From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 1 07:41:39 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id HAA02906; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 07:27:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ntserver1.topica.com (ntserver1.topica.com [209.79.54.137]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA02899 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 07:27:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: by ntserver1.topica.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.1960.3) id ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 07:29:03 -0700 Message-ID: <5124A826BADBD1118B1E00104B759FED0349A2@ntserver1.topica.com> From: Ken McDonald To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: RE: List-Managers-Digest V7 #94 Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 07:29:01 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.1960.3) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Findmail >I agree that it would be much nicer if the result of a user request for >an >external archive was an email sent to the owner of the list in question >saying, >"User
has requested that we archive your list . >If >this is OK, please reply to this email with the word "yes" in the message >body; >any other response, or no response, will result in no archiving." How would Findmail know who the real list owner is? Unless I am missing something, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to know for sure who the list owner is on a given list. From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 1 08:37:47 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id IAA03773; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 08:18:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from kitsune.swcp.com (swcp.com [198.59.115.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA03766 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 08:18:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from lazlo@localhost) by kitsune.swcp.com (8.8.8/1.2.3) id JAA06682; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 09:19:53 -0600 (MDT) Message-ID: <19980601091953.A6324@swcp.com> Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 09:19:53 -0600 From: Lazlo Nibble To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: List-Managers-Digest V7 #94 Mail-Followup-To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM References: <5124A826BADBD1118B1E00104B759FED0349A2@ntserver1.topica.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <5124A826BADBD1118B1E00104B759FED0349A2@ntserver1.topica.com>; from Ken McDonald on Mon, Jun 01, 1998 at 07:29:01AM -0700 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, Jun 01, 1998 at 07:29:01AM -0700, Ken McDonald wrote: > How would Findmail know who the real list owner is? By emailing owner-listname. It won't work for every list but it'll work for enough of them that there's no excuse for Findmail not at least trying it. -- ::: Lazlo (lazlo@swcp.com; http://www.swcp.com/lazlo) ::: Internet Music Wantlists: http://www.swcp.com/lazlo/Wantlists From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 1 13:41:34 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id NAA10654; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 13:31:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from elvis.vnet.net (elvis.vnet.net [166.82.1.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id NAA10646 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 13:31:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from katie.vnet.net (murr@katie.vnet.net [166.82.1.7]) by elvis.vnet.net (8.8.8/8.8.4) with ESMTP id QAA27966 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 16:32:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id QAA15572 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 16:32:23 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: katie.vnet.net: murr owned process doing -bs Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 16:32:22 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Finding A Listowner In-Reply-To: <5124A826BADBD1118B1E00104B759FED0349A2@ntserver1.topica.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Ken McDonald wrote: > How would Findmail know who the real list owner is? Unless I am > missing something, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to know for > sure who the list owner is on a given list. Most of the mailing list directories that I have seen include contact info for the listowner and or instructions for retrieval of a general info file describing the list. How would you go about finding a mailing list and yet not be able to find the listowner? - murr - From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 1 14:26:24 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id OAA11469; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:14:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sportsurf.net (sportsurf.net [192.41.36.58]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id OAA11462 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:14:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.204.56.156] (sss.pittsburgh.net [192.204.56.156]) by sportsurf.net (8.8.5) id PAA24528; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 15:15:59 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199806012115.PAA24528@sportsurf.net> Subject: Re: findmail Date: Mon, 1 Jun 98 16:21:55 -0500 x-sender: mark@sportsurf.net x-mailer: Claris Emailer 1.1 From: Mark Rauterkus To: , cc: "Scott Hassan" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi, >...Findmail does not go out and actively or >automatically >look for external mailing lists to archive, but they do provide a Web >interface >where individual USERS can enter the name of a mailing list and ask that >it be >archived. If one of your mailing lists appears on Findmail, it's probably >because some interested subscriber put it there. This is true to my understanding too. And, FWIW, I've talked to the fellow who has built FindMail on the phone and past email messages. >Carl Page's suggestion, that concerned listowners start using X-No-Archive >all >over the place, has one enormous problem, which is that LEGITIMATE >archives for >your list may exist, with access rights and format of your choosing; this >"industry standard" cuts both ways. Of course. And, list participants who know what the heck they are doing can tag their outgoing mail header too. I'd like to empower the list participants with the right to archive or not their own contributions. I've got some of my lists archived at FindMail -- while others are not. We requested that a list description with "PRIVATE" or a list description with the keystrokes of [-] (that's bracket open, hyphen, bracket closed) be signals for the archivers to NOT archive that specific list. The FindMail administrator followed that subtle request from me in the past. I think it is still active there. This was from another archiver's FAQ I think. >Personally, I would watch (using Procmail) for subscribes from >findmail.com, and >kick them off immediately, and then send that "listsaver-of-" address just >ONE >message for its "archive" saying: THIS IS NOT THE REAL ARCHIVE. This was >created >without permission. Tell Findmail to stop operating this way." A wave of >those >ought to generate enough user feedback to get them to think about the >issue. :) I disagree fully. FindMail is a valid archive of the lists that I run. I would encourage others to use them. I would encourage others to have mirrored archives. FindMail is a great mirror if you ask me. I'm not going out an telling you all how to run your lists, mind you. And, if you have reason for FindMail not subscribing to your lists -- then fine. I do not want FindMail at all my lists and we've worked this out. I'm a little bent out of shape because there are too many lists out there without any archives. People tend to not want to stand by their words where there is no OPEN Book archive, IMHO. And, people can get the "wrong" impression too quickly if they are not pointed to what was said -- exactly -- at an independent archive site. Case in point - just the other day. I said on a public list that something should happen very soon -- and if I could, I'd schedule a press release for July 4 (and for our international friends, July 4 is USA Independence Day). I just gave a little side-bar extra statement why July 4 is sorta a big deal here in the USA. One reader (International) went nuts on me for that extra reading tip saying that I said USA is GOD's Country. What? No way. When a list is archived on the web - just give them the URL and say -- read it again. I never even mentioned GOD. The third party archives are good for total communications and understandings. They also are great for busy people who like to go no mail -- then get caught up on mail say a month later. FindMail is fine with me. And, FWIW, the FindMail is related to FindLaw. That site is worthy of a visit as it is advancing faster in the past year than FindMail. Take care all. -------------- Mark Rauterkus, Publisher E-books work in classrooms! mrauterkus@sportsurf.net http://SportSurf.Net/ -------------- From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 1 15:26:25 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id PAA12359; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 15:14:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ifolk.iserver.net (ifolk.iserver.net [192.41.44.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id PAA12352 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 15:14:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tneffgp ([160.43.147.201]) by ifolk.iserver.net (8.8.5) id QAA03350; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 16:15:18 -0600 (MDT) From: "Tom Neff" To: "Mark Rauterkus" , Cc: "Scott Hassan" Subject: RE: findmail Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 18:15:23 -0400 Message-ID: <000001bd8daa$c58d9930$c9932ba0@tneffgp.bloomberg.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <199806012115.PAA24528@sportsurf.net> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Mark Rauterkus [mailto:mrauterkus@sportsurf.net] wrote: > Tom Neff wrote: > >Carl Page's suggestion, that concerned listowners start using X-No-Archive > >all over the place, has one enormous problem, which is that LEGITIMATE > >archives for your list may exist, with access rights and format of your choosing; > >this "industry standard" cuts both ways. > > Of course. And, list participants who know what the heck they are doing > can tag their outgoing mail header too. I'd like to empower the list > participants with the right to archive or not their own contributions. That is an individual choice you make as a listowner. Other listowners may choose NOT to "empower list participants" to choose whether some or all messages are archived offsite, and their choices as listowners should not be overruled or circumvented. > I've got some of my lists archived at FindMail -- while others are not. > > We requested that a list description with "PRIVATE" or a list description > with the keystrokes of [-] (that's bracket open, hyphen, bracket closed) > be signals for the archivers to NOT archive that specific list. The > FindMail administrator followed that subtle request from me in the past. > I think it is still active there. Again, the onus should NOT be on individual listowners to know in advance what intricate hoops to jump through in their list configurations in order to prevent some random external sites from deciding to archive them. People should be able to start lists where they want, on the terms they want, and expect to be ASKED if Findmail, or PenguinMail, or BoliviaMail, or whatever, wants to start archiving. Anyone can install Majordomo without knowing "Findmail" from Fanny Farmer, nor should they have to. > >Personally, I would watch (using Procmail) for subscribes from > >findmail.com, and kick them off immediately, and then send that "listsaver-of-" > >address just ONE message for its "archive" saying: THIS IS NOT THE REAL ARCHIVE. > >This was created without permission. Tell Findmail to stop operating this way." > >A wave of those ought to generate enough user feedback to get them to think about > >the issue. :) > > I disagree fully. FindMail is a valid archive of the lists that I run. Then do your listmasterly duty and register the Findmail archive yourself. I am talking about UNSOLICITED archiving without the listowner's knowledge or consent. It has nothing to do with whether the archive is "valid," whatever that means. As a listowner I may want to restrict who has access to the archive. I may have a paying list and wish to charge for access. I may have a superior archiver with valuable features and not welcome low-rent "competition" for the archiving role. I may have a list that encourages unselfconscious spontaneity and casual chatter, one where encouraging anal retentives to say "But on July 23, 1994, you wrote..." would spoil the fun. There are a lot of reasons. It should be my choice. I agree that Findmail is a valuable service, at least right now, and that all listowners should be told about it -- UP FRONT -- so they can decide for themselves whether they want to avail themselves of its services. They should not find out after the fact from a funny member name or a flurry of Altavista matches. > I'm not going out an telling you all how to run your lists, mind you. > And, if you have reason for FindMail not subscribing to your lists -- > then fine. I do not want FindMail at all my lists and we've worked this > out. Working it out privately is one thing, but establishing a policy would go a lot farther. From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 1 18:11:25 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id RAA14424; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 17:56:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id RAA14417 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 17:56:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from chuqui2@localhost) by plaidworks.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA29188 ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 17:59:01 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: chuqui2@plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <5124A826BADBD1118B1E00104B759FED0349A2@ntserver1.topica.com> Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 17:34:30 -0700 To: Ken McDonald , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: RE: List-Managers-Digest V7 #94 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 7:29 AM -0700 6/1/98, Ken McDonald wrote: > How would Findmail know who the real list owner is? Unless I am missing > something, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to know for sure who the > list owner is on a given list. By reading the list documentation that tells people how to use the list? Any list documentation that doesn't give a contact point for a real human is, IMHO, broken, so findmail is the least of their problems. And failing that, simply try postmaster at the site running the list. It's real tough to do these things, I realize. Better to toss the onus of responsibility on someone else. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 1 18:20:08 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id RAA14433; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 17:56:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id RAA14426 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 17:56:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from chuqui2@localhost) by plaidworks.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA35084 ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 17:59:06 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: chuqui2@plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199806012115.PAA24528@sportsurf.net> Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 17:45:38 -0700 To: Mark Rauterkus , , From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: findmail Cc: "Scott Hassan" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > I'm not going out an telling you all how to run your lists, mind you. > And, if you have reason for FindMail not subscribing to your lists -- > then fine. I do not want FindMail at all my lists and we've worked this > out. > > I'm a little bent out of shape because there are too many lists out there > without any archives. People tend to not want to stand by their words > where there is no OPEN Book archive, IMHO. And, people can get the > "wrong" impression too quickly if they are not pointed to what was said > -- exactly -- at an independent archive site. I'm all for archives. I've put a lot of work INTO those archives on my sites. I'm about to spend the summer building even better ones, too. my problem isn't with the concept of findmail. My problem is with the implementation. Little things, like archiving myself without permission and not announcing to anyone (including the list and content owners) that the archives are being created. Like you said, not all of the lists are things that ought to be archived, and by not bothering ot ask the owners, findMail is saying they know this better than the owners do. I find that attitude rather arrogant at best. to take the data that someone creates by running a list, and then use it without telling them is pretty ugly. At best. It's likely quite illegal as far as copyright goes, but lets stick to ethics. Now, beyond that, consider a site that uses click-through advertising as a funding source, and as part of its system, has its own archival system with advertising banners. Now, FindMail wanders in and starts archiving it themselves, without telling the site they're now archiving. Suddenly, findmail has created an alternate access point for accessing that information, around the advertising. If the advertising is key to keeping that site running, it could kill the entire site. And they DO THIS WITHOUT ASKING, because they assume that the act of signing up is enough notice. That attitude is bogus. Imagine if someone signed up to Hotwired, copied the pages to his own site, and started redistributing HotWired's articles on his own web site. Same thing here. If people WANT to use FindMail, great. If findmail wants to offer their services, great. but when FindMail starts sneaking onto lists and doing it without permission and without notice, then I have a real problem. The responsibility for approving this is on the list owner, not FindMail. As long as findmail doesn't ask first, they're a pirate site in my eyes and will be treated as such. And if they have nothing to hide -- why do they hide what they're doing to lists? Why do site owners find out by accident, or after getting clued in to look on lists like this? Obviously, because if they do ask, they get told to go away. So they don't ask, and play the "approval by obscurity" games. of course, when they DO get found out, list owners tend to act like me: angry to hostile, and treat them like thiefs, which I believe they are. And then findmail sort of looks around and goes "Why are you angry?" Which only proves to me either they just plain old don't have a clue about this, or are playing dumb because it's to their advantage. Either way, I don't care. But if they want to offer their services, bless them. I'd say no, because I'm offering the services myself. But for lists that don't have archives, great. Just don't steal it without telling me and than suggest you're doing me a favor. you aren't. But they clearly don't understand that. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 1 20:56:54 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id UAA17024; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 20:44:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id UAA17017 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 20:44:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tibbs@localhost) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) id WAA24797; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 22:45:53 -0500 (CDT) To: Subject: Re: findmail References: <000101bd8c9e$21a49ec0$b07e2581@newmicronpc> Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.100) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Jason L Tibbitts III Date: 01 Jun 1998 22:45:53 -0500 In-Reply-To: "Tom Neff"'s message of "Sun, 31 May 1998 10:12:23 -0400" Message-ID: Lines: 12 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.9/Emacs 19.34 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >>>>> "TN" == Tom Neff writes: TN> If I remember correctly, Findmail does not go out and actively or TN> automatically look for external mailing lists to archive, but they do TN> provide a Web interface where individual USERS can enter the name of a TN> mailing list and ask that it be archived. Unless they have changed their policy since my experiences, this is not the case. I have had findmail try to sign up to lists that have been dead for some time, and to lists created solely for testing. - J< From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 1 22:26:24 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id WAA18654; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 22:20:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id WAA18637 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 22:20:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from chuqui2@localhost) by plaidworks.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id WAA09634 ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 22:23:02 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: chuqui2@plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: "Tom Neff"'s message of "Sun, 31 May 1998 10:12:23 -0400" <000101bd8c9e$21a49ec0$b07e2581@newmicronpc> Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 21:59:11 -0700 To: Jason L Tibbitts III , From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: findmail Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 8:45 PM -0700 6/1/98, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote: > Unless they have changed their policy since my experiences, this is not the > case. I have had findmail try to sign up to lists that have been dead for > some time, and to lists created solely for testing. I've had findMail attempt to sign up for lists that they promised to leave alone after the FIRST cease and desist. Which might explain just a bit why I get grumpy at FindMail.... -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + From list-managers-owner Tue Jun 2 12:41:40 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id MAA03306; Tue, 2 Jun 1998 12:34:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from skylist.net (skylist.net [38.153.106.7]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id MAA03299 for ; Tue, 2 Jun 1998 12:33:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [38.153.106.4] by skylist.net with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 2.1); Tue, 2 Jun 1998 15:42:05 -0400 X-Sender: josh-skyweyr@pop.skylist.net (Unverified) Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199806020800.BAA21002@honor.greatcircle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 15:27:59 -0500 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: "Joshua D. Baer" Subject: Re: findmail Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > How would Findmail know who the real list owner is? Unless I am missing > something, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to know for sure who the > list owner is on a given list. The list-header specs define a List-Owner header just for this purpose. ~Josh -- ---------------------------------- Joshua D. Baer SkyList Virtual Communities Please forgive typos or curt replies... I'm learning to type Dvorak! From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 3 10:11:27 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id KAA20288; Wed, 3 Jun 1998 10:01:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from linus.mitre.org (linus.mitre.org [129.83.10.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id KAA20250 for ; Wed, 3 Jun 1998 10:00:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from caffeine.mitre.org (caffeine [129.83.10.136]) by linus.mitre.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA22022 for ; Wed, 3 Jun 1998 13:02:23 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from justin@localhost) by caffeine.mitre.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA05328; Wed, 3 Jun 1998 13:02:22 -0400 (EDT) To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: findmail References: "Tom Neff"'s message of "Sun, 31 May 1998 10:12:23 -0400" <000101bd8c9e$21a49ec0$b07e2581@newmicronpc> From: Justin Sheehy Date: 03 Jun 1998 13:02:22 -0400 In-Reply-To: Chuq Von Rospach's message of "Mon, 1 Jun 1998 21:59:11 -0700" Message-ID: Lines: 20 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.10/Emacs 20.2 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Chuq Von Rospach writes: > I've had findMail attempt to sign up for lists that they promised to > leave alone after the FIRST cease and desist. Yep. Same here. The list that I mentioned earlier in this thread was one that they had subscribed to several months earlier. We told them to buzz off, and we even put their silly "PRIVATE LIST" crud in the info file. I think that it should not be necessary to explicitly opt out, but it was still done. They resubscribed anyway. They did so without asking anyone, without contacting a single human. They may provide a service that some people like, but their ethics and netiquette are severely lacking. -Justin From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 3 12:26:30 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id MAA21565; Wed, 3 Jun 1998 12:16:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gauntlet.newschool.edu (gauntlet.newschool.edu [149.31.1.100]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id MAA21558 for ; Wed, 3 Jun 1998 12:16:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: by gauntlet.newschool.edu; id OAA17586; Wed, 3 Jun 1998 14:34:29 -0400 Received: from unknown(149.31.5.22) by gauntlet.newschool.edu via smap (3.2) id xma017364; Wed, 3 Jun 98 14:33:47 -0400 Received: from NEW_SCHOOL-Message_Server by newschool.edu with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 03 Jun 1998 15:18:35 -0400 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Wed, 03 Jun 1998 15:17:51 -0400 From: Frank Rizulo To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: tracking the response Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I would like to advertise my list in several publications and track the response I get from each publication. I thought of asking the subscriber to put a code from the publication in the subscription request -- maybe in the subject or the second line. Will I, as the owner, see this code when I'm notified of a new subscriber. Is there another or better way to accomplish this? Thank you, Frank Rizulo rizulof@newschool.edu From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 3 15:12:02 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id PAA24601; Wed, 3 Jun 1998 15:00:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from kitsune.swcp.com (swcp.com [198.59.115.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id PAA24592 for ; Wed, 3 Jun 1998 15:00:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from lazlo@localhost) by kitsune.swcp.com (8.8.8/1.2.3) id QAA26678; Wed, 3 Jun 1998 16:02:26 -0600 (MDT) Message-ID: <19980603160225.A22940@swcp.com> Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 16:02:25 -0600 From: Lazlo Nibble To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: tracking the response Mail-Followup-To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: ; from Frank Rizulo on Wed, Jun 03, 1998 at 03:17:51PM -0400 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, Jun 03, 1998 at 03:17:51PM -0400, Frank Rizulo wrote: > I would like to advertise my list in several publications and track the > response I get from each publication. I thought of asking the subscriber to > put a code from the publication in the subscription request -- maybe in the > subject or the second line. Will I, as the owner, see this code when I'm > notified of a new subscriber. > > Is there another or better way to accomplish this? I'm going to assume you're using majordomo, in which case there's no easy way to pass this kind of information along in a subscription request. You could make sure strip=no and ask people to send their requests in the form: subscribe listname address@dom.ain (found it in wired) subscribe listname some@one.else (GOOD HOUSEKEEPING) but let's face it, you're not going to get people to do this properly and consistently. My quick-and-dirty solution would be to set up a separate request address for each place you're advertising in, as follows: listname-wired: "|/tools/majordomo/wrapper majordomo -l listname", rizulof listname-pcgamer: "|/tools/majordomo/wrapper majordomo -l listname", rizulof listname-harpers: "|/tools/majordomo/wrapper majordomo -l listname", rizulof listname-newsweek: "|/tools/majordomo/wrapper majordomo -l listname", rizulof This will forward the requests to majordomo for processing (users would just say "subscribe" in the body of their request, leaving out the list name) and also give you your own copy of each request that you can filter, sort, and count as you see fit. Haven't tested this, so use at your own risk. -- ::: Lazlo (lazlo@swcp.com; http://www.swcp.com/lazlo) ::: Internet Music Wantlists: http://www.swcp.com/lazlo/Wantlists From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 8 11:11:32 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id LAA24889; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 11:01:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-gw3adm.rcsntx.swbell.net (mail-gw3adm.rcsntx.swbell.net [151.164.60.103]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA24881 for ; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 11:01:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [206.170.3.237] (ppp-206-170-3-237.okld03.pacbell.net [206.170.3.237]) by mail-gw3adm.rcsntx.swbell.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA22070 for ; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 13:03:58 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <199806081803.NAA22070@mail-gw3adm.rcsntx.swbell.