From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 01:12:50 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id AAA11524; Fri, 1 May 1998 00:53:12 -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 AAA11516 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 00:53:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (segfault.monkeys.com [204.119.242.200]) by eagle.ns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id AAA15129 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 00:55:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA31881 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 01:02:54 -0700 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing In-reply-to: Your message of Thu, 30 Apr 1998 21:17:13 -0400. X-Copyright: (c) 1998 Ronald F. Guilmette; All rights reserved. Date: Fri, 01 May 1998 01:02:53 -0700 Message-ID: <31836.894009773@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In message , murr rhame wrote: >Speaking of general security issues, if your list is well known and >unmoderated, see if non-subscribers can post. A Spamford need not >gather your subscriber addresses if all they have to do is make a post >to your list to distribute their spam. Unless you have a special >reason to differ, unmoderated mailing lists should only accept posts >from list subscribers. Yes. definitely. P.S. Actually, Spamford Wallace never got into spamming mailing lists directly. There was however one real hardcore thief/jerk named ``Krazy Kevin'' who used to exclusively spam mailing lists and nothing else. He was always selling discount magazine subscriptions. Authorities in New York State finally caught up to him and successfully prosecuted him for fraud and I think he even ended up doing some jail time. It seems that people who sent him money for magazine subscriptions often only received one or two issues of their requested magazines and then the subscriptions mysteriously stopped coming. Another good argument for never buying _anything_ from a spammer. -- 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 Fri May 1 03:52:29 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id DAA16888; Fri, 1 May 1998 03:37:30 -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 DAA16874 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 03:37:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id GAA14179; Fri, 1 May 1998 06:33:47 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19980501063347.A14170@gsp.org> Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 06:33:47 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Interesting piece of mail this morning (forwarded) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Y'know, it's amazing what people will resort to in order to avoid reasoned argument when their preconceived notions are threatened. I suppose this insulting and ostrich-like response is Jason's way of answering the issues that Ron (and now I, and others) have raised. I shouldn't be surprised: on various mailing lists, I'm starting to see more and more of this from newbies, who simply can't handle the reality that the Internet is a complex place, and effectively offering services -- whether they be mailing lists, web sites, or anything else -- is NOT as easy as they hypsters would like us all to believe. It *does* require a large body of technical knowledge, and those who think there's an easy way around that are not only doomed to failure, they are also highly likely to inflict collateral damage on the very community they are trying to serve, as well as the rest of us. (Maybe someday it'll be simpler. Now is emphatically not that someday.) It was one thing to plead ignorance 15 years ago, when you could fit all the books on Unix and the Arpanet in your briefcase and have room left over for lunch. But to do so today is fatuous: there are not only books, but web sites and FAQs and how-to guides and such an incredible wealth of information that only those who deliberately avoid educating themselves can manage not to learn something. And refusing to listen to people with nearly two decades of online experience -- just because what they're saying makes you uncomfortable -- is a pretty good way to do that. ---Rsk ----- Forwarded message from Jason Rasku ----- > > From: Jason Rasku > Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 20:13:46 -0700 (PDT) > To: Rich Kulawiec > Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing > > plonk... > > -- > Jason Rasku, Box 270, Rossland, B.C., V0G 1Y0, (250) 362-5701, > LinuxBox: (250) 362-9668. [Excessive signature trimmed] ----- End forwarded message ----- From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 06:07:58 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id GAA19031; Fri, 1 May 1998 06:00:05 -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 FAA18986 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 05:59:54 -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 JAA03082; Fri, 1 May 1998 09:00:21 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id JAA05308; Fri, 1 May 1998 09:00:15 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: katie.vnet.net: murr owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 09:00:14 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: Rich Kulawiec cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing In-Reply-To: <19980430220623.B9610@gsp.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, Rich Kulawiec wrote: > Name three. > > I would expect that any such answer would (a) name the mailing lists > explicitly and (b) explain who they are run by and that person(s)'s > level of knowledge and (c) provide adequate justification for why > they should be considered "the most valuable lists on the internet". An essay exam? [plonk] Two out of three of your criteria are completely subjective. You are the only one on the planet who could provide answers which you find satisfactory. It's tough to be tried by law-maker, judge and jury rolled into one. If you are a listowner who uses a well run server, you need not be an email wizard. I usually send a one page description of setup options to a new owner. I also send a one page listowner command quick-ref with examples all of the owner commands they are likely to use. I arrange a phone call in which I check their general skills and discuss the joys and pitfalls of running a list. I setup the list in a secure manner and send them on their way. Even a Mac user who has never seen a command line can be up to speed in short order. After a brief period of hand-holding, they are on their own. The person who "runs the list" need not be an email genius to responsibly run a successful mailing list. A good site manger is available to handle the tough technical questions. - murr - From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 06:37:38 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id GAA19419; Fri, 1 May 1998 06:22:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from siberia.demon.co.uk (siberia.demon.co.uk [158.152.123.170]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA19412 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 06:22:32 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <199805011229.claire.98050048@siberia.demon.co.uk> From: claire@siberia.demon.co.uk (Claire McNab) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 12:29:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing Reply-to: Claire@siberia.demon.co.uk References: Your message of Wed, 29 Apr 1998 20:29:49 +0100. <199804292029.claire.98047419@siberia.demon.co.uk> In-reply-to: <7954.893888735@monkeys.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.54) via PM-Demon V4.04 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 29 Apr 98 at 15:25, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: > >> The list participants (and their opinions) tend to have an effect > >> upon the behavior of the list admin. > > > >Ron, do you really reckon that the best way to encourage them to > >have an effect is to pour out 4-letter words, as you claim to do? > > Yup. Ron, I guess that reply says a lot. I've met a few other men with that sort of attitude (sadly, it's neatly always _men_). And for some reason, they always seem to find people "picking on them". I wonder why it is that the only person on this list who seems to get maliciously subbed to other lists is you? > The world existed for untold millenia _before_ you and your mailing > list came along, and it will probably manage to survive somehow > even after your list disappears (or morphs into a radio call-in > show). Ron, before that list existed, a lot of ppl in the area that uses this list used to commit suicide. They still do. But in each of the three cases where ppl came close to the edge when they were on the list, someone was able to step in promptly: in one case we got someone to the person when her wrists were already cut. Sure, the world would go on. But the graveyards would a wee bit fuller. I happen to regard that as a bad thing. > Even if you really do not want your list to disappear, if _you_ > can't ad-minister it properly (and in a non abusive way) then > please consider stepping aside and letting someone more > well-clued have a whack at it. I don't like the situation of no confirmation: I know it's open to abuse, and I want to close it. So does the site admin. But the site admin is constrained in several ways as to which software she can run, and the available software does not include sub confirmation. So far, we have had *one* instance of someone involuntarily subbed, dealt with promptly (we have 24-hour-a-day list admins). That loophole *will* be closed: it just can't be done instantly, much as I want it to be. And on other lists I run, where I have choice of software, sub confirmation is top of the list of *required* features for the MLM software. > (This isn't directed at you in particular. My comments here are meant to > apply equally to _all_ list admins.) > > >I was in that situation myself: I > >didn't like it, but no amount of abuse from anyone would change the > >situation. > > Translation: I knew I was running a badly configured and > potentially abusive mailing list, Wrong. Not a "potentially abusive list" -- rather, one that has a loophole which leaves it open to abuse by others. There's an important difference: this list itself is *not* potentially abusive. > but to hell with everbody else on > the planet. Me and my needs come first. Nope. The people for whom we provide the support facility come first. If a malicious third party exploits a loophole before we succeed in closing it, all I ask is that the victim of that abuse doesn't create more victims. It's a general principle that works well elsewhere in life -- take a peep in any court, and you'll see the law applying it every day of the week. > Have you ever considered taking up spamming? You already have the > ethical mindset for it. Now all you need is some spamware and a > target address list or two. You're very confused, aren't you Ron? You can't distinguish between someone who commits an offence and someone who has not taken every conceivable step to stop others offending. We agree entirely about the importance of subscription confirmation: the difference is in how we respond to abuse when it occurs. But frankly, I've had enough. There was a time when this list included a lot of coherent discussion, but increasingly the bandwidth seems to be taken up with lots of folks trying in vain to explain good manners to someone who doesn't seem to get the basic message that civility is a two-way street, that problems ain't best resolved by escalating them to hurt others, and that two wrongs don't make a right. Rather than hunt through the chaff for the gems that are still in there somewhere, I'm going to save my bandwidth and diskspace, and unsub for a while. Best wishes, Claire -- Claire McNab -- Claire@siberia.demon.co.uk From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 06:52:32 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id GAA19861; Fri, 1 May 1998 06:46:29 -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 GAA19854 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 06:46:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id JAA00987; Fri, 1 May 1998 09:49:17 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19980501094916.A982@gsp.org> Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 09:49:16 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing References: <19980430220623.B9610@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1 In-Reply-To: ; from murr rhame on Fri, May 01, 1998 at 09:00:14AM -0400 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, May 01, 1998 at 09:00:14AM -0400, murr rhame wrote: > On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, Rich Kulawiec wrote: > > > Name three. > > > > I would expect that any such answer would (a) name the mailing lists > > explicitly and (b) explain who they are run by and that person(s)'s > > level of knowledge and (c) provide adequate justification for why > > they should be considered "the most valuable lists on the internet". > > An essay exam? [plonk] Two out of three of your criteria are > completely subjective. [...] They're not my criteria. They're Ron's. I simply gave my take on what an answer would look like -- and I could easily be wrong, since I was interpreting what Ron had to say. For an authoritative answer, I suggest you ask him. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 08:52:35 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id IAA22516; Fri, 1 May 1998 08:52:07 -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 IAA22508 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 08:51:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from lazlo@localhost) by kitsune.swcp.com (8.8.8/1.2.3) id JAA25015; Fri, 1 May 1998 09:53:58 -0600 (MDT) Message-ID: <19980501095358.A23793@swcp.com> Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 09:53:58 -0600 From: Lazlo Nibble To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Summary: Prevalence of mailing list bombing Mail-Followup-To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM References: <354920E4.CCC2C60C@iname.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <354920E4.CCC2C60C@iname.com>; from Pete St. Onge on Thu, Apr 30, 1998 at 09:09:56PM -0400 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, Apr 30, 1998 at 09:09:56PM -0400, Pete St. Onge wrote: > That said, what resources are there for list admins (irrespective > of their experience level)? 