From: Vincent Fourmond <vincent.fourmond@9online.fr>
Date: 2006-12-24T01:53:23+09:00
Subject: Re: where have all the experienced users gone?

Jeremy McAnally wrote:
> On further reflection, perhaps something at the gateway/server level
> might be appropriate.  Send a mail back that says something like,
> "Check this FAQ, it may answer your question.  If not, reply to this
> e-mail with a blank body" or something.  That way there's no
> additional list traffic and it still gets the same thing accomplished.
> OF course, you would really only want to do that if the algorithm was
> pretty darn positive it knew the answer.

  Even though I like the idea, I somehow think it is not a good idea. No
one likes to be policed. You can't force the people to be educated if
they don't have the intention to... And the scheme of having some kind
of automatic validation before the post, though tempting, is dangerous:
most likely, and even if you invest a great deal of energy in the
algorithm, you'll end up with two effects:

  * interesting people that get fed up being replied 'check out this
FAQ' 25% times they post something;
  * 'loosers' (with lots of quotes, I don't have the brains today to
look for a diplomatic designation) that find a way to confuse the
algorithm and get their posts through.

  Both are definitely not what you want. But I don't have a better
answer as well...

  Hey, what do you think about adding inside the mail the 2/3 first
results of a google (or whatever) search on the mail subject ? So people
who post questions with accurate title might find an answer simply by
reading their own post ? (I know it somehow sounds dumb...)

  Cheers,

	Vince

-- 
Vincent Fourmond, PhD student
http://vincent.fourmond.neuf.fr/