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express for Macintosh - 4.01 (295) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 11:03:27 -0700 Subject: HTML email From: "KHC" To: List Mgrs Mime-version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On my other list, there was some discussion about banning email attachments. The general attitude seems to be against attachments of any kind, whether or not it's HTML proper (inline GIFs or JPGs only). Does HTML email cause problems for most lists? -Kenneth From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 8 11:56:53 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id LAA25730; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 11:48:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from elvis.vnet.net (elvis.vnet.net [166.82.1.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA25723 for ; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 11:48:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from katie.vnet.net (murr@katie.vnet.net [166.82.1.7]) by elvis.vnet.net (8.8.8/8.8.4) with ESMTP id OAA13952; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 14:51:18 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id OAA27944; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 14:51:17 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: katie.vnet.net: murr owned process doing -bs Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 14:51:17 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: KHC cc: List Mgrs Subject: Re: HTML email In-Reply-To: <199806081803.NAA22070@mail-gw3adm.rcsntx.swbell.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, 8 Jun 1998, KHC wrote: > Does HTML email cause problems for most lists? Yes. I require plain ASCII only on all of the lists I administer. Only a small percentage of folks can read oddly formatted email as individual posts. This problem is worse with digests. IMHO, specially formated email should only be used between two parties who agree in advance on the alternative format. For general use, plain ASCII is the only acceptable format. HTML, MIME or UUencoded attachments are inappropriate for most discussion mailing lists. There may be a few exceptions for lists which are expressly set up for the exchange of binaries, documents and such. - murr - From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 8 12:11:48 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id MAA26240; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:08:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id MAA26233 for ; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:08:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA19236 for ; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 14:10:38 -0500 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA20007 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 14:10:37 -0500 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199806081910.OAA20007@celery.tssi.com> Subject: RE HTML email To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 14:10:37 -0500 (CDT) Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk KHC wrote: > On my other list, there was some discussion about banning email attachments. > The general attitude seems to be against attachments of any kind, whether or > not it's HTML proper (inline GIFs or JPGs only). > > Does HTML email cause problems for most lists? I think the answer varies depending on the nature of the list. My lists are all 'discussion' lists, for which GIF's and JPG's are completely out of line, as are other binary attachments. I also ban posts in HTML because IMHO HTML adds little, if any, significant value just through formatting, the duplication inherent in most HTML encoded messages is wasteful (the cost of my net connection tripled in the last year because of increased bandwidth needs, mostly caused by list traffic), and HTML causes problems with a significant number of my subscribers. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Mon Jun 8 15:41:25 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id PAA29047; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 15:38:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-gw3.pacbell.net (mail-gw3.pacbell.net [206.13.28.55]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id PAA29040 for ; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 15:38:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [206.170.33.54] (ppp-206-170-33-54.okld03.pacbell.net [206.170.33.54]) by mail-gw3.pacbell.net (8.8.8/8.7.1+antispam) with ESMTP id PAA18215 for ; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 15:41:22 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199806082241.PAA18215@mail-gw3.pacbell.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express for Macintosh - 4.01 (295) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 15:20:00 -0700 Subject: Re: HTML email From: "KHC" To: List Mgrs Mime-version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >> >> Does HTML email cause problems for most lists? > >I think the answer varies depending on the nature of the list. My lists >are all 'discussion' lists, for which GIF's and JPG's are completely >out of line, as are other binary attachments. I also ban posts in HTML >because IMHO HTML adds little, if any, significant value just through >formatting, the duplication inherent in most HTML encoded messages is >wasteful (the cost of my net connection tripled in the last year because >of increased bandwidth needs, mostly caused by list traffic), and HTML >causes problems with a significant number of my subscribers. >-- >Mike Nolan > Hmmm... Good to know. Is an attached GIF, which shows up as an inline graphic (for most people who can receive attachments) considered HTML? I may be mistaking the two terms -- especially for the fact that my email software (Microsoft Outlook Express 4.01) has the feature to turn off HTML -- I'm hoping this means I can turn off an attached inline GIF? Does this also mean others can turn off attachments in GIF or JPG format if they have the email HTML on/off feature? The list in question is one that discusses CAD graphics -- stuff which I think can be attached as small GIFs when needed for messages each about 10k to 20k in size (compared to 1k to 5k for ASCII). Is special setup needed for such a list? -Kenneth From list-managers-owner Tue Jun 9 08:41:25 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id IAA13996; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 08:40:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from kitsune.swcp.com (swcp.com [198.59.115.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA13987 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 08:40:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from lazlo@localhost) by kitsune.swcp.com (8.8.8/1.2.3) id JAA08265; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:42:43 -0600 (MDT) Message-ID: <19980609094243.A8037@swcp.com> Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:42:43 -0600 From: Lazlo Nibble To: List Mgrs Subject: Re: HTML email Mail-Followup-To: List Mgrs References: <199806082241.PAA18215@mail-gw3.pacbell.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <199806082241.PAA18215@mail-gw3.pacbell.net>; from KHC on Mon, Jun 08, 1998 at 03:20:00PM -0700 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, Jun 08, 1998 at 03:20:00PM -0700, KHC wrote: > Is an attached GIF, which shows up as an inline graphic (for most people who > can receive attachments) considered HTML? If the message doesn't have HTML in it, it's not an HTML message. > I may be mistaking the two terms -- especially for the fact that my email > software (Microsoft Outlook Express 4.01) has the feature to turn off HTML -- > I'm hoping this means I can turn off an attached inline GIF? Does this also > mean others can turn off attachments in GIF or JPG format if they have the > email HTML on/off feature? I'm not sure what you mean by "turn off" -- if you don't include images in your outgoing messages there shouldn't be any. > The list in question is one that discusses CAD graphics -- stuff which I > think can be attached as small GIFs when needed for messages each about > 10k to 20k in size (compared to 1k to 5k for ASCII). Is special setup > needed for such a list? No. Majordomo by default will happily pass any content you can get into an email message. You might need to increase some administrative limits for larger messages, but that's all. -- ::: Lazlo (lazlo@swcp.com; http://www.swcp.com/lazlo) ::: Internet Music Wantlists: http://www.swcp.com/lazlo/Wantlists From list-managers-owner Tue Jun 9 10:27:55 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id KAA15548; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 10:24:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from netcomsv.netcom.com (uucp5.netcom.com [163.179.3.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id KAA15537 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 10:24:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by netcomsv.netcom.com (8.8.5-r-beta/8.8.5/(NETCOM v2.01)) id KAA14971 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 10:27:01 -0700 (PDT) >Return-Path: Received: from sagarmatha.com by netcomsv.netcom.com; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 10:27 PDT Received: by chomolongma (Smail3.1.29.1 #3) id m0yjQzV-000VJKC; Tue, 9 Jun 98 09:11 PDT Message-Id: From: james@sagarmatha.com (James C. Armstrong) Subject: Re: HTML email (fwd) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:11:17 -0800 (PDT) Reply-To: james@sagarmatha.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Lazlo Nibble is alleged to have written: -> On Mon, Jun 08, 1998 at 03:20:00PM -0700, KHC wrote: -> > Is an attached GIF, which shows up as an inline graphic (for most people who -> > can receive attachments) considered HTML? -> If the message doesn't have HTML in it, it's not an HTML message. Well, that's not strictly true. You can interpret text with an HTML interpreter, there are just no markups to modify the appearance. However, in the case above, I agree that I would not call it an HTML message. -- James C. Armstrong, Jr. | Lies of the 90's: james@sagarmatha.com | 1. The check's in the mail | 2. I'll still respect you in the AM. | 3. Click here to be removed from our list. From list-managers-owner Tue Jun 9 11:41:45 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id LAA16662; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 11:26:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-gw2.pacbell.net (mail-gw2.pacbell.net [206.13.28.53]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA16655 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 11:26:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [206.170.33.138] (ppp-206-170-33-138.okld03.pacbell.net [206.170.33.138]) by mail-gw2.pacbell.net (8.8.8/8.7.1+antispam) with ESMTP id LAA01210 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 11:29:06 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199806091829.LAA01210@mail-gw2.pacbell.net> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express for Macintosh - 4.01 (295) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 11:29:03 -0600 Subject: Re: HTML email From: "KHC" To: List Mgrs Mime-version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > >> I may be mistaking the two terms -- especially for the fact that my email >> software (Microsoft Outlook Express 4.01) has the feature to turn off HTML -- >> I'm hoping this means I can turn off an attached inline GIF? Does this also >> mean others can turn off attachments in GIF or JPG format if they have the >> email HTML on/off feature? > >I'm not sure what you mean by "turn off" -- if you don't include images in >your outgoing messages there shouldn't be any. > I'm just curious if, when somebody attaches a GIF to a message that I pick up, then does it automatically become "HTML" in terms of mail handling and my software receiving it? From list-managers-owner Tue Jun 9 12:12:28 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id MAA17330; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:10:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from kitsune.swcp.com (swcp.com [198.59.115.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id MAA17304 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:10:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from lazlo@localhost) by kitsune.swcp.com (8.8.8/1.2.3) id NAA04569; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 13:12:55 -0600 (MDT) Message-ID: <19980609131255.A4361@swcp.com> Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 13:12:55 -0600 From: Lazlo Nibble To: List Mgrs Subject: Re: HTML email Mail-Followup-To: List Mgrs References: <199806091829.LAA01210@mail-gw2.pacbell.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <199806091829.LAA01210@mail-gw2.pacbell.net>; from KHC on Tue, Jun 09, 1998 at 11:29:03AM -0600 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, Jun 09, 1998 at 11:29:03AM -0600, KHC wrote: > I'm just curious if, when somebody attaches a GIF to a message that I pick > up, then does it automatically become "HTML" in terms of mail handling and > my software receiving it? No. An HTML message is a message that contains HTML code. I suppose there might be some mail clients out there that automatically embed attached images in some kind of HTML skeleton, but I don't think I've ever run across one. -- ::: Lazlo (lazlo@swcp.com; http://www.swcp.com/lazlo) ::: Internet Music Wantlists: http://www.swcp.com/lazlo/Wantlists From list-managers-owner Tue Jun 9 12:42:14 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id MAA18117; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:37:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from geocities.com (mail3.geocities.com [209.1.224.23]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id MAA18110 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:37:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from oemcomputer (166-93-39-100.rmi.net [166.93.39.100]) by geocities.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA04498 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:39:39 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980609133553.007da290@mail.geocities.com> X-Sender: john_meyer@mail.geocities.