1) The Documentation. 2) The FAQ. Maybe this suggestion sounds facetious and snotty, but a number of the people who are squealing loudest in this thread have very obviously never looked at (or even for) either one. > Perhaps within the expertise of this list, we could put together a > general overview of list operations, perhaps even with specific examples for > the various list progs. If the existing FAQs and documentation aren't sufficient to your needs, O'Reilly has a book on list administration out. I don't really see why all the effort put into existing materials needs to be duplicated, but if you're bound and determined, by all means, go for it. -- ::: Lazlo (lazlo@swcp.com; http://www.swcp.com/lazlo) ::: Internet Music Wantlists: http://www.swcp.com/lazlo/Wantlists From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 09:07:32 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id JAA22780; Fri, 1 May 1998 09:02:04 -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 JAA22763 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 09:01:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA02545; Fri, 1 May 1998 12:04:39 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19980501120438.A2511@gsp.org> Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 12:04:38 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing References: <19980430220623.B9610@gsp.org> <19980501094916.A982@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1 In-Reply-To: <19980501094916.A982@gsp.org>; from Rich Kulawiec on Fri, May 01, 1998 at 09:49:16AM -0400 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk A correction to my own note: On Fri, May 01, 1998 at 09:49:16AM -0400, Rich Kulawiec wrote: > They're not my criteria. They're Ron's. I simply gave my take on > what an answer would look like -- and I could easily be wrong, since I > was interpreting what Ron had to say. For an authoritative answer, > I suggest you ask him. Actually, they belong to Norbert Bollow , who made the statement in question. Ron merely asked him to name three which satisfied the criteria...which neither he nor anyone else has, yet. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 09:22:36 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id JAA23342; Fri, 1 May 1998 09:21:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from eagle.inetnebr.com (eagle.inetnebr.com [199.184.119.14]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA23335 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 09:21:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from carrot.tssi.com (root@gateway2.tssi.com [198.136.212.126]) by eagle.inetnebr.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA29755 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 11:23:43 -0500 (CDT) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.136.212.25]) by carrot.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA10177 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 11:23:42 -0500 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA08557 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 11:23:41 -0500 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199805011623.LAA08557@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: Summary: Prevalence of mailing list bombing (fwd) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 11:23:41 -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 > If the existing FAQs and documentation aren't sufficient to your needs, > O'Reilly has a book on list administration out. I don't really see why all > the effort put into existing materials needs to be duplicated, but if you're > bound and determined, by all means, go for it. Not all mailing list software packages have excellent documentation or FAQ's, and a lot of the information it takes to run a list isn't directly related to the list software itself, but to other aspects of e-mail. The first I'd heard of this particular book from O'Reilly was on this list earlier this week. That's unusual because I generally receive press releases from them, and have gotten review copies of several of their Unix-related books. I'm one of those who would buy most O'Reilly books sight unseen, (I own about 40 of them), though I a bit skeptical of the ability to distill the knowledge, wisdom, and patience it takes to be a successful list manager into ANY book. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 09:54:18 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id JAA23962; Fri, 1 May 1998 09:44:28 -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 JAA23955 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 09:44:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (segfault.monkeys.com [204.119.242.200]) by eagle.ns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA06997 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 09:46:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA13001 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 09:54:17 -0700 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Summary: Prevalence of mailing list bombing In-reply-to: Your message of Fri, 01 May 1998 09:53:58 -0600. <19980501095358.A23793@swcp.com> X-Copyright: (c) 1998 Ronald F. Guilmette; All rights reserved. Date: Fri, 01 May 1998 09:54:17 -0700 Message-ID: <12999.894041657@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In message <19980501095358.A23793@swcp.com>, Lazlo Nibble wrote: >On Thu, Apr 30, 1998 at 09:09:56PM -0400, Pete St. Onge wrote: > >> That said, what resources are there for list admins (irrespective >> of their experience level)? > >1) The Documentation. >2) The FAQ. Since we are on the subject, allow _me_ to ask ``Where _is_ the FAQ exactly?'' I've been loking for it myself and (as you might imagine) I'd like to per- haps make a contribution or two to it on the topic of security. >Maybe this suggestion sounds facetious and snotty, but a number of the people >who are squealing loudest in this thread have very obviously never looked at >(or even for) either one. Well, even _I_ wouldn't go that far. A lot of people, myself included, are not even sure precisely where the FAQ is. It's hard to benefit from a resources if you don't know weher it is. >> Perhaps within the expertise of this list, we could put together a >> general overview of list operations, perhaps even with specific examples for >> the various list progs. > >If the existing FAQs and documentation aren't sufficient to your needs, >O'Reilly has a book on list administration out... Now _that_ should be a very useful bit of information for the participants here! (I for one didn't know anything about this new book until you men- tioned it.) I just popped over to O'Reilly's web site and found the page on it. Here's the URL for the benefit of anyone else who might be interested: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mailing/ -- 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 Fri May 1 10:22:39 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id KAA24563; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:13:57 -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 KAA24556 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:13:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (segfault.monkeys.com [204.119.242.200]) by eagle.ns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA08737 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:15:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA13827 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:23:41 -0700 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing In-reply-to: Your message of Fri, 01 May 1998 09:49:16 -0400. <19980501094916.A982@gsp.org> X-Copyright: (c) 1998 Ronald F. Guilmette; All rights reserved. Date: Fri, 01 May 1998 10:23:40 -0700 Message-ID: <13825.894043420@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In message <19980501094916.A982@gsp.org>, Rich Kulawiec wrote: >On Fri, May 01, 1998 at 09:00:14AM -0400, murr rhame wrote: >> On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, Rich Kulawiec wrote: >> >> > Name three. >> > >> > I would expect that any such answer would (a) name the mailing lists >> > explicitly and (b) explain who they are run by and that person(s)'s >> > level of knowledge and (c) provide adequate justification for why >> > they should be considered "the most valuable lists on the internet". >> >> An essay exam? [plonk] Two out of three of your criteria are >> completely subjective. [...] > >They're not my criteria. They're Ron's. I simply gave my take on >what an answer would look like -- and I could easily be wrong, since I >was interpreting what Ron had to say. For an authoritative answer, >I suggest you ask him. I will accept without proof that there are indeed many mailing lists on the net that large groups of people find to be very useful and valuable resources _and_ which are badly administered by people who don't know what they are doing. In such cases, the ``value'' of the list is highly dependent upon who you ask. The subscribers may steadfastly assert that the thing is very valuable, whereas if you ask me, _I_ may say that (overall) the thing is mostly just a net-menace which ought to be quietly done away with. (Other people who have been subscription bombed... e.g. ... may perhaps also take a position similar to mine.) -- 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 Fri May 1 10:37:25 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id KAA24852; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:27:06 -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 KAA24838 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:26:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (segfault.monkeys.com [204.119.242.200]) by eagle.ns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA09524 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:28:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA14331 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:36:54 -0700 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: FYI - List security and that new O'Reilly book X-Copyright: (c) 1998 Ronald F. Guilmette; All rights reserved. Date: Fri, 01 May 1998 10:36:54 -0700 Message-ID: <14329.894044214@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I was just browsing the online index for that new O'Reilly book about mailing list administration, and I see that the author has several single- page references on `security' listed in the index, broken down by specific type of list admin package (e.g. Listproc, LISTSERV, Majordomo, Smartlist). The author also seems to have a four page section on ``abuse of mailing lists''. Having not seen the book itself, I can only assume that he covers the most important three topics in this area, i.e.: o risks of allowing non-subscribers to post o risks of allowing the subscriber address list to be harvested o risks of accepting new subscriptions without confirmation -- 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 Fri May 1 10:42:34 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id KAA25007; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:30:26 -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 KAA24998 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:30:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from lazlo@localhost) by kitsune.swcp.com (8.8.8/1.2.3) id LAA07810; Fri, 1 May 1998 11:32:21 -0600 (MDT) Message-ID: <19980501113220.A6236@swcp.com> Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 11:32:20 -0600 From: Lazlo Nibble To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Summary: Prevalence of mailing list bombing Mail-Followup-To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM References: <19980501095358.A23793@swcp.com> <12999.894041657@monkeys.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <12999.894041657@monkeys.com>; from Ronald F. Guilmette on Fri, May 01, 1998 at 09:54:17AM -0700 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, May 01, 1998 at 09:54:17AM -0700, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: >>> That said, what resources are there for list admins (irrespective of >>> their experience level)? >> >> 1) The Documentation. >> 2) The FAQ. > > Since we are on the subject, allow _me_ to ask ``Where _is_ the FAQ > exactly?'' The majordomo FAQ is at http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/FAQ.html. Users of other list admin software should check the software's documentation to find out whether there's a FAQ for their package, and if so, where it lives. >> Maybe this suggestion sounds facetious and snotty, but a number of the >> people who are squealing loudest in this thread have very obviously >> never looked at (or even for) either one. > > Well, even _I_ wouldn't go that far. A lot of people, myself included, > are not even sure precisely where the FAQ is. I find that when looking for the majordomo FAQ, going to a search engine and looking for the words "majordomo FAQ" can be surprisingly helpful. -- ::: Lazlo (lazlo@swcp.com; http://www.swcp.com/lazlo) ::: Internet Music Wantlists: http://www.swcp.com/lazlo/Wantlists From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 11:08:36 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id LAA25830; Fri, 1 May 1998 11:02:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp02.primenet.com (smtp02.primenet.com [206.165.6.132]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA25823 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 11:02:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp02.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id LAA05273; Fri, 1 May 1998 11:04:22 -0700 (MST) Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 11:04:22 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199805011804.LAA05273@smtp02.primenet.com> Received: from ip-23-176.phx.primenet.com(206.165.23.176), claiming to be "primenet.primenet.com" via SMTP by smtp02.primenet.com, id smtpd005239; Fri May 1 11:04:19 1998 X-Sender: bobg@pop.primenet.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Claire@siberia.demon.co.uk, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: bobg@primenet.com (Robert L. Guertin) Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Please quit spamming me and take my address off your list, thank you. From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 11:16:07 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id LAA25873; Fri, 1 May 1998 11:05:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp02.primenet.com (smtp02.primenet.com [206.165.6.132]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA25865 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 11:05:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp02.