The sequence reveals that no moderator is both monitoring this list and willing to respond
to the request, and possibly the listserver is not working properly.
Yes, the user should be able to handle his own unsubscription and is being obtuse,
repeating a message, insistently, to people who can't do anything about the situation,
and perhaps not following instructions that come with every mail, or if he is, he is not
requesting help, describing the specific problem encountered, he is merely demanding that
someone DO SOMETHING TO FIX THIS!
A common reason would be that the user no longer has access to an account for sending
mail, but is still receiving mail to that account. If that is the case here, then Harry
isn't telling anyone what the account is. The complete headers from a list mail to him
would show what's happening. (Below, I figure out that this is not the case here.
It's commonly a case with open mailing lists, this list is, however, closed.)
STOP and all that does absolutely nothing. The instructions below do say how to
unsubscribe. One of Harry's mails seems to be a response to a mail from
wikiversity-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org and it looks like the subject was not created as
instructed for unsubscription.
If Harry tells us what he has done, and what happened, we will then know more specifically
what to do about it. I'm not personally going to file a complaint with the overall
wikimedia.org listserver administration unless I can verify a problem. And they are quite
likely, given the massive subscription lists, to ignore complaints written in all caps
that don't provide adequate information.
To find out if the listserver is operating, I entered a number of commands through the web
interface, which is *public*. I merely need enter the subscribed email address. The page
is at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l
On that page, in the "Wikiversity-l" subscribers section, after entering my
subscribed email address, I pressed the "unsubscribe or edit options" button.
I got a member options page acknowledging my email address as a subscriber, and one of the
buttons was unsubscribe. I pressed the unsubscribe button, and, after a few minutes'
delay, I received a confirmation mail. If I had responded with no changes to that mail, I
presume I'd have been unsubscribed. I'd forgotten my password, which is not needed
for unsubscription, so I then pressed the password reminder button and my password was
emailed to me. Using the password, I logged in to the member options page. There is also
an immediate unsubscription option there (since they know it's you because you logged
in with the password.)
So I did the same, using the Harry address from the mails. I then pressed an unsubscribe
bottom, which, if Harry is a subscriber, would send him a confirmation mail, with
instructions that, if followed carefully, will unsubscribe him. On the other hand, I
tested this with a ridiculous subscription address. The interface does not reveal if the
person is a subscriber or not.
If Harry does not receive a mail, he can then strongly infer that he is not, under this
email address, subscribed to the list. That, then, means that *nobody* can help him,
unless he provides the subscription mailing address.
However, it is very likely that Harry is a subscriber, because the list will reject mails
from non-subscribers. I just tested that. Harry's mails, from his gmail address, are
not being held for moderator approval. (If a moderator has set automatic approval, it
would go through, but he'd also be getting the message held for approval message.
I've seen a moderator set up automatic bounce approval when the moderation didn't
want to surrender control but also didn't have the time to actually manage the list.)
Harry, when you are in the middle of an amygdala hijack, you may not be able to respond to
instructions clearly. See if you can do whatever you know to do to relax, have some tea or
coffee, get to a place of calm, and then try unsubscribing, reading everything carefully.
You may find that this fixes the interface, in a way that shouting doesn't.
The amazing thing here is how long the hijack has lasted.
Plus, I'm getting that we don't have a moderator who is regularly watching this
list and ready to fix problems.
________________________________
From: Shujen Chang <i(a)blue.cat>
To: Mailing list for Wikiversity <wikiversity-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2012 8:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikiversity-l] Wikiversity-l Digest, Vol 58, Issue 4
You can just unsubscribe this mail list, if you do not want to receive any letters from
the mail list again.