On Saturday 06 September 2003 20:38, Jon Clausen rambled on: [ SNIP long description af challenge response ] Wouldn't it be much simpler to set it up as or like a subscriber only mailing list? A subscribed user can post, and can then get direct replies. The only stuff coming out of the list could be admin stuff. Could even be linked to a news announcement bulletin... Dylan -- Sweet moderation Heart of this nation Desert us not We are between the wars - Billy Bragg

On Sunday 07 September 2003 11:04, Jon Clausen wrote:

On Sun, Sep 07, 2003 at 02:55:21AM +0100, Dylan wrote:

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On Saturday 06 September 2003 20:38, Jon Clausen rambled on:

[ SNIP long description af challenge response ]

Wouldn't it be much simpler to set it up as or like a subscriber only mailing list?

Quite. Subscription in it self, however, would do little to improve on the 'quality' of the feedback.

Yes, but it would eliminate the vast majority of spam, if not necessarily virus posts. Dylan -- Sweet moderation Heart of this nation Desert us not We are between the wars - Billy Bragg

The 03.09.06 at 19:41, Philipp Thomas wrote:

a) because it's a ratio of about 1 serious feedback mail per 100-200 spam mails. These include the useless "virus detected" and similar mails.

I thought that would be one reason; perhaps you mentioned it time ago.

And before you ask, we *did* use spamassassin otherwise it would have been more like 1000 / 1. But we couldn't filter as hard as we liked, because that would have possibly rejected valid mail. So those from the feedback team first had to weed out all the junk before starting serious work. These are hours spent for nothing which isn't very cost effective.

Ok, I understand that. I'll give you some ideas: acceptance of the email could be tied, for example, to the email having a pgp signature, a valid client number, o a registration number of some sort. Only email passing this filter would be automatically forwarded. I think you already have some automated filters of that sort for the support email address.

b) Many feedback mail lack basic information needed to work on it (like the Version of SuSE Linux etc.). So the first mail to the customer has to ask for that info. Again this is much time spent for nothing.

Ok, another idea, then. There could be a local program that generates forms for feed back, even a plain text form to be filled. I think I saw such a thing in kde, but I'm using gnome. I think there is an application in gnome and/or kde that automatically generates a bug report when something crashes, that has to be filled, ant it generates an email. Couldn't something like that be done? As part of yast and/or a separate app? It could automatically take registration data, and system info like versions.

Web and email ran in parallel for a long time, but lately the amount of junk that came in via mail just got so much in comparison to the real feedback mails that we simply had to switch off the mail address.

I can imagine... I'm receiving my part of them, just because I participate in this list. You have seen perhaps my comment on that, how to block .pif in postfix and such... In your case, it must be much worse. There has been comment on an antispam measure that consists on auto responding to the "from" address, requesting and answer within a time frame. If he responds, he is added to a white list, and the original email goes on. I don't know how client/users would react to it, however.

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2) Perhaps some other listers think like me and will complain as well - in the web form, of course.

Feel free to do so :) Chances are high that you'll (more or less) get the same answer as you do now.

Well... I'd like SuSE to accept email, even if they request a registration number and/or pgp signature and/or challenge/response email. Better than nothing. And I appreciate your previous comments on this :-) -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Feel free to do so :) Chances are high that you'll (more or less) get the same answer as you do now.

Great customer relations effort there, Philipp. I suppose it's been asked before, but why not set up some SuSE web forums using one of the bulletin boards? User registration would keep out spammers and the like. SuSE does not have to support them in the sense of answering queries. However, a very good body of knowledge would soon build up there, especially for new users. Many computer users, I suspect, rather expect to find this now and many, many companies including pleny of small ones offer them. I can't imagine that it's all that much of an expense. :) Fish

The 03.09.07 at 11:21, Philipp Thomas wrote:

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Great customer relations effort there, Philipp.

Maybe, but at least it was honest. What do you prefer?

I apreciated your answer, and I did start this rant :-) -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

The 03.09.06 at 18:57, Dylan wrote:

Here's two solutions...

A - compose your message in a text editor and paste it into the box.

That's what I did. The page allows for importing files, so I imported my exported email directly.

B - load the page, disconnect, fill it in, reconnect, sent the form.

Mmmm. Each connection costs extra money. I'm unsure if one or two minutes are charged per connection attempt, even a failed one. I other words, the phone company charges one minute in advance, minimun. When I do that, I must be sure that I't will take me some minutes to fill the form, and that the web page will not reject me on the next phase when it sees a different IP. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

The 03.09.07 at 02:58, Dylan wrote:

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Mmmm. Each connection costs extra money. I'm unsure if one or two minutes are charged per connection attempt, even a failed one. I other words, the phone company charges one minute in advance, minimun.

Just how much are you paying per minute?

I don't exactly know, beacuse the receipt doesn't specify the amount per minute, and how it varies during the day. It's not so easy to find out. But I can give you some samples from this last two month receipt (27.4 Eur + tax in internet calls, 28.7 hours total usage): I have a 4 seconds call charged at .0685 Eur, plus taxes. Another one, 12' 23", 0.1642 Eur. A 1h 12' 32" was charged 1.2903 Eur. It is afordable, but I wouldn't say free. Time is money, even if I'm just waiting without anything downloading. By the way, the fixed or flat rate conection, which would allow me to connect anytime from 18:00 to 8:00 (weekends the 24:00) I think costs about 20 or 30 Eur a month; I'll have to check, but it is even more expensive for my limited use.

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When I do that, I must be sure that I't will take me some minutes to fill the form,

I'd have thought you'd have a fair idea of how long your comment will take to enter before you start...

Not if it is the first time I see the form :-)

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and that the web page will not reject me on the next phase when it sees a different IP.

Doubt it - your IP could change dynamically while you were sitting filling in the form anyway.

Er... no. During on call the IP can not change. On a new call it certainly changes. The negotiation takes part only at the begining of the call.

Session management isn't usually tied to IP because of DHCP, NAT, etc...

I suppose that web pages keep track of the user by means of cookies, but i can not be completely sure, specially on encrypted pages of banks and such. In such cases I think I would keep track of the IP, and even more, record it in the transaction logs. I'm no expert on that, but that would be my first thought. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

On Mon, 2003-09-15 at 15:13, Carlos E. R. wrote:

per minute + per call (at unhook) Local 0.0240 0.0685 Eur Local reduced rate 0.0099 0.0685 Eur (night)

And then add taxes to the above: 16% VAT (IVA). There are some cheaper companies, but that's another history. So... the one hour browsing I had to do this morning will have a cost of 1.75 Eur :-(

-- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

I feel your pain, brother :-) Here it's 0.16 after hours, 0.58 during the day. I know, our money isn't worth as much as Euros, but if you consider avarage earnings it's quite expensive. Hans