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id LAA06086; Fri, 1 May 1998 11:06:07 -0700 (MST) Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 11:06:07 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199805011806.LAA06086@smtp02.primenet.com> Received: from ip-23-176.phx.primenet.com(206.165.23.176), claiming to be "primenet.primenet.com" via SMTP by smtp02.primenet.com, id smtpd005977; Fri May 1 11:05:57 1998 X-Sender: bobg@pop.primenet.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: murr rhame , Rich Kulawiec From: bobg@primenet.com (Robert L. Guertin) Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Please quit spamming me and take my address off your list, thank you. From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 11:21:59 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id LAA25692; Fri, 1 May 1998 11:00:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp02.primenet.com (smtp02.primenet.com [206.165.6.132]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id KAA25685 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:59:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp02.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id LAA03722; Fri, 1 May 1998 11:00:39 -0700 (MST) Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 11:00:39 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199805011800.LAA03722@smtp02.primenet.com> Received: from ip-23-176.phx.primenet.com(206.165.23.176), claiming to be "primenet.primenet.com" via SMTP by smtp02.primenet.com, id smtpd003600; Fri May 1 11:00:29 1998 X-Sender: bobg@pop.primenet.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Rich Kulawiec , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: bobg@primenet.com (Robert L. Guertin) Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Please quit spamming me and take my address off your list, thank you. From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 11:22:27 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id KAA25554; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:54:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp02.primenet.com (smtp02.primenet.com [206.165.6.132]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id KAA25546 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:54:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp02.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA01786; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:56:18 -0700 (MST) Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 10:56:18 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199805011756.KAA01786@smtp02.primenet.com> Received: from ip-23-176.phx.primenet.com(206.165.23.176), claiming to be "primenet.primenet.com" via SMTP by smtp02.primenet.com, id smtpd001754; Fri May 1 10:56:13 1998 X-Sender: bobg@pop.primenet.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Lazlo Nibble , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: bobg@primenet.com (Robert L. Guertin) Subject: Re: Summary: Prevalence of mailing list bombing Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Please quit spamming me and take my address of your list, thank you From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 11:29:20 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id KAA25604; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:58:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp02.primenet.com (smtp02.primenet.com [206.165.6.132]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id KAA25597 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:57:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp02.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA03132; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:59:25 -0700 (MST) Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 10:59:25 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199805011759.KAA03132@smtp02.primenet.com> Received: from ip-23-176.phx.primenet.com(206.165.23.176), claiming to be "primenet.primenet.com" via SMTP by smtp02.primenet.com, id smtpd003094; Fri May 1 10:59:19 1998 X-Sender: bobg@pop.primenet.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: nolan@tssi.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List Managers) From: bobg@primenet.com (Robert L. Guertin) Subject: Re: Summary: Prevalence of mailing list bombing (fwd) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Please quit spamming me and take my address off your list, thank you. From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 11:29:39 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id KAA25595; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:56:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp02.primenet.com (smtp02.primenet.com [206.165.6.132]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id KAA25588 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:56:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp02.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA02495; Fri, 1 May 1998 10:57:54 -0700 (MST) Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 10:57:54 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199805011757.KAA02495@smtp02.primenet.com> Received: from ip-23-176.phx.primenet.com(206.165.23.176), claiming to be "primenet.primenet.com" via SMTP by smtp02.primenet.com, id smtpd002444; Fri May 1 10:57:46 1998 X-Sender: bobg@pop.primenet.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: "Ronald F. Guilmette" , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: bobg@primenet.com (Robert L. Guertin) Subject: Re: FYI - List security and that new O'Reilly book Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Please quit spamming me and take my address off your list, thank you. From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 14:07:59 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id NAA29873; Fri, 1 May 1998 13:54:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA29865 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 13:54:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id MAA28092 for list-managers; Fri, 1 May 1998 12:08:38 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199805011908.MAA28092@honor.greatcircle.com> From: mcb@greatcircle.com (Michael C. Berch) Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 12:08:38 +0000 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: list-managers Subject: Spew from bobg@primenet.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Robert L. Guertin (bobg@primenet.com) wrote: > > Please quit spamming me and take my address off your list, thank you. This bozo is history, his address has been barred from further posting, and "take my address off" has been added to the greatcircle.com list admin filters. Sheesh. (We had "take me off" but I guess that wasn't good enough.) -- Michael C. Berch Postmaster and List Manager, Great Circle Associates mcb@greatcircle.com From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 14:22:18 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id NAA29888; Fri, 1 May 1998 13:54:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA29878 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 13:54:24 -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 MAA28690 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 12:42:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (segfault.monkeys.com [204.119.242.200]) by eagle.ns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA17794 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 12:44:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA18039 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 12:52:48 -0700 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing In-reply-to: Your message of Fri, 01 May 1998 11:06:07 -0700. <199805011806.LAA06086@smtp02.primenet.com> X-Copyright: (c) 1998 Ronald F. Guilmette; All rights reserved. Date: Fri, 01 May 1998 12:52:48 -0700 Message-ID: <18037.894052368@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In message <199805011806.LAA06086@smtp02.primenet.com>, bobg@primenet.com (Robert L. Guertin) wrote: >Please quit spamming me and take my address off your list, thank you. Does anybody know who this guy is or what his problem is? -- 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 Fri May 1 15:07:18 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id PAA02142; Fri, 1 May 1998 15:05:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from eagle.inetnebr.com (eagle.inetnebr.com [199.184.119.14]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id PAA02133 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 15:05:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from carrot.tssi.com (root@gateway2.tssi.com [198.136.212.126]) by eagle.inetnebr.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA15969 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 17:07:20 -0500 (CDT) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.136.212.25]) by carrot.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA13731 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 17:07:20 -0500 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id RAA13254 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 17:07:18 -0500 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199805012207.RAA13254@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 17:07:18 -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 "Ronald F. Guilmette" wrote > >Please quit spamming me.... > > Does anybody know who this guy is or what his problem is? Gee, Ron, I would have though you, OF ALL PEOPLE, would recognize this particular strategy: annoy everyone on the list to get your particular grievance addressed. Maybe he didn't use enough 4 letter words? :-) -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 15:22:24 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id PAA02635; Fri, 1 May 1998 15:20:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from server.postmodern.com (server.postmodern.com [209.157.82.3]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id PAA02628 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 15:20:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from postmodern.com (foucault.postmodern.com [209.157.82.5]) by server.postmodern.com (8.8.5/mcb-980201) with ESMTP id PAA07706; Fri, 1 May 1998 15:22:56 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <354A4B3F.D1B8F34E@postmodern.com> Date: Fri, 01 May 1998 15:23:36 -0700 From: "Michael C. Berch" Reply-To: mcb@postmodern.com Organization: Postmodern Consulting, California USA X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 (Macintosh; U; PPC) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: List Managers Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing References: <199805012207.RAA13254@celery.tssi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Mike Nolan wrote: > > "Ronald F. Guilmette" wrote > > > >Please quit spamming me.... > > > > Does anybody know who this guy is or what his problem is? > > Gee, Ron, I would have though you, OF ALL PEOPLE, would recognize this > particular strategy: annoy everyone on the list to get your particular > grievance addressed. Maybe he didn't use enough 4 letter words? :-) I should point out as an aside that his "grievance", if any, is that he was too inept to figure out how to unsubscribe. All lists at greatcircle.com, of course, require subscription confirmation, so he didn't wander in by accident or someone else's malice. -- Michael C. Berch list-managers list manager mcb@greatcircle.com / mcb@postmodern.com From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 18:35:18 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA06291; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:21:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA06281 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:21:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gallifrey.Tymnet.COM (gallifrey.tymnet.com [131.146.3.15]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id MAA27024 for ; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 12:19:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jms@localhost) by gallifrey.Tymnet.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA12857 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 12:21:20 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 12:21:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Joe Smith Message-Id: <199804301921.MAA12857@gallifrey.Tymnet.COM> To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > there _are_ many case in everyday life where you want to have someone > doing the job who really knows what the hell they are doing. And this is not one of them. You don't need a college degree to flip hamburgers. You don't need a college degree to run a mailing list. -Joe From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 18:37:25 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA05783; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:14:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA05772 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:14:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from iwebb.com (iwebb.com [208.234.1.75]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id WAA27366 for ; Tue, 28 Apr 1998 22:03:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [207.104.58.119] (stk-pw119.gotnet.net [207.104.58.119]) by iwebb.