Hello Ian and listers.
The first important point that I would like to stress is that both Joan and
myself are volunteers who have agreed to monitor the board and lists in
order to ensure that they are not abused and in order to help users to get
the best out of what they provide. Despite our grand titles, we are
basically ordinary users of the service with a mentoring role. Neither of us
have any control over the way that the board or list systems work or
interact.
I agree, it is a bit daft that you can ask a question on the board and get a
hundred replies on the list that you might not see. But that is because of
the way that Rootsweb has set up the system, it is something that neither
Joan or I have control over, so there is no point discussing the issue on
the board or the list, it is a problem that needs to be taken up with
Rootsweb management.
Every gateway message is noted as such, and notes that the poster may not be
a list member so responses should be made to the board. If list members
choose to ignore that message, there is little that Joan or I can do about
it.
We could close the gateway, if it is causing too much confusion, but I can't
see how doing so would benefit either list or board users.
Hwyl
Alwyn
----- Original Message -----
From: <JYoung6180(a)aol.com>
To: <wls-merionethshire(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 12:22 AM
Subject: Re: [MER] Administrator
Hi, Ian-
I'm NOT the admin of this list but I do admin the Merionethshire message
board which is gatewayed to this list (which means that messages posted to
the board are sent through to the list under the generic address of
gc-gateway(a)rootsweb.com). The board posters are generally NOT subscribed
to the
mailing list (although some may be) and it isn't possible to reply to a
gatewayed message by simply hitting REPLY or REPLY ALL. the gateway
address will
bounce and the board poster won't see the copy of your reply that goes to
the list unless they are subbed to the list or know to check the list
archives (which is unlikely). To reply to a gatewayed post click the link
in the
list message and reply on the board--then your reply will be accessible
to
the original poster and will also come through the gateway to the list.
Gateway list replies that "bounce" don't go anywhere other than to bounce
to
the person (list subscriber) who tried to reply to that address.
Joan
In a message dated 12/22/2009 7:14:41 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
joscyn(a)hotmail.com writes:
I send this as an open email as I think there may be some scope for
streamlining posts to the list:
Emails from Rootsweb seaches forwarded to the list: are all
correspondents
mailing list members?
It is not straightforward to reply so should they be left in the position
of having a question unanswered?
Could this be discussed on the list?
I think people should have some means of "ingress" - as it could be
called
- before subscribing but should be encouraged to join the mailing list -
let's face it, even if it was only for a while, their information might
be
useful to another lister, without any issue of confidentiality...
Are "bounces" indexed in quite the same way as list posts?
There are lots of forwarded emails on this list, with which I have no
"problem", but which could pose a problem to other list users?
Yrs,
Ian