[plug] unsubscibe (newbie's perspective)

[Mike]

At 01:44 PM 26/3/2001 +0800, The Thought Assassin
<assassin at live.wasp.net.au> wrote:
>On Mon, 26 Mar 2001, Mike wrote:
>> At 11:12 AM 26/3/2001 +0800, Greg Mildenhall rote:

>> >ROFL. Your faith in computers is touching, but unrealistic. :(
>> I have no particular faith in a piece of hardware, I do have faith
>> in the ability of enthusiastic individuals and their tools.
>
>You weren't an AI researcher in the 50s, were you ?

Er - no, but I have read widely several AI issues for 30 years,

>You seem to think that natural language parsing is a simple problem.

I did *not* suggest nlp - simple looking at variations in subject in
context with type of user, maybe size of unquoted body text - simple!

>> >> c.	Linux is slowly getting some recognition and we need all the
>> >> 	newbies we can get and then some more,
>> >Not sure why you would say this. I certainly don't need newbies. :)
>> You are only one member of this list, are you suggesting this list
>> does not need any new members - if so why ?
>
>I'm extrapolating. I don't need newbies. I don't know why anyone else here
>would need newbies. Ergo, I'm not sure why the list would need newbies.
>Why do you need newbies?

Aye - what is the purpose of this list ?

Isn't one purpose to expose people to linux, provide a forum for
people to learn and solve problems with linux...

Isn't it entirely possible people who have no experience come to
this list to learn ?

Where are you coming from then, is this a social experiment for you ?

>> I am suggesting a way to reduce noise - instead of criticism why not
>> think about improving it ?
>
>Because it is fundamentally flawed.

WHY ?

Whats fundamentally wrong about it ?

>> >> 	IMNSHO: REstricting subscriptions is like restricting education
>> >> 	(which should be totally free - and I'm a capitalist).
>> >So you are not in favour of excluding children from a school when their
>> >behaviour prevents the effective education of other children?
>> I a child is bad behavedm I would be in favour of them getting the
>> very same education as other children, under the advisement of
>> behavioural psychologists <...> it would be appropriate to limit their
>> negative effects on other children <...>
>
>So perhaps you would like read-only access for such people? You'll be glad
>we have a web-accessible archive, then. ;)

Don't understand what you are driving at - this is off topic anyway,
there are other lists for this,


>> >and it is equally amazing that people who don't have programming
>> >experience think that programmers should be able to come up with software
>> >solutions to social problems.
>> This is not a social problem - we are discussin reducing list noise
>> for issues such as unsub requests.
>
>I don't understand how the things people within our society choose to send
>to the list can be anything but a social problem.

If that is how you want to make sense of this issue - then thats fine
for you - from that perspective (as you wish) this 'social problem'
of unsub mesgs can be dealt with substantially by the type of psuedo
code I have suggested *naturally* some adjustment will be necessary,
at some point - I do not expect a static scenario,

>> >While on the subject, a programmer understands the merits of out-of-band
>> >control signalling, but non-programmers seem to arrogantly assume that
>> >because they don't understand the merit, its not real.
>>
>> In which context are you referring to 'out of band...', we are not
>> discussing PID algorithms are embedded systems and in any case please
>> describe how that is relevant to the issue of unsub noise mails ?
>
>I guess you know what OOB is, so you'll understand why having a seperate
>address for list admin instructions is an idea that should be preserved.

Of course, I am not suggesting removal of the list admin side at all,
nor have I infered any such value, what I understand people object to
is unsub msgs going to main list - the psuedo code I have suggested will
go some way to dealing with this,

>> >> I could do it in assembler with a bleedin Z80, it ain't that hard
>> >> - is it ?
>> >Yes, as a matter of fact, it is.
>> Oh come on !
>> Back in 84 I wrote <...>
>
>It's not a question of hardware.

Now you are getting somewhere, these days we have real nice ways
of dealing with strings in higher level languages. I still am of 
the opinoin its easy to deal with for people in the field, in fact
the effort you have taken over your several  email retorts to my posts
suggest you could do this in the same amount of energy (and time) ;)

>> To read a subject and make decisions for a small number of emails is not
>> hard,
>
>Not for a human being, no. Well nigh impossible for a computer.

<groan> This is why people write s/w huh ?

Its not impossible for a 'computer' because they all need s/w to
run - and you can write it,

There is very little actual processing requried to implement the
psuedo code I have suggested - why suggest its so hard or are you
being lazy and a wet blanket ;)

Mike
PS: No sorry you can't be lazy it must entail effort to reply to me,