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA24149 for ; Wed, 29 Apr 1998 01:04:52 -0400 Message-Id: <199804290504.BAA24149@iwebb.com> Subject: Thanks everyone... Date: Tue, 28 Apr 98 22:06:39 -0700 x-sender: jenifer@DivineWebDesign.com x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0, March 15, 1997 From: To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Thank you for such a nice response. I didn't realize that I had to be so aggressive to get such a warm welcome! :O) If I had known I would have done it a long time ago! (Just kidding!) :O) Seriously though, I realize it is unrealistic to expect everyone to get along, but it would be nice if the more personal stuff could be sent privately! Thanks again for the support! I figured I would have to unscribe after my post! Jenifer From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 18:38:52 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA05708; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:14:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA05700 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:13:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from koobera.math.uic.edu (koobera.math.uic.edu [131.193.178.247]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id LAA04350 for ; Tue, 28 Apr 1998 11:01:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 11988 invoked by uid 666); 28 Apr 1998 18:05:20 -0000 Date: 28 Apr 1998 18:05:20 -0000 Message-ID: <19980428180520.11986.qmail@cr.yp.to> From: "D. J. Bernstein" To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: Bounce Handler (fwd) References: <199804281406.JAA04064@celery.tssi.com> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Mike Nolan writes: > IMHO there are 'good' bounces, and 'bad' bounces, > and some intelligence or thought as to what to do with them is A Good Thing, See http://pobox.com/~djb/docs/somebounces.html for a study of the bounces on one mailing list. I've never seen ezmlm eliminate an address that I would have kept. Human list managers tend to do much worse than ezmlm: (1) they kick subscribers off the list without any warning; (2) even when they provide warnings, they don't wait long enough for configuration problems to be fixed. ezmlm takes a while to eliminate a bad address, occasionally as long as a month, but it can afford to be patient. ---Dan Smaller, faster, safer than inetd+tcpd. http://pobox.com/~djb/ucspi-tcp.html From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 18:40:51 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA06369; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:22:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA06357 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:22:29 -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 PAA01859 for ; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 15:50:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from lazlo@localhost) by kitsune.swcp.com (8.8.8/1.2.3) id QAA02436; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 16:52:31 -0600 (MDT) Message-ID: <19980430165230.A2307@swcp.com> Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 16:52:30 -0600 From: Lazlo Nibble To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing Mail-Followup-To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM References: <6943.893956646@monkeys.com> <3548D049.FA32667B@ihug.co.nz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <3548D049.FA32667B@ihug.co.nz>; from Olwen Williams on Fri, May 01, 1998 at 07:26:01AM +1200 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, May 01, 1998 at 07:26:01AM +1200, Olwen Williams wrote: > Incidentally I've never been forge subscribe to a mailing list. If it > happens to Ron all the time does that say samething about him? Could he > have antagonised people so that they do this to him. * ding * -- ::: Lazlo (lazlo@swcp.com; http://www.swcp.com/lazlo) ::: Internet Music Wantlists: http://www.swcp.com/lazlo/Wantlists From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 18:42:32 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA05921; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:16:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA05911 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:16:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from quilla.tezcat.com (quilla.tezcat.com [204.128.247.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA19481 for ; Wed, 29 Apr 1998 09:18:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [206.230.56.44] (adamb.tezcat.com [206.230.56.44]) by quilla.tezcat.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/tezcat-96091001) with SMTP id LAA06821; Wed, 29 Apr 1998 11:20:17 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <199804291620.LAA06821@quilla.tezcat.com> Subject: Re: AOL Problems Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 11:20:36 -0500 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: Adam Bailey To: "mailinglist-admin@esosoft.com" , "list-managers@GreatCircle.COM" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 4/27/98 6:39 AM, Jack Teems wrote... >I repeatedly have comments from AOL customers that they are unable to send >email >from my mail list at http://bounce.to/jteems in order to subscribe to my mail >list. Is this just a peculiar problem with AOL because it won't handle the >javascript in my site? This is a web issue, not a mailing list issue. You are using the format: mailto:address@host?body=body text This is not supported by many web browsers, including AOL's. I would suggest you avoid using features that are only limited to a small subset of users. I even don't recommend using ?subject, which is at least more widely supported than ?body. -- Adam Bailey | Chicago, Illinois -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-| "Do not take life too seriously; adamb@tezcat.com | you will never get out of it alive." adamkb@aol.com | - Elbert Hubbard Finger for PGP | http://www.tezcat.com/~adamb From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 18:45:03 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA05972; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:16:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA05962 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:16:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ncr-sd.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM (h153-64-251-18.NCR.COM [153.64.251.18]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id TAA07798 for ; Wed, 29 Apr 1998 19:36:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from jabberwocky (jabberwocky.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM [153.64.69.123]) by ncr-sd.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id TAA09372 for ; Wed, 29 Apr 1998 19:37:38 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804300237.TAA09372@ncr-sd.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM> X-Sender: bhoule@www.sandiegoca.ncr.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.0 Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 19:35:30 -0700 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Bill Houle Subject: Re: MajorDomo Header/Footer insertion Web interface script. In-Reply-To: <19980429135718.A12795@swcp.com> References: <0ES600418OT000@PM02SM.PMM.MCI.NET> <0ES600418OT000@PM02SM.PMM.MCI.NET> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 01:57 PM 4/29/98 -0600, Lazlo Nibble wrote: >On Wed, Apr 29, 1998 at 09:33:16AM -0700, Chris Newman wrote: > >> We are in the process of installing MajorDomo and MajorCool. The only utility >> which seems to be missing is a script which creates a Web page GUI for the >> automatic insertion of headers and footers in outgoing messages. > >Majordomo controls message headers and footers in the listname.config file. >Not sure where a web script would come in on the process. Majordomo headers & footers (in the list.config) can be maintained via MajorCool. However, I believe Chris is asking about the use of MajorCool (or whatever) to actually originate mail. Majordomo/MajorCool was never intended to be a mail agent. Such a product is available though: www.hotmail.com :). --bill From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 18:46:45 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA06016; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:17:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA05998 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:17:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gateway.simutronics.com (gateway.simutronics.com [198.83.204.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA09746 for ; Wed, 29 Apr 1998 21:39:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from af.simutronics.com (af.simutronics.com [198.83.204.55]) by gateway.simutronics.com (8.8.8/8.7.3) with SMTP id XAA02132 for ; Wed, 29 Apr 1998 23:31:36 -0500 From: "Andy Finkenstadt" To: Subject: RE: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 23:33:02 -0500 Message-ID: <000101bd73f1$11979020$37cc53c6@af.simutronics.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 In-Reply-To: <6571.893886140@monkeys.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Importance: Normal Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Well geez, I'm sorry I even asked the question. Many thanks to Chuq and others who commented on what the true solutions were, which I had already suspected. The bottom line is, until mailing list software writers and mailing list administrators configure their lists to always require confirmation from the desired recipient, there's no practical way for an innocent victim to prevent their personal or business e-mail address from being bombed with a denial of service attack of this nature. I wrote a procmail recipe that alleviates nearly all of the problem mail by dropping into another folder any mail that does not directly address an address using one of our domains. Using formail, I can re-process an attacked mailbox if the problem recurs in the future. This solution covers most of the needs we had without having to change the world, or write sophisticated "detect that a mailbox is being bombed in real-time without human intervention" software. I'd rather write dwim() instead, as it would be much easier. -Andy From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 18:49:59 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA05814; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:15:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA05786 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:14:55 -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 XAA04956 for ; Tue, 28 Apr 1998 23:55:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (segfault.monkeys.com [204.119.242.200]) by eagle.ns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA02721; Tue, 28 Apr 1998 23:57:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id AAA15026; Wed, 29 Apr 1998 00:04:53 -0700 To: Jack Teems cc: "mailinglist-admin@esosoft.com" , "list-managers@GreatCircle.COM" Subject: Re: AOL Problems In-reply-to: Your message of Mon, 27 Apr 1998 05:39:53 -0600. <35446E89.8DD3AE63@rapidnet.com> X-Copyright: (c) 1998 Ronald F. Guilmette; All rights reserved. Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 00:04:53 -0700 Message-ID: <15024.893833493@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In message <35446E89.8DD3AE63@rapidnet.com>, you wrote: >I repeatedly have comments from AOL customers that they are unable to send ema >il >from my mail list at http://bounce.to/jteems in order to subscribe to my mail >list. Is this just a peculiar problem with AOL because it won't handle the >javascript in my site? Looks to me like bounce.to just forwards over to Angelfire. AOL may be blocking at traffic to/from Angelfire because that place has been referenced frequently in a LOT of E-mail spam. (I track this sort of stuff so I know.) AOL has become very proactive in not talking to sites that seem to be used a lot by spammers. You may want to discuss that with the people at Angelfire and maybe move your website to some less outwardly spam-friendly provider. -- 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 Fri May 1 18:51:13 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA05959; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:16:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA05949 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:16:51 -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 PAA02204 for ; Wed, 29 Apr 1998 15:47:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA23475; Wed, 29 Apr 1998 17:26:10 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19980429172609.A23470@wombat> Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 17:26:09 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: NEW: List-digest - for list owners References: <13382.893829502@monkeys.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1 In-Reply-To: ; from murr rhame on Wed, Apr 29, 1998 at 07:20:47AM -0400 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, Apr 29, 1998 at 07:20:47AM -0400, murr rhame wrote: > As long as we are asking pertinent questions, what is the purpose of > yet another list managers mailing list? I am subscribed to two > general purpose listowners lists already and I know of several more. I have noticed this phenomena recurring with increasing frequency over the last year or so: there are now at least half a dozen "web manager" mailing lists, a handful of "list manager" mailng lists, and I"m sure there are other redundant ones as well. This serves no one: it simply fragments the community while compelling those who want (or *need*) to be apprised of developments to subscribe to multiple lists instead of just one -- and then to deal with duplicate traffic and overlapping discussions among them. Yet the proponents of new lists seem blissfully unaware of this (which raises the question "If you can't find the existing list-manager's mailing list, do you in fact have enough clues to start another one?"). They tend to react with hostility to the suggestion that someone else Got There First and that they should cheerfully support their efforts rather than striking out on their own. Grumpily, ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 18:52:27 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA05946; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:16:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA05928 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:16:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell7.ba.best.com (shell7.ba.best.com [206.184.139.138]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id NAA28541 for ; Wed, 29 Apr 1998 13:48:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cnorman@localhost) by shell7.ba.best.com (8.8.8/8.8.BEST) id NAA27568; Wed, 29 Apr 1998 13:49:42 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 13:49:42 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804292049.NAA27568@shell7.ba.best.com> From: Cyndi Norman To: jteems@rapidnet.com CC: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, cnorman@best.com In-reply-to: <35447150.1EAB6D2@rapidnet.com> (message from Jack Teems on Mon, 27 Apr 1998 05:51:44 -0600) Subject: AOL and web links Reply-to: cnorman@best.