-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tim May writes:

About half a dozen messages like this one are posted here every week:

...

PLEASE READ! (sorry to shout)

All subscription requests should be sent to cypherpunks-request@toad.com

Despite this, every day there are several "Unsubscribe me, NOW!" messages, with various degrees of politeness.

Folks, I am not going to repeat the instructions again. This is becuase of the following conclusions I have reached:

1. The list is divided into two basic classes of readers: those who read some or all of the messages, and those who skip most articles and don't pay attention to what they read.

2. Those who read many of the messages then see these instructions over and over again.

3. Those who don't read the messages, don't see or understand or have a general clue about the instructions.

4. It is usually these folks who want off the list urgently. As others have noted so many times, they have no clue as the general netiquette for getting on and off lists (apparently even forgetting that they got ON the list by sending a request to "cypherpunks-request@toad.com").

MAJOR CONCLUSION: All of the "helpful" instructions, including this very message, are useless, as the folks who need to receive them are demonstrably not bothering to receive them.

Draw your own conclusions.

As a veteran of a mere two weeks+ as a subscriber, I doubt that I have sufficient experience to form much in the way of conclusions re behavior here. I'm inclined to agree with your "major conclusion." All of this discussion of unsubscribing has made me curious about the "turnover" rate here. I saw the stats posted a week or so ago on current subscribers. I am wondering if there are figures available, or if someone could give me a ballpark sense of how many subscriptions vs. unsubsrciptions there are in an "average" week or month. I would also be interested in getting an idea of how long the "average" subscriber has been subscribed. Now...back to lurking. AR -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 mQCNAi1QI2IAAAEEANGcHTNLr8O+goj2cTGmdlVt9KGU4mHGywCbiIYOx3yUSibf NTChoPGc6RXO0rz2rw87Nrx/bzGfeaNCIS1oJ6ATWC0NHZKUV71Dg7hkVADnu6ij srHjPoBSFpR3v6p0GacH1syo0grtIlryuX7m997+yDjvw0NMHnAzE4ENya5ZAAUR tCNBbGxlbiBSb2JpbnNvbiA8c2ViYXlnb0BuZXRjb20uY29tPg== =Omo2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Allen Robinson 3208 Pawnee Court Fayetteville, AR 72701 sebaygo@netcom.com FidoNet 1:391/1370 fax (501) 248-1969 vox (501) 443-7012 or (501) 248-1808