Agreed. I subscribed to the list, but then unsubscribed in a week because of
the constant barrage of mail flooding into my wikipedia mailing list label
-- over 300 messages in 2 days!
On 11/12/05, Timwi <timwi(a)gmx.net> wrote:
[about helpdesk-l]
The moderation queue is being cleaned out, so
there are a *lot* of new
messages to answer. You can subscribe to the list at:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/helpdesk-l
A mailing list is chronically unsuitable for the task that helpdesk-l is
trying to solve. In order to answer someone's question everyone has to
remember to send the reply back to the user and not just to the list.
Potential follow-ups from that user then go to the answerer and not to
the mailing list. There is no real way to get a glimpse of what queries
are as yet unanswered. Since anyone can subscribe to the list and reply
to questions, and replies cannot be edited by other users, the requestor
has no way of knowing how authoritative or accurate the answer is. A
lesser problem is the potential of the user receiving several (possibly
contradicting) replies from different users.
An issue-tracking system would be vastly more appropriate. Perhaps best
would be a system like LiveJournal Support, or perhaps exactly that
system. The system knows what requests are answered and unanswered (open
and closed), the question and the answer(s) can be seen on one page, the
user's follow-up reply is on the same page, etc.etc.
Just a thought. If people in general are happy with the mailing list,
then of course I won't intervene and let you use it. But I won't help
answer questions there.
Timwi
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~Ilya N.