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 05:51:44 -0600 From: Jack Teems I repeatedly have comments from AOL customers that they are unable to send email from the link on my web page at http://bounce.to/jteems in order to subscribe to my mail list. Is this just a peculiar problem with AOL because it won't handle the javascript in my site? Yes, I have the same problem with AOL browsers (just PC browsers apparently, not the Mac ones). The link you have is: mailto:majordomo@majordomo.net?body=subscribe neatnettricks I have links in the form of: logit.cgi?http://www.nontoxic.com/ (note this is a problem to keep track of clickthroughs for an ads page) AOL browsers seem to barf at the ? I have been trying to figure out why and if it's fixable. Some people on my ISP's user's groups think it has to do with the way the html headers are returned. I didn't write my problem so I really haven't a clue what this means. Basically...AOL browsers suck and people should download different ones :-). Or you could provide an alternate link for AOL browser users...that leads to standard directions. I used to use a subject header add on for mail to links to sub to my list, but stopped when I found out that lynx couldn't handle them (this was several years ago...they might have improved). Actually, I want to use a form to do subs from the web, as much as I like the simplicity of your solution. So many people don't know how to set the return address in their browser...about 10% (okay, 5%) of my users have junk From: lines (and I don't mean nospam stuff, I mean "user" for a username or things like "cnorman@best.com@best.com"). Cyndi -- _______________________________________________________________________________ "There's nothing wrong with me. Maybe there's Cyndi Norman something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG) cnorman@best.com __________________________________________________ http://www.best.com/~cnorman From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 18:54:24 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA06348; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:22:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA06313 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:22:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.n.ml.org (narnia.mhv.net [199.0.0.118]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id PAA00660 for ; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 15:03:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from djr@localhost by mail.n.ml.org (Sendmail 8.9.0.Beta5) via SMTP (SAA16493) on Thu, 30 Apr 1998 18:04:58 -0400 (199804302204) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 18:04:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Daniel Reed To: Olwen Williams cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing In-Reply-To: <3548D049.FA32667B@ihug.co.nz> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, 1 May 1998, Olwen Williams wrote: ) Incidentally I've never been forge subscribe to a mailing list. If it ) happens to Ron all the time does that say samething about him? Could he ) have antagonised people so that they do this to him. If I felt that your post was extremely antagonistic to me, does that make you bad? Does that justify my subscribing you to 500 mailing lists that talk about bestiality and toe-nail clipping? I absolutely *hate* it when someone says "well, since X bad thing happens to you, you must be bad." A friend of mine, who ran a Linux machine over his dialup connection (he was going to get it co-located somewhere in a month or something, and was running it over his modem until that time), would get smurfed several times a week. Probably not because of his own actions, but instead those of his users. At one point, his ISP told him that if *he got smurfed one more time* that they would cancel his account because, *obviously*, if you do something that "warrants" being smurfed, then you are a Bad Person and that ISP didn't want to have anything to do with you. That's faulty logic, and that's the kind of logic you're applying here. Subscribe bombing is bad, and doesn't necessarily say anything whatsoever about the character, integrity, nor the "Bad"ness of the victim. Maybe he antagonized people, but maybe some psychopath just likes targetting his address? Maybe he pissed the wrong person off at one point, or maybe someone on a mailing list he was on got really pissed off about something and decided to attack that mailing list's subscribers? I've never been subscribe bombed in my life either, but at one point the NANOG mailing list was (in a low-level sorta way). NANOG = North American Network Operators Group, aka the people who run the Internet in the US. I doubt highly that it, as an entity, offended anyone (unless they're from the former Yugoslavia and were offended by the fact that there was no Slavic Nations Network Operators Guild, or something). Also, a couple of the subscriptions actually went through, because the MLM software they were using didn't support authentication cookies , but that's another thread... -- Daniel Reed (ask me for my PGP key) Unix - it's a nice place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit there. From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 18:55:14 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA06238; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:21:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA06216 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:21:09 -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 CAA15344 for ; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 02:01:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from leibniz.math.ethz.ch (bollow@leibniz [129.132.146.163]) by frege.math.ethz.ch (8.8.8/Main-STAT-mailer) with ESMTP id LAA08429; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:03:04 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (bollow@localhost) by leibniz.math.ethz.ch (8.6.12/D-MATH-client) id LAA00900; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:03:03 +0200 Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:03:03 +0200 Message-Id: <199804300903.LAA00900@leibniz.math.ethz.ch> From: Norbert Bollow Prefer-Language: de, en, fr To: list-managers@greatcircle.com In-reply-to: <32473.893872726@monkeys.com> (rfg@monkeys.com) Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: > However when several of the list participatants (with whom the admin has a > longstanding and pre-existing relationship) are encouraged to write to the > list admin, asking him/her why he/she is such a bozo to have allowed that > Guilmette crank to have gotten zubscribed against his will, _then_ results > are produced and changes in configuration ensue. To everyone: Please, everyone take in consideration that Ron was mailbombed three times by means of mass mailing-list forge-zubscribes (and this is the most nasty kind of mailbombing by far) *because* he fights a good battle against spam, from which all responsible netizens are profiting. To Ronald F. Guilmette: Ron, Surely I understand your anger. But I still think you're overreacting a bit. I think that instead of posting four-letter words, you should make a post in polite yet very clear language which says essentially the same things, and in addition recommends a consultant who is willing to assist clueless list-admins with setting up their lists properly, for a fee of course. > I often wonder that exact thing. I especially wonder about it > each time some lout of a list admin allows me to be > forge-zubscribed to a non-confirming mailing list he/she is > running. Hmm... is there a standards-track RFC yet which specifies that all public mailing lists MUST use a zubscription procedure which is strictly *opt-in* and properly secured against forge-zubscribes? > The squeaky wheel gets the grease. My point exactly... you'll be better off being a squeaky wheel than by being a wheel which shouts insults. > It takes _both_ a net-hooligan _and_ an incompentent/careless list admin > to create one of these forged zubscriptions. Remove either one from the > equation and these things no longer happen. True... but many of the most valuable lists on the internet are run by people who are not knowledgeable about the technical aspects of proper mailing-list set-up. These people are competent in other areas and they deserve our respect for their work in areas where they're competent. I've been on the net long enough to know better than to be surprised or angered by the occasional flame war, but I am still convinced not only that there is a better way but also that is plain wrong to classify anyone as "incompetent". (Exception: If you're the boss or employer of that person, then you have the right to judge.) BTW, I'm sure it would be possible to design an e-mail filter that will automatically post a properly-worded message to any e-mail list to which you get forge-zubscribed. May blessings from the eternal God surprise and overtake you! Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow, Zuerich, Switzerland Backup E-mail address: NB@POBOX.COM From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 18:57:50 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id SAA06278; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:21:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id SAA06268 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:21:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.net-shopper.co.uk (mail.net-shopper.co.uk [194.205.1.152]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA26132 for ; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:46:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail. (mail. [194.205.1.152]) by mail.net-shopper.co.uk (NTMail 4.00.0008/*3GTFQ.KS:WN{) with ESMTP id ccbfhaaa for ; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 19:48:48 +0100 Received: from honor.greatcircle.com by relay4.UU.NET with ESMTP (peer crosschecked as: honor.greatcircle.com [198.102.244.44]) id QQenjn11202; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 14:46:29 -0400 (EDT) Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id LAA25911; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:29:21 -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 LAA25904 for ; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:29:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (segfault.monkeys.com [204.119.242.200]) by eagle.ns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA06270; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:30:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA09369; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:38:44 -0700 To: Marty Hoag Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: NEW: List-digest - for list owners In-reply-to: Your message of Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:38:04 -0500. X-Copyright: (c) 1998 Ronald F. Guilmette; All rights reserved. Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:38:44 -0700 Message-ID: <9367.893961524@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In message , you wro te: > I don't know who you intended this for but my position is that spamming >should be illegal. Removing key information such as who made a post to a >public archive is counterproductive and only affects historical data. If >a user absolutely does not want to have their address used then they >should not send out any e-mail to anyone else... > > Marty NEW-LIST Owner/Editor I never suggested that you ``remove key information''. I merely suggested that you should make the processes of ``strip mining'' your web site for large numbers of E-mail addresses unworkable for spammers. You can do this very easily by implementing an exponential delay/backoff for sequential fetches of web pages belonging to your site in cases where those sequential fetches are coming from a single IP address over a short period of time. Quite simply, the first request for a page which might carry a ``minable'' E-mail address would come up immediately, but if a second request for a second such page came to your web server (from the same IP address) within (say) 10 seconds, then you would delay sending the page to the requestor for 1 second. If the next following request from that same IP address also followed within 10 seconds, then you would delay sending back the next page for 2 seconds, and then 4, and then 8, etc. This is a simple way to make ``strip mining'' of address from your web archives of mailing lists unworkable in practice for the person trying to do the minimg. Please implement it. Other similar archiving services already have done so. I would be more than happy to provide any and all technical assistance you may need in order to implement this simple delay scheme at no cost to you. P.S. The exponential backoff/delay scheme also has the additional advantage of conserving your available CPU cycles and making them quickly available to people who only want to view one or a few pages at your site. People who just drop by for a quick peek at a page or two will get maximal re- sponsiveness from your web site, while others who engage in long sessions consisting of a lot of closely-spaced page requests will not impact the apparent speed and performance of your web service as viewed by other ``brief'' users. -- 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 Fri May 1 21:22:18 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id VAA12516; Fri, 1 May 1998 21:13:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bajor.ici.net (bajor.ici.net [207.180.0.58]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA12509 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 21:12:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from klingon.ici.net (lbm@klingon [207.180.0.40]) by bajor.ici.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA28984 for ; Sat, 2 May 1998 00:11:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (lbm@localhost) by klingon.ici.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id SAA28132 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:36:15 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: klingon.ici.net: lbm owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 18:36:14 -0400 (EDT) From: "Linda B. Merims" X-Sender: lbm@klingon To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com Subject: AOL Problems Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk As we have discovered on the project I am working, the version of Internet Explorer (3.0) that America Online used as its web browser does not support JavaScript. At All. Linda B. Merims lbm@ici.net Massachusetts, USA From list-managers-owner Fri May 1 22:07:18 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id VAA13106; Fri, 1 May 1998 21:54:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bajor.ici.net (bajor.ici.net [207.180.0.58]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA13099 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 21:54:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from klingon.ici.net (lbm@klingon [207.180.0.40]) by bajor.ici.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA29534; Sat, 2 May 1998 00:52:45 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (lbm@localhost) by klingon.ici.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id TAA28235; Fri, 1 May 1998 19:17:50 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: klingon.ici.net: lbm owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 19:17:49 -0400 (EDT) From: "Linda B. Merims" X-Sender: lbm@klingon To: "Roger B.A. Klorese" cc: List-Managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: AOL Problems 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 Fri, 1 May 1998, Roger B.A. Klorese wrote: > On Fri, 1 May 1998, Linda B. Merims wrote: > > As we have discovered on the project I am working, the version > > of Internet Explorer (3.0) that America Online used as its > > web browser does not support JavaScript. At All. > > ...However, you can use your AOL connection as a Winsock connection and > run ANY version of IE or Netscape over it. > Since the project I am working on is software to support Internet commerce where the product's customer wants to support the widest possible base of potential buyers, the fact that some AOL people will be clever enough to figure this out doesn't help a great deal. The product's customers still view themselves, rightly so, as disenfranchising more than 10,000,000 AOL subscribers as potential buyers if they use any product that generates JavaScript. We still have to code a version of the product that will produce HTML only--no JavaScript. Internet Explorer 3.0.2 is almost as brain dead vis-a-vis JavaScript. None of which has anything to do with list management. Linda B. Merims lbm@ici.net Massachusetts, USA From list-managers-owner Sat May 2 02:07:19 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id BAA17246; Sat, 2 May 1998 01:53:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.39]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id BAA17239; Sat, 2 May 1998 01:53:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from diffreithiant.demon.co.uk ([193.237.35.207]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1009326; 2 May 98 8:50 GMT From: Darren Wyn Rees To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Cc: majordomo-users@greatcircle.com Subject: List statistics, time & motions etc Date: Sat, 02 May 1998 08:49:25 GMT Message-ID: <354cd441.2313110@post.demon.co.uk> X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Before re-inventing the wheel, or going down a more inefficient path than needs be, I'm led to -probe- this question here ... How on earth do *you* experienced list gurus go about collecting/preparing /collating your list statistics for general 'management' decisions? Perhaps that assumes that you all collect such figures, I don't know, I honestly haven't had to think about this beyond today... Where I find myself picking up a calculator and doing a few simple sums on a Wordprocessor. And realising, I'd really really love to aim for more in-depth statistics... how many unique posts, how much mail has zipped/trundled thru this system, how many subscribers, how many lurkers, movement on last month (hey, it's the 2nd of May today :), queries answered and, perhaps, statistical analysis of how people join/leave, time devoted to answering queries... I'm sure you get the picture : I want some sort of 'list management balance sheet'. Do I really need these figures? Well, yes, as I think it's opened my eyes to some 'odd' things : I'm looking at figures that say that one list has three times as much posting activity compared to a list with twice as many subscribers ... and I'm working out 'why is that'. That said, I'd still much like *your* opinion on the matter. Any of your feedback, comments on this quite general question of list-management, is most gratefully appreciated. (I'm off to dig up my old account books out as I'm sure they'll help give me some broad tips on this type of resource 'allocation' activity). I've CCed this message to majordomo-users, (although I use Mj, yes I'm aware this is not a majordomo-specific question). Sincerely, -- Darren Wyn Rees Email merlin@merlin.netlink.co.uk From list-managers-owner Sat May 2 03:22:24 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id DAA20607; Sat, 2 May 1998 03:19:40 -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 DAA20600 for ; Sat, 2 May 1998 03:19:33 -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 GAA17627; Sat, 2 May 1998 06:21:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id GAA00022; Sat, 2 May 1998 06:21:38 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: katie.vnet.net: murr owned process doing -bs Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 06:21:38 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: Daniel Reed cc: Olwen Williams , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing 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 Thu, 30 Apr 1998, Daniel Reed wrote: > I absolutely *hate* it when someone says "well, since X bad thing > happens to you, you must be bad." ... Well said. Mob justice is rarely poetic. Many folks who have a high profile are often subject to unwarranted arbitrary attacks. Getting blasted is not a good indicator that you are an "evil" person. - murr - From list-managers-owner Sat May 2 04:07:23 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id DAA21152; Sat, 2 May 1998 03:58:17 -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 DAA21145 for ; Sat, 2 May 1998 03:58:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id HAA12945; Sat, 2 May 1998 07:01:15 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19980502070114.A12924@gsp.org> Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 07:01:14 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing References: <199804301921.MAA12857@gallifrey.Tymnet.COM> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1 In-Reply-To: <199804301921.MAA12857@gallifrey.Tymnet.COM>; from Joe Smith on Thu, Apr 30, 1998 at 12:21:20PM -0700 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, Apr 30, 1998 at 12:21:20PM -0700, Joe Smith wrote: > You don't need a college degree to flip hamburgers. > You don't need a college degree to run a mailing list. No one (that I'm aware of) has suggested that you do, so I don't know why you are trying to rebut a suggestion that hasn't been made. What has been suggested by me and by others is that you need to know what the heck you are doing. If you disagree with this, then please find another Internet to use as your sandbox and come back here when you're acquired basic competency. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Sat May 2 06:07:25 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id FAA22985; Sat, 2 May 1998 05:53:39 -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 FAA22978 for ; Sat, 2 May 1998 05:53:32 -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 IAA29134; Sat, 2 May 1998 08:49:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id IAA00980; Sat, 2 May 1998 08:49:48 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: katie.vnet.net: murr owned process doing -bs Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 08:49:48 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: Darren Wyn Rees cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: List statistics, time & motions etc In-Reply-To: <354cd441.2313110@post.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sat, 2 May 1998, Darren Wyn Rees wrote: > Do I really need these figures? Well, yes, as I think it's opened > my eyes to some 'odd' things : I'm looking at figures that say that > one list has three times as much posting activity compared to a list > with twice as many subscribers ... and I'm working out 'why is > that'. That said, I'd still much like *your* opinion on the matter. I believe we did discuss related issues on list-managers a while ago. As I recall, the general consensus was that you can not make useful numerical comparisons of mailing lists. The volume of traffic and other statistics will be very defendant on the topic and other list-specific factors. For example, entertainment fan type mailing list tends to attract a much more chatty crowd than a depression support group. Even forums which are superficially similar can have very different personalities. I host two technical lists on similar topics. In one group, many subscribers are very open and helpful. In the other group, most subscribers tend to treat every bit of knowledge as closely guarded proprietary information. Both of these lists serve a useful purpose but they are quite different statistically. I don't see statistical analysis is generally useful as a list management tool. - murr - From list-managers-owner Sat May 2 09:22:23 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id JAA26013; Sat, 2 May 1998 09:10:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from andromeda.ndirect.co.uk (andromeda.ndirect.co.uk [194.74.254.17]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA26001 for ; Sat, 2 May 1998 09:10:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from valleys.ndirect.co.uk (root@mail.valleys.ndirect.co.uk [195.99.165.238]) by andromeda.ndirect.co.uk (8.8.5/8.6.6) with ESMTP id RAA03135 for ; Sat, 2 May 1998 17:11:52 +0100 Received: from localhost (merlin@localhost) by valleys.ndirect.co.uk (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id SAA02493; Sat, 2 May 1998 18:06:29 +0100 X-Authentication-Warning: valleys.ndirect.co.uk: merlin owned process doing -bs Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 18:06:29 +0100 (BST) From: Darren Wyn Rees X-Sender: merlin@valleys To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: List statistics, time & motions etc Message-ID: X-No-Archive: yes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk murr rhame = MR wrote MR>For example, entertainment fan type mailing MR>list tends to attract a much more chatty crowd than a depression MR>support group. yes, ... the list I noted with twice the 'traffic' was a music/fan list. Counterpoint : It's not a law cast in stone, as I can't correlate the above with _other music lists. But as you write... MR>Even forums which are superficially similar can have very different MR>personalities. I agree wholly with MR>Both of these lists serve a useful purpose but they are quite MR>different statistically. but am not sure of ... MR>I don't see statistical analysis is generally useful as a MR>list management tool. as I see it in the reverse. If I've got some well-prepared stats I can make better costings of various list management activities (perhaps I'm taking the definition of 'list-management' too far, and should have explained, I have to deliver etc. the mail for various lists). This is useful for me, it's very useful. I can't think of a single organisation where cost management is not useful. Are there any? Perhaps it's a personality thing, on second thoughts, of _course it is! Different strokes for different folks : I'm a control-freak who'd ideally like to cost each probable post shifted for a given period, down to the last dime. And I love my accounts, and a part-computer & man-made morass of figures that give me a sense of bureacratic omniscience... Counterpoint : Those 'in the know'/experienced don't need these things as they've got instinct (I can't afford instinct for the forseeable future). Or, more succintly in the words of psittler@behemoth.tamu.edu = PS PS>People are different. PS>People behave differently. Yep, that's true. But I don't think it's grounds for my not preparing stats which IMHO give me a better idea of what people are after, what it's costing me to give it to them, and perhaps, how I can give it to them better in future. The term 'statistical analysis' doesn't help as I see it (and I acknowledge quite frankly I'm as green as newbie on this) as it sounds too cold and cerebral... I just want to knowing the market, or audience, or community (whatever metaphors suits thy style) better. What I'd say as an end-note on how stats are 'useful' in my case... I've started toying with some of the Perl code to give people the opportunity to join a list in another language (a nice feature of the forthcoming Mj2). So I look at the stats and I can say, XYZ joined this list in the alternative language. And I know (based on market research) that they get an _extra sense of value from that. That's worth knowing, because without the stats (albeit simple in this case) I'd have no idea how many people were using/valuing something added just for them. I can therefore use my/other people's time more efficiently in future by a greater knowledge (based on useful stats) of the user. I note the comment on 'seasons', but surely the less statistics you have at your disposal, the more likely you will be basing your list 'life cycle' predictions on... instinct, gut-feeling : These are not a bad thing, of course, for those with that kind of experience to go by. -- Darren Wyn Rees mailto:merlin@netlink.co.uk From list-managers-owner Sat May 2 15:22:21 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id PAA01281; Sat, 2 May 1998 15:20:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id PAA01263 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sat, 2 May 1998 15:20:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU [128.32.43.52]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id SAA05761 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:14:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (8.8.8/) via UUCP id SAA18202; Fri, 1 May 1998 18:16:44 -0700 (PDT) env-from (appel@erzo.org) Received: from erzo.org by erzo.org (8.7.5/LUCK-AND-DEATH-1.3) id BAA26901; Sat, 2 May 1998 01:33:14 GMT Message-Id: <199805020133.BAA26901@erzo.org> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing Reply-To: appel@erzo.