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 13:35:53 -0600 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: John Meyer Subject: Steering an OT back on topic Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi, I was wondering if anybody had any ways in which they steered OT conversations back on topic and how long do they allow a tangenial conversation to go on on their list. ,dP""d8b, John Meyer d" d88"8b john_meyer@geocities.com I8 Y88a88) TechBits Poderator `Y, a )888P http://members.tripod.com/~john_ludwig_meyer "b,,a88P" "Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today" -Ayn Rand From list-managers-owner Tue Jun 9 13:26:25 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id NAA19199; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 13:14:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from triceratops.com (triceratops.com [206.83.162.235]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id NAA19192 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 13:14:43 -0700 (PDT) From: johnjohn@triceratops.com Received: (qmail 27235 invoked by uid 100); 9 Jun 1998 20:15:08 -0000 Message-ID: <19980609201508.27234.qmail@triceratops.com> Subject: Re: Steering an OT back on topic To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 13:15:08 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980609133553.007da290@mail.geocities.com> from "John Meyer" at Jun 9, 98 01:35:53 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Hi, I was wondering if anybody had any ways in which they steered OT > conversations back on topic and how long do they allow a tangenial > conversation to go on on their list. Sorry, but if your question doesn't have anything to do with bashing findmail, bashing html mail, bashing ... Oh, I get it. -- John White Triceratops Admin johnjohn@triceratops.com From list-managers-owner Tue Jun 9 13:41:30 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id NAA19283; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 13:18:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id NAA19276 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 13:18:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA08393 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 15:21:13 -0500 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA14064 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 15:21:12 -0500 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199806092021.PAA14064@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Steering an OT back on topic To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 15:21:12 -0500 (CDT) Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk John Meyer wrote: > > Hi, I was wondering if anybody had any ways in which they steered OT > conversations back on topic and how long do they allow a tangenial > conversation to go on on their list. Ask 100 list managers and you'll probably get at least 100 answers. I've used all of the following strategies: 1. Post on the off-topic thread and try to make it more relevant. This usually requires SOME relevance be present in the first place, it would be challenging to steer a thread about Windows 95 back to a discussion on body surfing, for example. 2. Send the poster(s) private notes suggesting they drop the thread or take it to e-mail. On many lists your subscribers will do this, too, usually less politely than I do. 3. Make PUBLIC posts saying that the thread is no longer welcome. I find this works almost all the time, though it might take another 24 hours for the last round of posts to straggle in. I prefer to handle this disciplinary matter myself, on occasion some of my subscribers will post or send me private e-mail to suggest some thread go away, I generally ask them to let me be the 'bad guy'. (That probably means my tolerance level is slightly below that of my subscribers.) 4. Threaten to and/or suspend posting privileges for people who continue the off topic thread. Fortunately, I have a built-in four day waiting period for new subscribers, implemented by a daily job which copies the subscriber list through a series of three three intermediate files and then to the posting list, so all I have to do is take someone out of the active posting list (and possibly one or more of the intermediate holding files) and the posting privileges are restored anywhere from one to four days later, depending on how long I choose to suspend them. I do this for ALL obvious copyright abuses, BTW, it gives me a line of defense should I ever get sued or threatened by a copyright holder for posts sent to my lists by subscribers. I generally treat all disciplinary matters as private, but on very rare occasion I have posted about disciplinary action taken. I've never had to permanently suspend someone's posting privileges, though I do have that capability. 5. Kick the offender(s) off your list completely. In over 7 years of running sports lists, I've only had to do this about a half dozen times. (Anti-spam measures not included.) As to when to pull the plug, it sort of depends, I usually do it when my gut reaction to another post on the thread is 'Oh no, not ANOTHER one!'. But some of the best ON-TOPIC posts have come about as a result of OFF-TOPIC threads that stimulated more relevant discussion. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 10 08:56:25 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id IAA05542; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 08:54:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from linus.mitre.org (linus.mitre.org [129.83.10.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA05535 for ; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 08:54:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from caffeine.mitre.org (caffeine [129.83.10.136]) by linus.mitre.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA19892 for ; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 11:56:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from justin@localhost) by caffeine.mitre.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA20559; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 11:56:47 -0400 (EDT) To: List Mgrs Subject: Re: HTML email References: <199806081803.NAA22070@mail-gw3adm.rcsntx.swbell.net> From: Justin Sheehy Date: 10 Jun 1998 11:56:47 -0400 In-Reply-To: "KHC"'s message of "Mon, 08 Jun 1998 11:03:27 -0700" Message-ID: Lines: 16 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.11/Emacs 20.2 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk "KHC" writes: > Does HTML email cause problems for most lists? I've found that once I taboo out anything with any of the following headers, HTML email (and several other abominations) don't cause any problems at all for my lists. /^Content-Type:.*image/ /^Content-Type:.*text\/html/ /^Content-Type:.*vcard/ /^Content-Type:.*ms-tnef/ /^Content-Disposition:.*attachment/ -Justin From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 10 17:44:44 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id RAA12371; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:39:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id RAA12361 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:39:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell.portal.ca (shell.portal.ca [204.174.35.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id MAA26668 for ; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:23:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost ([[UNIX: localhost]]) by shell.portal.ca (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id MAA26438; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:26:10 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:26:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Christine Code X-Sender: cmc@shell.portal.ca Reply-To: Christine Code To: List Mgrs cc: archken@pacbell.net Subject: Re: HTML email In-Reply-To: <199806081803.NAA22070@mail-gw3adm.rcsntx.swbell.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Kenneth wrote: > On my other list, there was some discussion about banning email > attachments. Sounds like a good plan. > The general attitude seems to be against attachments of any kind, whether or > not it's HTML proper (inline GIFs or JPGs only). > > Does HTML email cause problems for most lists? HTML e-mail looks like crap when viewed in software that doesn't support this "feature." The mailing lists I run don't accept e-mail in HTML format. We'd rather focus on content instead of glitz, and it's important to us have all of the list postings look ok on everybody's screen. That's just my opinion, of course. I'm sure there will be others with different priorities. :-) Take care, cmc Christine Code "More than anything I must have Vancouver, Canada flowers, always, always." cmc@ferret.net -Monet http://www.ferret.net/cmc/ From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 10 17:56:25 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id RAA12114; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:30:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id RAA12104 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:30:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from queernet.queernet.org (queernet.queernet.org [140.174.78.69]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id NAA11115 for ; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 13:57:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (rogerk@localhost) by queernet.queernet.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA09282 Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 13:58:12 -0700 (PDT) From: "Roger B.A. Klorese" To: murr rhame cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Finding A Listowner In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, murr rhame wrote: > > How would Findmail know who the real list owner is? Unless I am > > missing something, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to know for > > sure who the list owner is on a given list. > > Most of the mailing list directories that I have seen include contact > info for the listowner and or instructions for retrieval of a general > info file describing the list. How would you go about finding a > mailing list and yet not be able to find the listowner? It should be listed in an info message available from the list-managemnt software; optimally, the list owner should always be reachable at the -request address. (While some people automate this address, it's not clear to me that's consistent with the RFC's, and I'd strongly suggest a copy of all mail to that address go to the list manager.) -- ROGER B.A. KLORESE rogerk@QueerNet.ORG urgent: rogerk-page@QueerNet.ORG 2215-R Market Street #576 San Francisco, CA 94114 +1 415 ALL-ARFF "There is only one real blasphemy -- the refusal of joy!" -- Paul Rudnick From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 10 18:00:31 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id RAA12147; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:31:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id RAA12139 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:31:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA29759 for ; Tue, 2 Jun 1998 08:59:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA20948; Tue, 2 Jun 1998 12:01:46 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19980602120144.A20595@gsp.org> Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 12:01:44 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Cc: Carl Page Subject: Re: findmail References: <199805131808.OAA06906@panix.com> <199805131808.OAA06906@panix.com> <19980514180651.A23636@swcp.com> <3.0.5.32.19980515010803.031205b0@vault.findmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1 In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980515010803.031205b0@vault.findmail.com>; from Carl Page on Fri, May 15, 1998 at 01:08:03AM -0700 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, May 15, 1998 at 01:08:03AM -0700, Carl Page wrote: > Thanks for informing us of the concern. We are careful to always subscribe > to lists under the name listsaver-of-@findmail.com which is > the best way to contact the list manager in advance to request permission. It is most emphatically *NOT* the best way to contact the list manager, especially when one considers that many mailing lists use automated subscription agents. The best way to contact the list manager is to read the list's documentation/announcement/web site/etc. and discover the address of the list manager. > There is litte more we can do without being accused of spamming the list > or the list managers. Well, it's quite obvious that sending mail to the entire list would be incorrect, since it would reach N people, N-1 of which cannot help you. But contacting list managers *individually* is not spamming. I'd note in passing, however, that if you are running a site whose model is ineffective without spamming, that you should seriously reconsider the operation of that site. > To avoid lists being archived, the best bet is to use the industry > standard tag all responsible archive sites obey, X-NO-ARCHIVE: Yes. No, it's not. You should not archive any lists or messages which you have not been specifically authorized to. To do otherwise violates the copyright of the list owner as well as the individual posters. In other words, you've got it backwards: we, the list managers and list contributors, should not have to stop you from doing something; you should ask permission *first* and not proceed unless you have it. > In any case we are always willing to delete archives at the managers > request, and we allow message posters to delete their postings > automatically even once they are in the archives, using the personal > message removal systmem. What security/authentication measures do you have in place to ensure that the person requesting deletion of an archive/individual message is in fact a the person responsible for that archive/individual message? How do you *effectively* notify every single person whose list/messages have been archived? ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 10 18:06:17 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id RAA12418; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:40:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id RAA12406 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:40:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from eagle.ns.net (eagle.ns.net [204.75.146.20]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id OAA20998 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 14:55:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (rfg.ns.net [207.159.10.82]) by eagle.ns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA28096; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 14:57:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA19695; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 14:58:38 -0700 To: spamtools@abuse.net, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Spam Filtering and Messy Details. X-Copyright: (c) 1998 Ronald F. Guilmette; All rights reserved. Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 14:58:38 -0700 Message-ID: <19693.897429518@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk [This message is being cross-posted to both the spamtools mailing list and also to the List-Managers mailing lists, since it really has a lot of relevance to both audiences.] On the spamtools mailing list, Hugh Browner wrote: >In theory that is correct, but the reality tends to be messier... I think that's a nice capsule summary of the majority of what we folks here attempt to do vis a vis filtering. Time and time again we see that the devil is in the details. For example, the first and perhaps most onerous detail that most of us have encountered when trying to filter out ``bulk'' junk E-mail is that it is (or at least can be, in the hands of a real professionla spammer), for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from legitimate opt-in mailing list traffic. I feel sure that I am not alone among the subscribers to this list in having spent more than a little time mentally wrestling with this rather large impediment to effective spam filtering. Today, I would like to say a word or two about that, and throw out what may perhaps be a new idea and see what comments it might elicit. Think about this for a second... The simplest way to filter out all junk E-mail on any given system which supports a substantial number of different and independent E-mail accounts/user-IDs would be to write a little routine in your MTA (or add a front end for your MTA) which simply keeps track of the number of messages incoming from a given IP address within the past N minutes (where `N' is some modest number like 30, 60, 120, or 180). If the number of ``recent'' incoming message from a given IP address exceeds some fixed limit (say for example 10% or 20% of the total number of independent E-mail accounts on your system), then you have your MTA simply block all further port 25 connects from the given IP address for a period of five days (after which time most kinds of SMTP clients that might have been attempting to send mail to your system will have given up in disgust). This is a near perfect solution to the E-mail spam problem _except_ that it implies that you _are_ going to accept that first group of spams to that first 10% or 20% of your user base (which is probably acceptable if you consider that you are buying protection for the other 80 or 90%) _and_ except for the fact that this strategy immediately causes you to lose essentially all traffice to your users from legitimate opt-in mailing lists. (Obviously, this latter bit of collateral damage is certainly _not_ acceptable to the majority of mail administrators and end users.) So is there a way to make this work? I think that the answer is ``perhaps''. Imagine the following scenario for the evolution of the Internet and for the evolution of legitimate opt-in mailing lists. Some party (or parties) declares itself to be a sort-of central clearing house for information on legitimate mailing lists. Let's just call it `legit-lists.org'. That party operates some sort of a server which allows other sites to obtain (either via push or via pull, whatever seems to make the most sense) a full and current list of legitimate opt-in mailing lists _and_ their associated *public encryption keys*. (Now stay with me here. It isn't as bad as you think, and I'm *not* going to propose any sort of exhorbitantly complex Rube Goldberg mechanism... just something simple based upon public-key encryption technology.) So anyway, now we have this hypothetical non-profit organization which is maintaining a server that provides lists of legit opt-in mailing lists and their associated public keys. Other sites can ``subscribe'' to this service and they will receive a full updated dump of the legitimate mailing lists data base, say, every night, perhaps via ordinary E-mail (push) or perhaps via some other mechiansm. (This is just implementation details, so let's not even dwell on the specifics of how this information gets distributed to partitipating sites. That can be worked out later.) Now, each participating legitimate opt-in mailing list, in exchange for the privledge of being listed as such by this ``clearing house'' organization (and by its data base server) must agree to the following simple conditions: o Subscriptions to the list in question are done on a a strictly opt-in basis, and adequate records are kept at the home site of the mailing list to verify that this is indeed the case when and if any questions arise regarding individual subscriptions. o All messages distributed by the mailing list in question must carry one additional new header. The name selected for this header isn't terribly important, so let's just call it the `X-Opt-In:' header. For each message distributed by/from the mailing list in question, the X-Opt-In: header would contain two argument fields, i.e.: X-Opt-In: Thats the sum total of the requirements for participating mailing lists. Now, some elaboration... The would be a globally unique designator for the list in question. It would be a simple string of letters, digits and hyphens issued to the list admin by the central clearing house. t the time the list is registered with the central clearing house. This mailing list handle would be very similar in both sprit and function to a NIC handle... i.e. a unique designator for the list which would remain the same even if the list in question is relocated to a different server or if the envelope return address on the outgoing list messages must change in some way. The would be just the string in the Date: header of the outgoing message, but encrypted with the *private key* which belongs to the list owner/administrator. (This private key would have to be kept secret by the list administrator.) On the receiving end, sites which receive mail to some large number of their users (say 20 or more) at about the same time from a given IP address would check the message after the first 20 for the presence of a valid X-Opt-In: header. If that is not present, or if such a header is present but the decryption of the part of the X-Opt-In: header (using the public key known to be associated with the relevant mailing list) fails to match the string in the Date: header, then the message is rejected, hopefully at the SMTP/MTA level, _before_ it even gets written to disk on the receiving system. So anyway, that's the idea in a nutshell. This would completely thwart mass spamming from illegitimate (opt-out) mailing lists. Spammers would still be able to spam, but their spam messages would not even be seen by the vast majority of their intended recipients. (Imagine if the spammer could only spam a maximum of 20 people on each of aol.com, msn.com, worldnet.att.com, pacbell.net, etc., etc. This would pretty much take all of the fun and all of the potential profit out of E-mail spamming, and I think that after awhile they would all just give up.) Potential issues/problems: o All of the mechanism for generating and attaching the new X-Opt-In: header would have to be integrated into all of the most commonly used mailing list administration packages. It would have to be pretty much of a nearly-no-brainer for the mailing lists admins to use this new (optional) feature. Basically, they mailing list admin packages would have to allow the list admins to just enter their list handles and their private keys into their mailing list configuration files, and then the list management packages would have to automatically do all the rest of the work. o Where do you get a nice public-key encryption mechanism that *isn't* going to cost people money in the form of royalties. (If mailing list admins have to pay _anything_ for this new feature then they will just balk and they will _never_ buy into it or implement it.) It turns out that this isn't such a big problem as you might think. RSA data systems owns patents on one form of public-key encryption technology and based on the reports that I have seen, then tend strongly towards the butthead end of the spectrum when it comes to being agressively litigous in trying to enforce their somewhat questionable patents in this area, but fortunately, there's a whole 'nother implementation of public-key encryption technology that's available royalty-free, thanks to the U.S. Guberment, so that could be used instead. (I'm already using this alternative stuff in my own commercial package, and I ain't gonna be payin' anybody a dime for the privledge.) o Fear and loathing (or, alternatively, fear uncertainty and doubt, aka the FUD factor). Essentially all of the major traditions and mechanisms of the Internet are designed to _avoid_ reliance upon any sort of central authority whenever possible and at all costs. In those rare instances where there has seemed to be no viable alternative to having some central coordinating authority (e.g. in the case of the domain name space and/or the IP address space) people have generally reacted with a conbination of fear and loathing (with the emphasis clearly on loathing) to the ways in which the powers of the central authority or (or are not) exercised. The result is often great raging debates and ongoing drawn-out conflicts. The central mailing list information clearing house would likewise and inevitably become the subject of heated debate and, most likely, raging hostility. Spammers would of course represent the first wave of hostility towards such an entity/organization, but that is not something that I personally would give a rat's ass about. (Let 'em complain. Who cares?) More serious issues would inevitably be raised with respect to the decisions and judgement calls that this organiza- tion would have to make regarding which lists are and which lists are not ``legitimate'' opt-in mailing lists. But I believe that in the case of this kind of a central authority, the exercise and potential abuses of power would be entirely less of a concern than in the cases of (say) the Internic or ARIN/RIPE/APNIC because sites could easily get the same sorts of information from other other, competing pro- viders of this same sort of service. In short, I believe that it would be far more likely for this sort of an ``information service'' to evolve to the point where there would be perhaps three or more major independent providers of this information... exactly like there are now three major credit bureaus... than it would be for something like an Internic or an ARIN to get some meaningful competition from alternative providers of the type of information that _they_ provide. In short, I am not too worried about this postulated ``central clearing house'' for mailing list information becoming an abusive, egotistical, unresponsive monopoly in the same way that (some say) the Internic has done. It just seems to me that such an evolution/outcome would be much less likely in this case. Still, there are those who will decry _any_ kind of singular authority if it has any significant impact upon the day-to-day functioning of the Internet, so whoever runs this thing would need to have a VERY thick skin. So? Any comments? Let's say that I set this all up next week. Just suppose. Can I see a show of hands of how many of you mailing list administrators would actually sign up, get an official handle for your mailing list and get a public/private encryption key pair? If nobody on the planet thinks this is a good idea, then I guess I'll drop the whole thing. But this _is_ a viable, complete, and long-term solution the whole bulk spam problem. If only legit people can successfully send out E-mail in bulk, then the days of spam (and spammers) will be gone forever. -- Ron Guilmette, Roseville, California ---------- E-Scrub Technologies, Inc. -- Deadbolt(tm) Personal E-Mail Filter demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/deadbolt/ -- Wpoison (web harvester poisoning) - demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/wpoison/ From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 10 20:41:36 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id UAA17383; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 20:31:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tekka.wwa.com (tekka.wwa.com [198.49.174.44]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id UAA17376 for ; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 20:31:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: by tekka.wwa.com via sendmail with stdio id for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:34:05 -0500 (CDT) (Smail-3.2 1996-Jul-4 #88 built 1997-Nov-30) Message-Id: From: dattier@wwa.com (David W. Tamkin) Subject: Re: Spam Filtering and Messy Details. To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:34:04 -0500 (CDT) In-Reply-To: <19693.897429518@monkeys.com> from "Ronald F. Guilmette" at Jun 9, 98 02:58:38 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] Content-Type: text Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk [Responding only to list-managers, not to spamtools, because I'm not a member of spamtools.] Ron Guilmette laid out his proposal and asked, | So? Any comments? Yes: how does the proposed central authority make sure that a list whose owner is attempting to register it is truly opt-in, so that list handles are not given to spammers and public keys not accepted from them? Since the list could not actually send mail out until it has been registered and assigned a handle, the central authority could not monitor the operation of the list before making a decision. Second, suppose a spammer files an application for an opt-in list as a decoy and gets it registered; what is to stop said spammer from using that regis- tration on UCE? The registration would be revoked forthwith, but another email address + another decoy application = another registration. DWT From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 10 21:26:37 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id VAA18257; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 21:25:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA18248 for ; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 21:25:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tibbs@localhost) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) id XAA17277; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 23:27:55 -0500 (CDT) To: "Roger B.A. Klorese" Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Finding A Listowner References: Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.100) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Jason L Tibbitts III Date: 10 Jun 1998 23:27:54 -0500 In-Reply-To: "Roger B.A. Klorese"'s message of "Mon, 1 Jun 1998 13:58:12 -0700 (PDT)" Message-ID: Lines: 40 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.9/Emacs 19.34 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >>>>> "RBAK" == Roger B A Klorese writes: RBAK> optimally, the list owner should always be reachable at the -request RBAK> address. (While some people automate this address, it's not clear to RBAK> me that's consistent with the RFC's, and I'd strongly suggest a copy RBAK> of all mail to that address go to the list manager.) See RFC 2142, which codifies this (not that I completely agree with it): 6. MAILING LIST ADMINISTRATION MAILBOX Mailing lists have an administrative mailbox name to which add/drop requests and other meta-queries can be sent. For a mailing list whose submission mailbox name is: there MUST be the administrative mailbox name: Distribution List management software, such as MajorDomo and Listserv, also have a single mailbox name associated with the software on that system -- usually the name of the software -- rather than a particular list on that system. Use of such mailbox names requires participants to know the type of list software employed at the site. This is problematic. Consequently: LIST-SPECIFIC (-REQUEST) MAILBOX NAMES ARE REQUIRED, INDEPENDENT OF THE AVAILABILITY OF GENERIC LIST SOFTWARE MAILBOX NAMES. Thus, if you run list administration software, it MUST sit at -request. Of course you aren't restricted from sending a copy to the owner, but I run software for the express reason of not having to see all of that mail. And for some reason, this RFC doesn't say anything about where the list owner sits, leaving the situation muddier than before. - J< From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 10 22:26:38 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id WAA19103; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:14:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from eagle.ns.net (eagle.ns.net [204.75.146.20]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id WAA19096 for ; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:13:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (rfg.ns.net [207.159.10.82]) by eagle.ns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA08557; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:16:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA09650; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:17:32 -0700 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Cc: spamtools@abuse.net Subject: Re: Spam Filtering and Messy Details. In-reply-to: Your message of Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:34:04 -0500. X-Copyright: (c) 1998 Ronald F. Guilmette; All rights reserved. Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:17:31 -0700 Message-ID: <9648.897542251@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In message , dattier@wwa.com (David W. Tamkin) wrote: >[Responding only to list-managers, not to spamtools, because I'm not a member > of spamtools.] > >Ron Guilmette laid out his proposal and asked, > >| So? Any comments? > >Yes: how does the proposed central authority make sure that a list whose >owner is attempting to register it is truly opt-in, so that list handles are >not given to spammers and public keys not accepted from them? Since the list >could not actually send mail out until it has been registered and assigned a >handle, the central authority could not monitor the operation of the list >before making a decision. Correct, so the default would necessarily be that requesting parties would be issued new handles and new public/private key pairs on a basically ``no question asked'' basis, except for lists being run from systems or networks or by people who have been known to try to abuse the process in the past (i.e. by registering lists that then later on turn out to be abusive). >Second, suppose a spammer files an application for an opt-in list as a decoy >and gets it registered; what is to stop said spammer from using that regis- >tration on UCE? Nothing, but one would assume that if that occured, then the central authority would be informend of the event very quickly via numerous reports and com- plaints from people who don't like to be spammed. Then would then disable or otherwise remove the registration for said list, and would endeavor to make it difficult or impossible for that same spammer to get a valid list handle and/or authorized public/private key pair in the future. >The registration would be revoked forthwith, but another >email address + another decoy application = another registration. In theory, yes, because as they say, on the Internet nobody know's you're a dog. By that I means that on the Internet new pseudo-identities can pretty much be manufactured frequently and at will. (This problem is really at the heart of spamming as we know it today.) In practice how- ever, my own work on creating and maintaining blacklists of recurrent spam sources leads me to feel very strongly that patterns of repetition _do_ emerge and reveal themselves to any watchful eye with surprising frequency, and that the vast majority of spam comes from a finite and in fact very limited number of networks which can be identified and then denied any further listings for ``authorized'' mailing lists by the central authority. (This is vaguely analogous to what Vixie is doing with his RBL, except that that system is based upon negative blacklisting, rather than affirmative whitelisting, as in the case of the system I have proposed.) -- Ron Guilmette, Roseville, California ---------- E-Scrub Technologies, Inc. -- Deadbolt(tm) Personal E-Mail Filter demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/deadbolt/ -- Wpoison (web harvester poisoning) - demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/wpoison/ From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 10 22:56:25 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id WAA19502; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:49:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id WAA19495 for ; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:49:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tibbs@localhost) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) id AAA19142; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 00:52:47 -0500 (CDT) To: "Roger B.A. Klorese" Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Finding A Listowner References: Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.100) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Jason L Tibbitts III Date: 11 Jun 1998 00:52:45 -0500 In-Reply-To: "Roger B.A. Klorese"'s message of "Wed, 10 Jun 1998 21:57:24 -0700 (PDT)" Message-ID: Lines: 25 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.9/Emacs 19.34 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >>>>> "RBAK" == Roger B A Klorese writes: RBAK> Nope. Mail to the -request mailbox MUST reach some administrative RBAK> force, whether a human or software. I don't believe that was the intent of the RFC. Otherwise they wouldn't mention Majordomo and Listserv's particular addresses; they'd just say that mail sent to -request has to go somewhere. But they go to the trouble of mentioning that software siting somewhere other than -request is the problem that they're trying to solve, which strongly implies that they want the software at -request. However, I believe that given enough flexibility you can read it either way, which makes the situation even worse. The only solution is to ask those who wrote the RFC, and even then it doesn't become instantly clarified. How did this thing even make it past draft status, anyway? I don't recall any mention of it here or anywhere else. RBAK> The software does NOT have to listen on that address. I believe that is the intention of the section. (Which frankly I don't agree with, which is why I want the thing clarified. But until it is, I will write software that automatically sits at -request.) - J< From list-managers-owner Wed Jun 10 23:41:25 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id XAA20404; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 23:41:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id XAA20397 for ; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 23:41:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tibbs@localhost) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) id BAA19649; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 01:44:14 -0500 (CDT) To: "Roger B.A. Klorese" Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Finding A Listowner References: Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.100) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Jason L Tibbitts III Date: 11 Jun 1998 01:44:14 -0500 In-Reply-To: "Roger B.A. Klorese"'s message of "Wed, 10 Jun 1998 23:00:02 -0700 (PDT)" Message-ID: Lines: 27 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.9/Emacs 19.34 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >>>>> "RBAK" == Roger B A Klorese writes: RBAK> I don't see how you could possibly read it the way you do. I'm not the only one; this has come up in majordomo-users and majordomo-workers and honestly I arrived at my current belief after arguing the point with others. Anyway, that's my complaint about 2142: it specifies all kinds of addresses to use in contacting various personnel but neglects to specify unequivocally how to reach list owners (which is, after all, the subject of this thread). And then there's 1211. I've seen arguments stating that it requires that -request go to a human. Sigh. RBAK> If Mj2 MUST run this way, I will not be running it; I get far too RBAK> many human-bound messages at the -request address to consider running RBAK> robots there. That's just the way it (currently) suggests Sendmail aliases; others have talked about figuring out how to make that configuration mandatory (by actually bouncing mail off of the aliases) but I think that would be both a waste of code and needlessly constraining. Given this confusion I'll probably make a site config controlling whether the suggested aliases point -request at the owner or at the list software. This really seems to be the only reasonable choice. - J< From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 00:11:32 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id AAA20916; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 00:00:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id AAA20908 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 00:00:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from chuqui2@localhost) by plaidworks.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id AAA32374 ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 00:04:28 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: chuqui2@plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: "Roger B.A. Klorese"'s message of "Wed, 10 Jun 1998 21:57:24 -0700 (PDT)" Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 00:02:55 -0700 To: Jason L Tibbitts III , "Roger B.A. Klorese" From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: Finding A Listowner Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 10:52 PM -0700 6/10/98, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote: > I believe that is the intention of the section. (Which frankly I don't > agree with, which is why I want the thing clarified. But until it is, I > will write software that automatically sits at -request.) Which is what I do. but I make sure that -request points a person at an address where a real human can be contacted if necessary. As someone who runs some fairly high-volume sites, the idea that a human being is there to handhold everyone is a laudable, but unrealistic goal. Many users have a tendency to ask for handholding first, and when you have sites with 700+ admin operations a day going on, a certain percentage of them will go sideways. And the admin ends up having to do triage, trying to take care of the stuff that's broke, so the folks who are just in too much of a hurry to do it themselves, well... I try to use automation to help folks figure it out for themselves, but always leave that side door for those that can't or for whom the system just plain old breaks (and it happens). but it's a side door, not the front door, because it honks off a few people to have to deal with a mailbot instead of a human, but it'd honk off many more if my response time were 2-3 weeks instead of 4-5 days, and if I didn't triage admin requests and push people back on the docs, FAQs and the like, that's what'd happen. You can push back too hard, too. It's a fine line and a judgement call. I'm (finally) actively rewriting all my stuff, trying to fine tune it a little better with some months of real-world usage and feedback under its belt. I sometimes get the feeling that the people who write these "thou shalt" docs run one or two lists with 100 users who never change e-mail addresses... It's sorta like folks who cook a burger at home on the grill telling McDonalds how to run their business.... (chalk this up as some long-winded "me too" in Jason's direction...) -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 00:41:30 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id AAA21180; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 00:27:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from postal.magibox.net (postal.magibox.net [206.26.142.145]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id AAA21173 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 00:27:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [206.28.74.88] (demeter-31.magibox.net [206.28.74.95]) by postal.magibox.net (8.9.0.Beta5/8.9.0.Beta5) with ESMTP id CAA06371; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 02:28:19 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender: bighouse@mail.magibox.net Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <19693.897429518@monkeys.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 02:35:35 -0500 To: "Ronald F. Guilmette" , spamtools@abuse.net, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Ken Hooper Subject: Re: Spam Filtering and Messy Details. Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >Think about this for a second... The simplest way to filter out all junk >E-mail on any given system which supports a substantial number of different >and independent E-mail accounts/user-IDs would be to write a little routine >in your MTA (or add a front end for your MTA) which simply keeps track of >the number of messages incoming from a given IP address within the past N >minutes (where `N' is some modest number like 30, 60, 120, or 180). Dunno whether this is true but I'm sure you'll never get any but a minority of list owners to implement it without coercing them somehow and that would be wrong. People can't even adhere to a reasonably uniform bounce message format, and there are demonstrable economic and social benefits (selfish ones!) to that, so why would the sea part for this? Another idea, somewhat comparable, is a standard that dictates the format of all automated list subscriptions which would be sent to the individual's ISP, not to the list server, there to have the local ISP automatically take note of the list and allow it through, and forward the request to the list server. Otherwise no BCCed mail or multiple hits. This is a trivial software problem if the standard exists but it never will and if it does people will ignore it especially Microsoft. 8) Show of hands: nope, we don't have a spam problem in any case and no wish to open the list to non-subscribers so we can have the opportunity to pursue all this encryption. 8) --Ken type2.com webmaster "If stupidity hurt like a toothache people might do something about it." --Greg Swann From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 02:11:26 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id BAA23949; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 01:57:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from eagle.ns.net (eagle.ns.net [204.75.146.20]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id BAA23924 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 01:57:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (rfg.ns.net [207.159.10.82]) by eagle.ns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA18288; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 01:59:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA21760; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 02:00:46 -0700 To: spamtools@abuse.net, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Spam Filtering and Messy Details. In-reply-to: Your message of Thu, 11 Jun 1998 02:35:35 -0500. X-Copyright: (c) 1998 Ronald F. Guilmette; All rights reserved. Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 02:00:45 -0700 Message-ID: <21758.897555645@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In message , Ken Hooper wrote: >>Think about this for a second... The simplest way to filter out all junk >>E-mail on any given system which supports a substantial number of different >>and independent E-mail accounts/user-IDs would be to write a little routine >>in your MTA (or add a front end for your MTA) which simply keeps track of >>the number of messages incoming from a given IP address within the past N >>minutes (where `N' is some modest number like 30, 60, 120, or 180). > >Dunno whether this is true but I'm sure you'll never get any but a minority >of list owners to implement it without coercing them somehow... I prefer to call it gentle persuasion. Either sign up or else your mailing list traffic will be rejected by my site as being probable spam. Of course, if we are talking about the monkeys.com domain (total of 1 user) nobody gives a damn. However if AOL decided to do this, or Hotmail, then I think that you would find a lot of list admins getting with the program. >... and that would be wrong. OK. I'll bite. Why? Are mailing list administrators like minor dieties or something? Is there something wrong with asking them to do their part to help end sbulk E-mail spam on the Internet?? >People can't even adhere to a reasonably uniform bounce message >format, and there are demonstrable economic and social benefits (selfish >ones!) to that, so why would the sea part for this? Maybe it wouldn't. I don't know. But most people are so sick of spam that I would think that it would be a much easier sell than you make it out to be. Oh sure, there are always going to be clueless twits that gever get it and who refuse to play, but that doesn't really matter. Critical mass is the key... i.e. getting to the point where most list admins just know, aprori, that ``this is the way things are done nowadays''. >Another idea, somewhat comparable, is a standard that dictates the format >of all automated list subscriptions which would be sent to the individual's >ISP, not to the list server, there to have the local ISP automatically take >note of the list and allow it through, and forward the request to the list >server. Otherwise no BCCed mail or multiple hits. Yup. That would work too, I think. >This is a trivial software problem... Well... maybe not entirely trivial. >... if the standard exists... Why does your alternative idea require any sort of standard?? You could implement it your way on your site, and I could have it implemented in a somewhat different way on my site. And we would both still be happy and both still be protected from spammers. >... but it never will and if it does >people will ignore it especially Microsoft. 8) I actually am beginning to like your idea... perhaps even more than my own. But I still don't see the need for any sort of universal standard here. In short, I think that _your_ idea can probably be implemented without either the help or consent or support of Microsoft. Here's a scenario... I open a new ISP. and I have a mail server setup so that it captures and remembers all _outgoing_ messages addressed to anything that fits one of the following patterns: *-request@* majordomo@* listserv@* listproc@* After this, the relevant recipient domains for these outgoing messages be- come (in effect) whitelisted for sending ``bulk'' mail (i.e. destined for multiple recipients) to my domain/server. All others are, by default, blocked from sending bulk mail to my server, where ``bulk'' is defined as a bunch of messages (more than 20?) coming from your server to my server within some short period of time (say 60 minutes). I can think of several refinements to this basic scheme.... for example remembering who sent mail to which list and checking all inputs against that sort of a table to make sure that people are only getting stuff from lists that they themselves communicated with in the past. If this sort of a thing would _not_ work, then please tell me why. Of course, there is the problem of pre-existing ISPs with bazillions of pre-existing customers who are already signed up to a bazillion or so legitimate lists. Sp you would have to work out some way of getting all of _those_ lists (or most of them anyway) into your local ``whitelisting'' data base for ``bulk mail'' sources before you cut over to the new system. But after that you would just tell your users: ``Hey! If you want to be on XYZ mailing list, then when you subscribe to XYZ, do it by sending your outbound subscription request through our mail servers, and then it will be OK. Otherwise you won't actually get to receive the mailing list traffic.'' >Show of hands: nope, we don't have a spam problem in any case... Eh?? Where do _you_ live?? >... and no wish >to open the list to non-subscribers so we can have the opportunity to >pursue all this encryption. 8) Sorry, I was following you right up until this cryptic comment which I can't even parse into English. Care to try that last part again? -- Ron Guilmette, Roseville, California ---------- E-Scrub Technologies, Inc. -- Deadbolt(tm) Personal E-Mail Filter demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/deadbolt/ -- Wpoison (web harvester poisoning) - demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/wpoison/ From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 04:11:27 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id EAA27444; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 04:05:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from frege.math.ethz.ch (frege-d-math-north-g-west.math.ethz.ch [129.132.145.3]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id EAA27437 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 04:05:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pythagoras (bollow@pythagoras [129.132.146.161]) by frege.math.ethz.ch (8.8.8/Main-STAT-mailer) with ESMTP id NAA14924; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 13:08:11 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (bollow@localhost) by pythagoras (SMI-8.6/D-MATH-client) id NAA24202; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 13:08:10 +0200 Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 13:08:10 +0200 Message-Id: <199806111108.NAA24202@pythagoras> From: Norbert Bollow Prefer-Language: de, en, fr To: spamtools@abuse.net, List-Managers@greatcircle.com In-reply-to: <19693.897429518@monkeys.com> (rfg@monkeys.com) Subject: Re: Spam Filtering and Messy Details. Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Ron Guilmette wrote among other things: > On the receiving end, sites which receive mail to some large number of their > users (say 20 or more) at about the same time from a given IP address would > check the message after the first 20 for the presence of a valid X-Opt-In: Here's a weak point of your proposal IMHO... Someone would write a tool for spammers to allow them to send out their spam with bogus orginating IP addresses (using IP spoofing). -- Norbert Bollow, Zuerich, Switzerland Backup E-mail address: NB@POBOX.COM Churchplanters E-mail conference, see http://genesis.acu.edu/cplant/ From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 04:28:27 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id EAA27775; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 04:19:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id EAA27750 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 04:19:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.0/8.9.0) id FAA12412; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 05:41:57 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19980611054157.A12406@gsp.org> Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 05:41:57 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Finding A Listowner References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1 In-Reply-To: ; from Jason L Tibbitts III on Wed, Jun 10, 1998 at 11:27:54PM -0500 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, Jun 10, 1998 at 11:27:54PM -0500, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote: > See RFC 2142, which codifies this (not that I completely agree with it): > > 6. MAILING LIST ADMINISTRATION MAILBOX > > [...] > > there MUST be the administrative mailbox name: > > I'm as delighted to see this as I dismayed by the number of new mailing lists I've seen announced whose only means of subscribing/unsubscribing is through a web interface. Not that having a web interface is bad; but ONLY having a web interface IS bad, because it locks out the zillions of people, who, for one reason or another (ranging from software support to firewalls to handicaps to bandwidth) have access to mail but not to the web. Not surprisingly, most of these lists seem to be run by relative newbies who think "Internet == web" and to whom the concept that "mailing lists should be accessible via mail" is foreign. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to cut-and-paste that excerpt into a number of pending messages. ;-) ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 05:11:30 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id FAA28377; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 05:03:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from elvis.vnet.net (elvis.vnet.net [166.82.1.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id FAA28370 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 05:03:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from katie.vnet.net (murr@katie.vnet.net [166.82.1.7]) by elvis.vnet.net (8.8.8/8.8.4) with ESMTP id IAA06152; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 08:06:12 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id IAA12423; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 08:06:10 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: katie.vnet.net: murr owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 08:06:10 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: spamtools@abuse.net cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Spam Filtering and Messy Details. In-Reply-To: <21758.897555645@monkeys.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: > I open a new ISP. and I have a mail server setup so that it captures > and remembers all _outgoing_ messages addressed to anything that > fits one of the following patterns: > > *-request@* > majordomo@* > listserv@* > listproc@* Biggest problem with this idea is that there is a trend towards using web forms for mailing list sign-ups (with email confirmation). If this becomes common practice, you will not have the opportunity to capture the out-bound "subscribe me" data. As for telling your local users that they need to register all list servers or they will not get their in-bound subscriptions, good luck. Most ISP lusers never read the details of policies and such... You'd have to intercept the in-bound list traffic and send a notice to anyone subscribed to an unregistered list. - murr - From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 07:56:50 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id HAA01037; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 07:55:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA01023 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 07:54:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from chuqui2@localhost) by plaidworks.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id HAA21884 ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 07:58:45 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: chuqui2@plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <19980611054157.A12406@gsp.org> References: ; from Jason L Tibbitts III on Wed, Jun 10, 1998 at 11:27:54PM -0500 Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 07:28:59 -0700 To: Rich Kulawiec , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: Finding A Listowner Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 2:41 AM -0700 6/11/98, Rich Kulawiec wrote: > Not that having a web interface is bad; but ONLY having a web > interface IS bad, because it locks out the zillions of people, Not really true any more, Rich. We just did our first web-only signup list at Apple. It's getting 250-300 new subscribers a day. In the last six weeks or so, three folks have complained about a lack of an e-mail interface. A year ago, this wouldn't have been realistic. Now, it is. A lot depends on your audience, but the web is just so pervasive now, you *can* tell someone to go get a web browser. And it's just starting to cause the entire communication paradigm to be rethought. We have plans over the next 18 months to really take advantage of these new technologies and do something much different than "mail list".. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Mail lists are just ONE tool in a communication strategy. Or should be just one tool... -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 08:11:27 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id HAA01079; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 07:56:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA01058 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 07:56:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from chuqui2@localhost) by plaidworks.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id HAA31618 ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 07:58:46 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: chuqui2@plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: <21758.897555645@monkeys.com> Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 07:31:18 -0700 To: murr rhame , spamtools@abuse.net From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: Spam Filtering and Messy Details. Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 5:06 AM -0700 6/11/98, murr rhame wrote: > As for telling your local users that they need to register all list > servers or they will not get their in-bound subscriptions, good luck. Yup. Heck, if someone tries to enforce these things on my site, I'll stop running mail lists. I'll do something else that might look like mail lists a lot, but won't be mail lists. These proposals are nice to talk about, but there's zero enforcement mechanism, so they won't go anywhere. The places that need them most will never hear about them, and evne if you tell them, they'll ignore you. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 08:27:24 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id HAA01111; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 07:59:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA01103 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 07:59:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA03573 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:01:52 -0500 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA07920 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:01:51 -0500 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199806111501.KAA07920@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Ron's idea To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:01:51 -0500 (CDT) Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Although I think there may be numerous details to be worked out, I think Ron has the germ of a viable idea going. Some form of public key identifier in a header is the only viable validation scheme I've come up with when I've thought about it. However, I'd like to see the whole concept taken much further, well beyond just mailing list issues. Pardon me while I philosophise online here, and if anyone thought Ron's proposal had a lot of details to be resolved this one has even more! What I think is needed is some kind of central 'transfer of payments' authority for the entire Internet, analagous to what the long distance phone carriers have. (This is a very radical proposal, it probably involves completely restructuring both the packet forwarding and the cost system for the Internet, but that's something that has already happened once in the past few years, more or less by default, this time it would have to happen by conscious design.) Under my idea, EVERY Internet packet would carry a cost with it, to be assumed by either the sending or receiving party and debited against the account. Intermediate carriers could conceivably get a share of this fee, and that fee might ultimately replace many other connect charges. (And if that means that carriers begin to fight over the right to carry traffic, as opposed to the current system where they dont' seem to care much whether they have MY business or not, much like the long distance phone carriers fight for my account, then I see this as a potentially VERY Good Thing.) The trick becomes establishing who is paying for each transaction. Consider a mailng list. In general it would be paid for by the recipient, with each recipient supplying an encrypted validation tag back to the list software, possibly as part of the subscription confirmation process. There could also be examples of mailing lists where the sender pays for the transaction, or even ones where the POSTER of each message pays for its distribution. One problem deals with bounced/forwarded messages, which for sender/author paid transactions could represent a problem and could represent a means of avoiding the accounting for recipient paid messages. I'm not sure how to resolve that one yet. Payment for individual e-mail (not list traffic, so not encoded with a payment validation tag) could be negotiated as part of the SMTP exchange. If I was running a tech support operation, I'd probably be willing to pay the inbound mail fee for every e-mail. Otherwise that fee would have to be paid by the sender, effectively ending the current situation where a spammer can send millions of messages for essentially nothing. If each e-mail costs something, even if as little as 1/100th of a cent, sending a million messages at least costs SOMETHING. And having some kind of payment tag would give mail filters one more thing to use in trying to route traffic or filter out UCE, even if the sender is paying the freight. I think this would even work for relayed or gatewayed messages, because if the mail was tagged as 'recipient must pay for' it would be rejected for non-payment some time before it reached the addressee. There would be some 'lost revenue' for this, but I think it would be a small percentage compared to the amount of properly 'paid for' traffic processed. And there would be a certain amount of administrative traffic to deal with the negotiation for e-mail, but I don't see that as any worse than the current spam problem in terms of bandwidth requirements. Now consider WWW requests. The recpient would pay for the hits requested. This might generate sufficient revenue to the web page owner that information providers might even be able to become self supporting without resorting to annoying advertisements, which seems to me to be the reason that Java applets were created, or at least their most common use. Would I pay 1 cent to get today's 'DILBERT' comic strip? Sure. Would I pay a small fee for the baseball box scores? Sure. And if I don't want to pay for graphics, I make that part of my request, possibly forcing more web designers to THINK about page content. Even though I've got a 64K connection to the net now, I still find far too many pages that take forever to load up because some designer get carried away with graphics, sounds, etc. Things like Realaudio, telnet and USENET traffic get a lot tricker to incorporate into this proposal, in part because I'm reaching the limit of my knowledge about how these work at the packet level. OK, now everybody tell me how crazy I am! -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 08:57:12 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id IAA02910; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 08:52:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sun.syzygy.co.uk (sun.syzygy.co.uk [195.26.96.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA02903 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 08:52:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from neutron.syzygy.co.uk (neutron.syzygy.co.uk [195.26.97.182]) by sun.syzygy.co.uk (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA29146; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 16:50:59 +0100 (BST) From: "Kief Morris" To: "Ronald F. Guilmette" , , Subject: RE: Spam Filtering and Messy Details. Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 16:51:04 +0100 Message-ID: <000601bd9550$bd5db800$b6611ac3@neutron.syzygy.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 In-Reply-To: <19693.897429518@monkeys.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Importance: Normal Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > The central mailing list information clearing house would likewise > and inevitably become the subject of heated debate and, most likely, > raging hostility. Although I'm not generally a paranoid anarchist, I object to the idea of making setting up mailing lists a bureaucratic process. Right now anybody and their dog can set up a mailing list without having to go through some kind of application process. Having such a process will discourage grass roots, non-technical, non-official type people from setting up lists. One thing that has always made the Net strong is that anybody can become a publisher. It also opens up the door to those who would like to regulate such things. Once you've decided that it's OK to ban mailing lists for one reason - because of spammers - it's easy to start tacking on new reasons to ban them - next it's software piracy, then child porn, then adult porn, then profanity, then anything anyone finds offensive. This scheme would put the mechanism in place to make this easy to do, and you know politicians will latch onto it. > Let's say that I set this all up next week. Just suppose. Can I see a show > of hands of how many of you mailing list administrators would actually sign > up, get an official handle for your mailing list and get a public/private > encryption key pair? Sorry, not me. Again, the strength of the Net is that it gives power to individuals. Yes, that makes the Net is a messy place, because not all individuals are good or responsible. But I don't like the idea of taking power away from individuals, no matter how benevolent and enlightened the central authority and its purpose. - Kief From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 09:27:44 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id JAA03561; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:12:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA03543 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:12:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.0/8.9.0) id MAA15552; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 12:16:24 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19980611121622.A14985@gsp.org> Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 12:16:22 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Finding A Listowner References: ; <19980611054157.A12406@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1 In-Reply-To: ; from Chuq Von Rospach on Thu, Jun 11, 1998 at 07:28:59AM -0700 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, Jun 11, 1998 at 07:28:59AM -0700, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > Not really true any more, Rich. [...] I guess your readership differs from mine; on one mailing list that I handle, roughly 5% of the people have access to mail but not to the web. Locking those people out isn't a viable option (their contributions and their presence are valuable), so I've made sure that they can participate even though they're (mostly) on non-IP networks. My concern (well, one of my concerns) is that the web is so seductive that everyone is falling all over themselves to provide a web interface -- to mailing lists, to news servers, to network management s/w, etc. This is all very glitzy and nice but I find that it serves no real purpose, and in fact may do harm by obscuring the underlying details, an understanding of which is crucial to end users whether they realize it or not. For example, I find that many, many end users are confused by the difference between mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups -- which have similar, but differing standards for content, netiquette, etc. -- because they use a web-based interface that doesn't clearly distinguish between them. This is not to say that these two mediums won't converge and one day be indistinguishable; perhaps they will. But they are at present quite different and client software which obscures this does a disservice to the end user and to the 'net community. --Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 09:42:11 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id JAA03874; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:28:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA03867 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:28:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from chuqui@localhost) by plaidworks.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id JAA38770 ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:32:01 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:15:59 -0700 To: "Roger B.A. Klorese" , Chuq Von Rospach From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: Finding A Listowner Cc: Jason L Tibbitts III , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >listserv anyway. And most people who are too stupid to put it together >send it to the posting address. I wouldn't use the word stupid. There are stupid users out there, but mostly, it's new/naive users. A lot comes down to handholding and education. >Well, we're at 100+ lists (plus digests plus hidden owner lists), and >about 30,000 aggregated subscriptions -- not huge, but not tiny. Apple is 150 lists with over 100,000 unique addresses subscribed (many to multiple lists. Total subscription base is 150,000). and plaidworks is another 50ish lists with 8,000 subscribers (about 6,000 unique). just for comparison. > And the >number of staggeringly frustrated notes we get a week indicate that the >process has to become RADICALLY simpler... which means both better >engineering and a shorter path to a human. I've been putting a LOT of work into doing just this the last year or so. All my majordomo stuff is front-ended with procmail, and I use procmail to try to help users get what they want done done (redirecting common problems to the right address, for instance), or returning customized messages explaining errors and how to resolve them. I've found that simply returning the Majordomo help file doesn't answer user's questions, so I try to intercept the most common mistakes and send back something customized for that mistake. My sites now have exceptionally low error rates, which is good, but I've still got some warts to clear up. I'm rewriting the rewritten documentation one more time, and doing some major revamping to clear up some issues I have with it. And then I'm going to take 48 hours of e-mail, every bloody piece of it, and track exactly what happens to each piece, to make sure I don't have any hidden staked-pits or black holes, and to make sure the numbers I'm evaluating this beast on are really accurate (for one thing, I can't really judge how many people don't START the subscription process. And I don't have solid numbers on how many send a subscribe, but never follow through on the authorization. I do know how many have problems with the authorization, and that's tiny, but I need better metrics on just how intimidating the mailbacks are. My not-rigid numbers show it's not a major hassle). > List-managers should consider >if they can handle the load under the worst case -- where every subscriber >is a clueless newbie who sends "Dear Mister Domo, what am I doing wrong, I disagree. That's like saying nobody should drive unless they know how to fix anything that might happen to the car along the trip. A driver should be skilled at driving the car and able to handle emergency situations (like changing a flat tire), but if the engine falls out, it falls out. That doesn't mean you shouldn't drive if you can't do a ring-job on it on the expressway.... -- Chuq Von Rospach, Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + (Hockey fan? ) From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 10:12:19 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id JAA04667; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:57:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA04645 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:57:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from chuqui@localhost) by plaidworks.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA31292 ; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:01:46 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:56:19 -0700 To: "Roger B.A. Klorese" , Chuq Von Rospach From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: Finding A Listowner Cc: Jason L Tibbitts III , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >No, it means you shouldn't estimate your driving time based on best road >conditions, but rather, on near-WORST road conditions. Disagree (still). To beat the analogy into a pulp, you should estimate your driving time based on realistic road conditions -- no sense planning for near-worst road conditions, really. I can't see carrying chains to Reno in July, just in case a blizzard rolls in and closes Truckie pass. -- Chuq Von Rospach, Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + (Hockey fan? ) From list-managers-owner Thu Jun 11 10:57:21 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id KAA06354; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:44:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id KAA06346 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:44:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from queernet.queernet.org (queernet.queernet.org [140.174.78.69]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id WAA19591 for ; Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:57:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (rogerk@localhost) by queernet.queernet.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA13392 Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 23:00:02 -0700 (PDT) From: "Roger B.A. Klorese" To: Jason L Tibbitts III cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Finding A Listowner In-Reply-To: