Moderation of alt.sources through Mass Admonition

[Tom Christiansen]

>From the keyboard of emv at ox.com (Ed Vielmetti):
:In article <1991Mar11.162930.8008 at convex.com> tchrist at convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) writes:
:
:   At the request of someone in email, I'm posting my rn magic for 
:   sending someone an automatic message gently chiding them for 
:   their misplaced posting into alt.sources.  
:
: I think that this is a mistake.
:
: Much better would be to put more sources in alt.sources, so that
: people learn by example what to expect there, and don't mistakenly ask
: questions.  For instance, if you see sources in some other group,
: repost them into alt.sources.  Or post something of your own!

It doesn't work to post sources.  Sources get posted.  People don't
figure it out.

: Auto-hassling scripts strike me as an unnecessary annoyance likely to
: cause animosity.  better would be to either ignore the posting
: completely , or answer the request by mail as best you can and gently
: chide the user into changing their ways.

I used to ignore them.  I became annoyed, because it didn't get better.
In fact, it got worse.  The solution to the annoyance was to send them
mail.  

After sending a dozen and a half of these personal responses last week,
and receiving positive feedback from all but one, I boiled what I 
was saying down into one message, and posted the result.  What's so
annoying about that?

--tom