is because it
     keeps the database clean. How do you all control all of the
     NOMAIL users that start to accumulate in the database without
     forcing an ugly confirmation ordeal?
 
Oh well, my two cents! The real reason, of course, is because I never
knew of the NOMAIL option when I started 5 years ago and just happily DELed
everyone... ;-)
 
Geoff
 
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Geoffrey Peters                                            [log in to unmask]
Computer Science Grad Student, Purdue University
Owner of eidos software, PageMaker Listserv Co-listowner
WWW Home Page: <URL:http://www.cs.purdue.edu/people/gwp>
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