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 01 May 1998 12:52:48 PDT." <18037.894052368@monkeys.com> Date: Fri, 01 May 1998 18:33:14 -0700 From: Shannon Appel Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >>Please quit spamming me and take my address off your list, thank you. > >Does anybody know who this guy is or what his problem is? I thought we were all agreed that it's perfectly acceptable to spam a list with garbage if you can't get you way. Or does that only apply if you live in Roseville? Pot. Kettle. Black. Shannon From list-managers-owner Sat May 2 15:26:21 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id PAA01317; Sat, 2 May 1998 15:20:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id PAA01304 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sat, 2 May 1998 15:20:48 -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 VAA12901 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 21:37:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (rogerk@localhost) by queernet.queernet.org (8.8.5/8.8.5rbak) with SMTP id VAA09787 Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 21:38:59 -0700 (PDT) From: "Roger B.A. Klorese" To: "Linda B. Merims" cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: AOL Problems 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 Fri, 1 May 1998, Linda B. Merims wrote: > As we have discovered on the project I am working, the version > of Internet Explorer (3.0) that America Online used as its > web browser does not support JavaScript. At All. ...However, you can use your AOL connection as a Winsock connection and run ANY version of IE or Netscape over it. -- 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 Sat May 2 15:29:51 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id PAA01296; Sat, 2 May 1998 15:20:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id PAA01286 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sat, 2 May 1998 15:20:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from norway.it.earthlink.net (norway-c.it.earthlink.net [204.119.177.49]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id TAA10942 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 19:37:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [153.35.22.180] (1Cust52.max46.new-york.ny.ms.uu.net [153.35.22.180]) by norway.it.earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA08787 for ; Fri, 1 May 1998 19:39:41 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: bingdo19@mail.earthlink.net Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199805020155.SAA08593@honor.greatcircle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 22:38:20 -0400 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Bob Langdon Subject: How to get a discussion started Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi, I recently started a discussion list for (non-web-based) retail business owners, managers, and salespeople. My question is, how do I get a discussion going. Should I resort to "seeding" the list? Or just pose a contrversial question and hope for some responses. What percentage of subscribers can I expect to particpate? Thanks for any insights you can offer. Bob Langdon webmaster@ retailernews.com retailer-news-digest@Mailing-List.net Bob Langdon webmaster@retailernews.com <===========================================> _Retailer News Online_ magazine http://RetailerNews.com The complete source of business information -brought to you by: Dealer Support Servcies Affordable Website design, hosting and maintenance <============================================> From list-managers-owner Sat May 2 16:07:18 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id QAA03597; Sat, 2 May 1998 16:02:06 -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 QAA03590; Sat, 2 May 1998 16:02:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tibbs@localhost) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) id SAA09247; Sat, 2 May 1998 18:04:25 -0500 (CDT) To: Darren Wyn Rees Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, majordomo-users@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: List statistics, time & motions etc References: <354cd441.2313110@post.demon.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.100) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Jason L Tibbitts III Date: 02 May 1998 18:04:24 -0500 In-Reply-To: Darren Wyn Rees's message of "Sat, 02 May 1998 08:49:25 GMT" Message-ID: Lines: 13 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.9/Emacs 19.34 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >>>>> "DWR" == Darren Wyn Rees writes: DWR> How on earth do *you* experienced list gurus go about DWR> collecting/preparing /collating your list statistics for general DWR> 'management' decisions? You might want to start with something like logmail, which you can grab from ftp.hpc.uh.edu in /pub/majordomo. It generates some useful reports about top posters and subjects and distribution of messages per day and per hour of the day. It is not list-specific; you just pipe messages to it or run it over an mbox file. - J< From list-managers-owner Sat May 2 20:52:18 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id UAA07828; Sat, 2 May 1998 20:39:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from leslie.mystery.com (leslie.mystery.com [198.202.235.7]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id UAA07821 for ; Sat, 2 May 1998 20:39:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 30046 invoked from network); 3 May 1998 03:41:53 -0000 Received: from angus.mystery.com (root@198.202.235.1) by leslie.mystery.com with SMTP; 3 May 1998 03:41:53 -0000 Received: (from gabe@localhost) by angus.mystery.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id XAA26323 for List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM; Sat, 2 May 1998 23:40:43 -0400 From: Gabe Helou Message-Id: <199805030340.XAA26323@angus.mystery.com> Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 23:40:43 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <199805020155.SAA08593@honor.greatcircle.com> from "List-Managers-Digest" at May 1, 98 06:55:19 pm Reply-To: gabe@mystery.com X-URL: http://www.mystery.com/~gabe/ 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 ... and then Joe Smith says: } > there _are_ many case in everyday life where you want to have } > someone doing the job who really knows what the hell they are doing. } } And this is not one of them. } } You don't need a college degree to flip hamburgers. } You don't need a college degree to run a mailing list. So ... if someone doesn't know how to cook, you'd keep eating whatever burnt offering that person drops on your plate? Are you actually advocating incompetence? If you're going to flip hamburgers, you should be a competent hamburger flipper. If you're going to run a mailing list, you should be a competent list admin. From list-managers-owner Sun May 3 05:07:19 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id FAA20024; Sun, 3 May 1998 05:04:44 -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 FAA20017 for ; Sun, 3 May 1998 05:04:37 -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 IAA06806; Sun, 3 May 1998 08:06:55 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id IAA13991; Sun, 3 May 1998 08:06:54 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: katie.vnet.net: murr owned process doing -bs Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 08:06:54 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: gabe@mystery.com cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Listowner Skills [Was: list bombing] In-Reply-To: <199805030340.XAA26323@angus.mystery.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sat, 2 May 1998, Gabe Helou wrote: > If you're going to flip hamburgers, you should be a competent > hamburger flipper. If you're going to run a mailing list, you > should be a competent list admin. Now we are getting close a pertinent topic. Would you or anyone else care to define the skills needed to become a "competent list admin"? I'll try a brief outline: Technical skills: Use and understand the listowner commands for the server software used by the list such as: Subscribe Unsubscribe Change subscription modes Non-post Digest Banish Etc. Approve moderated posts if applicable Archive commands (search and retrieve) Special feature server commands as apply to software used Read and understand most bounces. (some server software and or add-on software largely supersedes this skill requirement) Enter alternative subscriber addresses as may be required. Diplomatic and personnel management skills: General understanding of netiquette. Define list charter. Define list subscriber entrance requirements if applicable. Define list posting guidelines. Enforce posting guidelines with minimal impact on discussion. Recruit, train and organize co-admins if applicable. That's a start. Best I can do on short notice early Sunday morning. Dissect my proposals will. There are two broad types of skills needed to become a good list admin: technical skills and diplomatic skills. IMHO, it is easier to train a technically ignorant list manager than it is to train someone who has poor social skills in the diplomatic arts. - murr - From list-managers-owner Sun May 3 06:37:19 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id GAA21026; Sun, 3 May 1998 06:30:33 -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 GAA21017 for ; Sun, 3 May 1998 06:30:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id JAA22542; Sun, 3 May 1998 09:33:42 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19980503093341.A22504@gsp.org> Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 09:33:41 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Listowner Skills [Was: list bombing] References: <199805030340.XAA26323@angus.mystery.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1 In-Reply-To: ; from murr rhame on Sun, May 03, 1998 at 08:06:54AM -0400 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, May 03, 1998 at 08:06:54AM -0400, murr rhame wrote: > Technical skills: > > Use and understand the listowner commands for the server software > used by the list such as: > [...] Add: Judgement to decide when to use server software and when not to; or, in a related vein, which operations to automate and which to do manually. Understanding of limitations/bugs in various packages and ability to choose between packages. Basic understanding of SMTP protocol. Basic understanding of DNS (including MX records). Thorough understanding of RFC 822 headers. Understanding of the mechanisms and defenses against various forms of abuse, including mailbombing, forged subscriptions, etc. Knowledge of de facto conventions (e.g. "-request"). Ability to use whois/traceroute and other network tools to find users, sites, admins, etc. Awareness of privacy/copyright/etc. issues which have varying impact on mailing list subscribers. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Sun May 3 09:37:23 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id JAA23740; Sun, 3 May 1998 09:35:17 -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 JAA23731 for ; Sun, 3 May 1998 09:35:10 -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 MAA02812; Sun, 3 May 1998 12:37:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id MAA16610; Sun, 3 May 1998 12:37:29 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: katie.vnet.net: murr owned process doing -bs Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 12:37:28 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: Rich Kulawiec cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Listowner Skills [Was: list bombing] In-Reply-To: <19980503093341.A22504@gsp.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, 3 May 1998, Rich Kulawiec wrote: > Judgement to decide when to use server software and when not to; or, > in a related vein, which operations to automate and which to > do manually. > > Understanding of limitations/bugs in various packages and ability > to choose between packages. > > Basic understanding of SMTP protocol. > > Basic understanding of DNS (including MX records). > > Thorough understanding of RFC 822 headers. > > Understanding of the mechanisms and defenses against various > forms of abuse, including mailbombing, forged subscriptions, > etc. > > Knowledge of de facto conventions (e.g. "-request"). > > Ability to use whois/traceroute and other network tools to find > users, sites, admins, etc. You forgot to mention a complete understanding of digital signal transmission and assembly language programming. Most of the skills you have listed up to this point are more the purview of a site manager, postmaster or sysadmin rather than a listowner. Someone in the loop should have all of the skills you mentioned. I contend that a good LISTOWNER need not have all of these skills. If all of these skills were required before you could become a listowner, only techno-wizards would be listowners. With proper support, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to be a good listowner. Up to this point in the skills discussion, we have not mentioned splitting responsibilities into typical divisions. For example, I run a site. I understand the operation and limitations of my server software. My postmasters and sysadmins have a complete understanding of SMTP and all of the other protocols and software needed to connect my server to the net. De-facto list setup standards, such as a "-request" address, are under the jurisdiction of the server admin. While I do use traceroute/whois and such to tack down spam and other net abuse sent to my personal mail and to my server, I almost never use these tools as a list admin. > Awareness of privacy/copyright/etc. issues which have varying > impact on mailing list subscribers. These are issues which the listowner needs to handle. - murr - From list-managers-owner Mon May 4 00:08:57 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id AAA08835; Mon, 4 May 1998 00:00:25 -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 AAA08826 for ; Mon, 4 May 1998 00:00:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id UAA24831; Sun, 3 May 1998 20:48:32 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19980503204832.A24824@gsp.org> Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 20:48:32 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Listowner Skills [Was: list bombing] References: <19980503093341.A22504@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1 In-Reply-To: ; from murr rhame on Sun, May 03, 1998 at 12:37:28PM -0400 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, May 03, 1998 at 12:37:28PM -0400, murr rhame wrote: > You forgot to mention a complete understanding of digital signal > transmission and assembly language programming. I didn't mention them because I was speaking seriously, not facetiously. I stand by my statement: I feel those skills are necessary to be an effective mailing list manager/owner. Those who lack them are at best ineffective, at worst incompetent. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Mon May 4 08:53:21 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id IAA19757; Mon, 4 May 1998 08:44:59 -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 IAA19748 for ; Mon, 4 May 1998 08:44:51 -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 RAA13504; Mon, 4 May 1998 17:47:20 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (bollow@localhost) by pythagoras (SMI-8.6/D-MATH-client) id RAA08104; Mon, 4 May 1998 17:47:20 +0200 Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 17:47:20 +0200 Message-Id: <199805041547.RAA08104@pythagoras> From: Norbert Bollow Prefer-Language: de, en, fr To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com In-reply-to: (message from murr rhame on Sun, 3 May 1998 08:06:54 -0400 (EDT)) Subject: Re: Listowner Skills [Was: list bombing] Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Murr Rhame wrote: > Now we are getting close a pertinent topic. Would you or anyone else > care to define the skills needed to become a "competent list admin"? > I'll try a brief outline: This is an excellent summary - these are skills that a "competent list admin" must have. Depending on the nature of the list some other skills may be needed (e.g. if you run a list for churchplanters you'll should be able to recognize false apostles for what they are.) Those who have been arguing that there is a need for more in-depth technical knowledge on the part of the list-admin are missing that such technical knowledge can be provided by a site admin, a consultant or some other knowledgeable person who is willing to help out whenever the need arises. The one point I'd like to see added is this: Know it when outside technical advice is needed and be determined enough to get it. -- NB. > > Technical skills: > > Use and understand the listowner commands for the server software > used by the list such as: > Subscribe > Unsubscribe > Change subscription modes > Non-post > Digest > Banish > Etc. > Approve moderated posts if applicable > Archive commands (search and retrieve) > Special feature server commands as apply to software used > > Read and understand most bounces. (some server software and or > add-on software largely supersedes this skill requirement) > > Enter alternative subscriber addresses as may be required. > > > Diplomatic and personnel management skills: > > General understanding of netiquette. > > Define list charter. > > Define list subscriber entrance requirements if applicable. > > Define list posting guidelines. Add a comment here that there are legal aspects (e.g. related to copyright) of what posts will be acceptable, as well as social ones. > > Enforce posting guidelines with minimal impact on discussion. > > Recruit, train and organize co-admins if applicable. > > - murr - -- 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 Mon May 4 09:08:12 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id IAA19921; Mon, 4 May 1998 08:52:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ns0.eris.dera.gov.uk (ns0.eris.dera.gov.uk [128.98.1.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id IAA19914 for ; Mon, 4 May 1998 08:52:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 3506 invoked from network); 4 May 1998 15:54:52 -0000 Received: from mail-relay.eris.dera.gov.uk (128.98.2.2) by ns0.eris.dera.gov.uk with SMTP; 4 May 1998 15:54:52 -0000 Received: (qmail 143 invoked by alias); 4 May 1998 15:54:52 -0000 Received: (qmail 2452 invoked from network); 4 May 1998 15:54:51 -0000 Received: from cray.eris.dera.gov.uk (128.98.2.7) by mail-relay.eris.dera.gov.uk with SMTP; 4 May 1998 15:54:51 -0000 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Listowner Skills [Was: list bombing] Organization: CIS3 System and Networks Operations Group, DERA Malvern, UK References: <19980503093341.A22504@gsp.org> <19980503204832.A24824@gsp.org> In-reply-to: <19980503204832.A24824@gsp.org> Date: Mon, 04 May 1998 16:54:51 +0100 Message-ID: <28875.894297291@cray.eris.dera.gov.uk> From: Christopher Samuel Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In message <19980503204832.A24824@gsp.org>, Rich Kulawiec writes: > I stand by my statement: I feel those skills are necessary to be > an effective mailing list manager/owner. Those who lack them are at > best ineffective, at worst incompetent. I'm afraid I disagree Rich. What I would say is that most of the items in your list are the province of the Postmaster/Sysadmin staff for the site. Thus simply by having a good working relationship with them they can be both effective and competent at running a list. cheers! Chris -- Christopher Samuel +44 1684 894644 C.Samuel@eris.dera.gov.uk N-115, Defence Evaluation & Research Agency, St Andrews Road, Malvern, UK DISCLAIMER: The views expressed above are entirely those of the author and do not represent the views, policy or understanding of any other entity. From list-managers-owner Mon May 4 09:23:33 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id JAA20394; Mon, 4 May 1998 09:13:57 -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 JAA20387 for ; Mon, 4 May 1998 09:13:50 -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 SAA13822; Mon, 4 May 1998 18:16:20 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (bollow@localhost) by pythagoras (SMI-8.6/D-MATH-client) id SAA08107; Mon, 4 May 1998 18:16:20 +0200 Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 18:16:20 +0200 Message-Id: <199805041616.SAA08107@pythagoras> From: Norbert Bollow Prefer-Language: de, en, fr To: list-managers@greatcircle.com In-reply-to: <13825.894043420@monkeys.com> (rfg@monkeys.com) Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: > I will accept without proof that there are indeed many mailing lists on > the net that large groups of people find to be very useful and valuable > resources _and_ which are badly administered by people who don't know > what they are doing. Good, so I don't need to provide those three examples. > In such cases, the ``value'' of the list is highly dependent upon who you > ask. The subscribers may steadfastly assert that the thing is very valuable, > whereas if you ask me, _I_ may say that (overall) the thing is mostly just > a net-menace Ok, as far as this we're in agreement. > which ought to be quietly done away with. It is here that we disagree. So the same thing is very valuable for some people but a menace to others. And the good news is that the "menace" part of the thing _can_ be fixed without telling any list-owner to close down their lists. I hereby offer to any list-owner to provide for a flat fee of US-$200 all the technical knowledge and advice which is needed for properly securing a mailing list so that it is no longer a net-menace (in respect to subscription-bombing as well as in respect to the various methods employed by spammers to obtain e-mail addresses from subscription lists and mailing list archives.) By the way, I really think that this service will be available cheaper elsewhere; e.g. there are many great people on the net who give this kind of advice for free, but since I have a very heavy workload I can make this kind of offer only if I write something on the "price tag". NB. -- Norbert Bollow, Zuerich, Switzerland Backup E-mail address: NB@POBOX.COM From list-managers-owner Mon May 4 10:22:50 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id KAA22117; Mon, 4 May 1998 10:10:25 -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 KAA22108 for ; Mon, 4 May 1998 10:10:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (segfault.monkeys.com [204.119.242.200]) by eagle.ns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA14746 for ; Mon, 4 May 1998 10:12:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA11108 for ; Mon, 4 May 1998 10:20:09 -0700 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing In-reply-to: Your message of Mon, 04 May 1998 18:16:20 +0200. <199805041616.SAA08107@pythagoras> X-Copyright: (c) 1998 Ronald F. Guilmette; All rights reserved. Date: Mon, 04 May 1998 10:20:09 -0700 Message-ID: <11106.894302409@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In message <199805041616.SAA08107@pythagoras>, Norbert Bollow wrote: >I hereby offer to any list-owner to provide for a flat fee of US-$200 all >the technical knowledge and advice which is needed for properly securing >a mailing list so that it is no longer a net-menace (in respect to >subscription-bombing as well as in respect to the various methods employed >by spammers to obtain e-mail addresses from subscription lists and mailing >list archives.) > >By the way, I really think that this service will be available cheaper >elsewhere; e.g. there are many great people on the net who give this kind >of advice for free, but since I have a very heavy workload I can make this >kind of offer only if I write something on the "price tag". I do feel that Norbert's offer is reasonable, and that it may in fact be accepted by at least some list admins. For my part, what _I_ am willing to offer is to give any list admin who is running a list without subscription confirmations the ISBN number of that new O'Reilly mailing list book. (I wish I could do more, but that is all I have time for and is, in any case, all that should really be required.) -- 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 Mon May 4 12:07:49 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id LAA25290; Mon, 4 May 1998 11:52:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from deepthought.armory.com (deepthought.armory.com [192.122.209.42]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id LAA25281 for ; Mon, 4 May 1998 11:52:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from clovis by deepthought.armory.com id aa01105; 4 May 98 11:54 PDT Received: by clovis.nerdnosh.org (1.65/waf) via UUCP; Mon, 04 May 98 09:03:41 PDT for List-Managers@greatcircle.com To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: Listowner Skills [Was: list bombing] From: Tim Bowden Message-ID: Date: Mon, 04 May 98 08:44:33 PDT In-Reply-To: <19980503204832.A24824@gsp.org> Organization: NERDNOSH - the story conference as cyber-community! Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Rich Kulawiec writes: > I stand by my statement: I feel those skills are necessary to be > an effective mailing list manager/owner. Those who lack them are at > best ineffective, at worst incompetent. Oh, yeah? Well, I say those who store all their concern and regard into inhuman techie trunks are like Masters and Johnson stringing electrodes to bodies in motion; they mistake the manner for the matter. Any fool replicant can duplicate code mechanics with Qmail and assimilate gross rote ituitions of sendmail and the result would be the same had Dr Frankinstein attempted to create his monster out of stolen rings and watches and eyeglasses, neglecting the heart and soul. Such a cyborg sense of a mailing list would figure all was well no matter the turmoil, anguish, woe and off-topic squealing within were he to have a good bounce ratio and low intrusion rate to his list. Leaving out the heart and soul, you could train a reasonably bright orangutan to make a fine listowner by that criteria. Ahh, but the listowner for me is one who does not become distracted by the pure mechanics of his toys but instead relishes the topic and the humans who bring it to life. Without that heart and mind, a list is but a tinkling symbol, a wind-up toy, rendering whizz and flash and smoke and mirrors, signifying nothing. To answer your reflex question, yep, NerdNosh has all components, thank you very much. I worry about heartbeat and soul substance, and allow an excellent engineer to keep the wires humming. For you old hands, substitute Kinsey up there for Masters and Johnson, and `gamma minus machine minder' for orangutan. Ain't this fun? mailto:tcbowden@clovis.nerdnosh.org (Tim Bowden) Proud member of NERDNOSH (tm)! mailto:majordomo@story.nerdnosh org the command: subscribe nerdnosh From list-managers-owner Mon May 4 13:38:10 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id NAA27240; Mon, 4 May 1998 13:30:35 -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 NAA27231 for ; Mon, 4 May 1998 13:30:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id QAA01796; Mon, 4 May 1998 16:33:57 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19980504163356.A1773@gsp.org> Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 16:33:56 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: Prevalence of mailing-list bombing References: <199805041731.KAA26731@gallifrey.Tymnet.COM> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1 In-Reply-To: <199805041731.KAA26731@gallifrey.Tymnet.COM>; from Joe Smith on Mon, May 04, 1998 at 10:31:48AM -0700 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, May 04, 1998 at 10:31:48AM -0700, Joe Smith wrote: > The correct thing to do is select mailing list software that does NOT > require intimate understanding of MX records, bounces, nondelivery reports, > etc just to use the software. Nonsense. No piece of software is a substitute for understanding the basics. The correct thing to do is to spend the time (I'd estimate a couple of weeks, tops) to study the online resources which are available in plentiful quantity and learn how all this works before trying to use it. I have no idea why so many people are advocating that list managers should remain ignorant, but perhaps this in part explains why so many mailing lists are so badly run. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Mon May 4 13:46:53 1998 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970926-1) id NAA27363; Mon, 4 May 1998 13:34:29 -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 NAA27356 for ; Mon, 4 May 1998 13:34:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id QAA01833; Mon, 4 May 1998 16:37:51 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <19980504163750.B1773@gsp.org> Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 16:37:50 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: Tim Bowden , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Listowner Skills [Was: list bombing] References: <19980503204832.A24824@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1 In-Reply-To: ; from Tim Bowden on Mon, May 04, 1998 at 08:44:33AM -0700 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, May 04, 1998 at 08:44:33AM -0700, Tim Bowden wrote: > Rich Kulawiec writes: > > > I stand by my statement: I feel those skills are n