For some reasons I do not remember, I subscribed to the "UsingWW" mailing list. Now, all decent mailing lists send a link at the end of the email with the ability to unsubscribe. This is not the case with this mailing list. Moreover I forgot both username and password for this mailing list.
There is an option to get a new password sent to your email address but to use that you need to provide the username. What a genius idea. Anyway, I finally remembered the username and I managed to get into my account from where I am sending this post.
I urge whoever is managing this mailing list to make it agree with common sense standards and to please fix both of the aforementioned problems.
Thanks.
First of all, this is not a mailing list, it is an on-line forum. You can choose to receive postings via email if you wish, but that is not the primary purpose of the forum. The fact that you have forgotten why you subscribed (or even what you have subscribed to), and have forgotten your userID and password are not our fault.
You are free to turn off email messages in your personal profile (click on your name in your posting, and that will take you to the page about you, where you can edit your profile if you are logged in). That will disable all mail to you from the system.
If you do not want to receive email from a particular forum, you can unsubscribe yourself using the "Unsubscribe from this forum" link at the upper-right of the main forum page (the one where you clicked the "add a new discussion" link to post your message). Perhaps if you had spent a moment looking at the page rather than rushing to complain you might have noticed that. What a genius idea. You certainly can control whether you are subscribed or not.
As for needing to supply a username when you ask for your new password, how else do you expect the system to know who needs the new password? If you haven't logged in yet, and you just click a new-password button, who do you think should get the new password?
You are free to turn off email messages in your personal profile (click on your name in your posting, and that will take you to the page about you, where you can edit your profile if you are logged in). That will disable all mail to you from the system.
If you do not want to receive email from a particular forum, you can unsubscribe yourself using the "Unsubscribe from this forum" link at the upper-right of the main forum page (the one where you clicked the "add a new discussion" link to post your message). Perhaps if you had spent a moment looking at the page rather than rushing to complain you might have noticed that. What a genius idea. You certainly can control whether you are subscribed or not.
As for needing to supply a username when you ask for your new password, how else do you expect the system to know who needs the new password? If you haven't logged in yet, and you just click a new-password button, who do you think should get the new password?
Davide:
The fact that this is a forum, and not a mailing list, is easily confused, since you don't have the ability to subscribe to a single thread, but only to the entire forum. Thus, if you want to make sure you get notified about something, you have to receive emails about every single post here. Considering this, and the high rate at which most people make accounts on web sites, it is perfectly reasonable to only require an email address to retrieve login information, so as to be able to stop the emails. This is, in fact, used quite frequently across the web; if you don't have access to the email account, then nothing happens
You will also note that the OP was having difficulties getting logged-in, without which he could not unsubscribe. It was this that was the meat of his complaint, rather than the ability to unsubscribe once it was available to him.
Giulio:
The problem mostly lies in the fact that this is neither a forum nor a mailing list, but a Moodle-hack. I have suggested using PunBB, but the argument against was that the software needs to have good capabilities for displaying math. I haven't actually seen anyone post any equations here, but...
The fact that this is a forum, and not a mailing list, is easily confused, since you don't have the ability to subscribe to a single thread, but only to the entire forum. Thus, if you want to make sure you get notified about something, you have to receive emails about every single post here. Considering this, and the high rate at which most people make accounts on web sites, it is perfectly reasonable to only require an email address to retrieve login information, so as to be able to stop the emails. This is, in fact, used quite frequently across the web; if you don't have access to the email account, then nothing happens
You will also note that the OP was having difficulties getting logged-in, without which he could not unsubscribe. It was this that was the meat of his complaint, rather than the ability to unsubscribe once it was available to him.
Giulio:
The problem mostly lies in the fact that this is neither a forum nor a mailing list, but a Moodle-hack. I have suggested using PunBB, but the argument against was that the software needs to have good capabilities for displaying math. I haven't actually seen anyone post any equations here, but...