Well, "unintentional trolling" is an oxymoron.
Harry, I'm cc'ing this mail directly to you. You are creating a huge amount of
useless traffic, causing harm to people who have no power to handle your unsubscription
request. If you actually want help, ask for it, and be responsive to what people write,
instead of just "yelling" STOP. A full description of how to unsubscribe has
already been given you today, and you apparently did not read it. You would have received
one or two unsubscription confirmation mails, and if you had read them and followed
instructions, you'd have been unsubscribed, almost certainly.
The rest of this mail is to the list, in response to Joe Cornell's mail.
It is possible that Harry's actions are designed to cause enough upset that *somebody*
will do something, but the obvious goal is to resolve the unsubscription problem. If there
were an active list moderator, this would not be happening. An international list should
have enough moderators with enough commitment that anything gets handled within 24 hours.
Faster is better. These breakdowns irritate people and some then unsubscribe for that
reason.
I have deleted some of my mail from the list, but of what is still on my yahoomail system,
I saw an all-caps unsubscription message from Harry back in July. Last Monday, six days
ago, he wrote:
I HAVE UNSUBSCRIBED A MILLION TIMES! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, PLEASE STOP
EMAILING ME! STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP
STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Being in full-out hysteria mode, he's not able to accurately describe his experience,
such that people could actually help him.
He also, my guess, sees any mail from the listserv as an offense. That probably includes
the unsubscription confirmation mails that have been sent to him. There would have been
two of them today, at least. (Since anyone can initiate that process, at least two of us
have done it.)
I'd guess that he's not reading any of this list mail describing his problem and
giving advice how to unsubscribe, nor is he reading and following instructions in the
unsubscription confirmation mail.
He doesn't seem to understand that he is dealing with a robot, that can only follow
its programming. So he sends an unsubscription command by email, or uses the unsubscribe
button on-line, but isn't careful to read the instructions, and doesn't respond as
directed to the unsubscription confirmation mail.
He has not actually unsubscribed once, it's highly likely. Certainly not a million
times....
Being focused only on his own survival needs -- that's what the amygdala is for -- he
hasn't considered that list servers must confirm, in some way, that an unsubscription
command actually comes from the subscribed mail. It does this in two ways: either the
command is entered while logged-in with the password, or a mail is sent to the involved
mailing address, containing a confirmation code. There are then two ways to complete the
unsubscription, and simply replying to the mail with the subject header unchanged and no
response text will do it. It's simple, but it must be done in a way that the listserv
robot can recognize. Yelling is like yelling at a tree, or, more to the point, your
computer or someone else's computer. Some day we will have computers that respond to
yelling. Not yet, or, at least, not this listserv.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax (413) 584-3151 business (413) 695-7114 cell
I'm so excited I can't wait for Now.
________________________________
From: Joe Corneli <holtzermann17(a)gmail.com>
To: Abd ulRahman Lomax <abdlomax(a)yahoo.com>om>; Mailing list for Wikiversity
<wikiversity-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2012 4:54 PM
Subject: amygdala hijack
[...]
I think it's reasonable to consider Harry to be "trolling" at this
point (even if not intentionally).