[opensuse-project] foo@opensuse.org is a subscribers only list
The openSUSE mailing lists do not strike me as particularly open. I have been contributing to free software projects for over ten years, but none I can remember appears as unfriendly when someone not subscribed to a list tries to post to that list. Why do we have such a strict setup? As evidenced by hosts like gcc.gnu.org, it is possibly to keep lists spam free without it. *If* we need such a form of moderation, could this be human moderators? Frankly, with unfriendly a reponse like this, I usually think twice about contributing. If human moderation does not work, how about a simple scheme where one has to follow a URL provided in the auto-response to unlock his previously sent message? w3c does this very nicely, for example. Also, the message refers to a "nomail version of the list" but a regular user certainly will have not idea whatsoever what that is and how to subscribe to that version of the list. </rant> My recommendations are: 1. Abandon this level of strictness and instead use decent spam and virus filtering. 2. If this does not work sufficiently well, employ human moderation or a challenge/reponse schema. 3. Better describe what the "nomail version of the list" refers to. Gerald -- Dr. Gerald Pfeifer E gp@novell.com SUSE Linux Products GmbH Director Inbound Product Mgmt T +49(911)74053-0 HRB 16746 (AG Nuremberg) openSUSE/SUSE Linux Enterprise F +49(911)74053-483 GF: Markus Rex ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: zypp-devel+owner@opensuse.org To: gp@novell.com Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2007 20:35:22 +0000 Subject: zypp-devel@opensuse.org is a subscribers only list Hi, this is the mlmmj program managing the mailinglist zypp-devel@opensuse.org You have tried to post from this email address: gp@novell.com But this address is not subscribed, and only subscribers may post to the list. If you believe you are correctly subscribed, please check the email address you subscribed with in the welcome message, or check the headers of any message to the mailinglist. If you want to be able to post from more than one email address, you can subscribe the other addresses to the nomail version of the list. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
The openSUSE mailing lists do not strike me as particularly open.
I have been contributing to free software projects for over ten years, but none I can remember appears as unfriendly when someone not subscribed to a list tries to post to that list.
I think it's pretty much the standard/default reply of mlmmj and I've seen lots of this-is-subscribers-only replies on lots of open source project mailing-lists. But a nicer and more informative wording wouldn't harm, for sure.
Why do we have such a strict setup? As evidenced by hosts like gcc.gnu.org, it is possibly to keep lists spam free without it.
There is another issue with non-subscribed posters: the perpetual reply-to-list issue. Pretty much everyone has the habit of answering to the mailing-list address and not to the OP + the list in CC, as for subscribed members, that would mean receiving the reply twice. How do you know how to reply (list only or OP + list in CC) if it's not only for subscribers ? (don't get me wrong, I'm not particularly happy with the current, somewhat dry reply)
*If* we need such a form of moderation, could this be human moderators? Frankly, with unfriendly a response like this, I usually think twice about contributing.
Not sure it's "unfriendly". It's not friendly, but it's not bashing either ;) Human moderation is though, as some of the lists are high-traffic (opensuse@opensuse.org is beyond usable, and opensuse-factory isn't too dormant either, although it remains manageable). And how do you humanly moderate a spam that goes through to the list ? (too late ;))
If human moderation does not work, how about a simple scheme where one has to follow a URL provided in the auto-response to unlock his previously sent message? w3c does this very nicely, for example.
I think that having useful information on what the list is about and how to actually subscribe to the list would be useful, but I'm not sure whether more than that would be needed.
Also, the message refers to a "nomail version of the list" but a regular user certainly will have not idea whatsoever what that is and how to subscribe to that version of the list. </rant>
My recommendations are: 1. Abandon this level of strictness and instead use decent spam and virus filtering. 2. If this does not work sufficiently well, employ human moderation or a challenge/response schema. 3. Better describe what the "nomail version of the list" refers to.
rm 1 2 3
4. send back a much more helpful message that has a friendly tone and
explains how to properly subscribe to the list
cheers
- --
-o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/
/\\
Why do we have such a strict setup? As evidenced by hosts like gcc.gnu.org, it is possibly to keep lists spam free without it.
There is another issue with non-subscribed posters: the perpetual reply-to-list issue. Pretty much everyone has the habit of answering to the mailing-list address and not to the OP + the list in CC, as for subscribed members, that would mean receiving the reply twice.
How do you know how to reply (list only or OP + list in CC) if it's not only for subscribers ? (don't get me wrong, I'm not particularly happy with the current, somewhat dry reply)
This is a major issue on the OpenOffice.org mailing lists. There are dozens of messages every day from unsubscribed posters. List members reply, but reply only to the list.. then some others step in and forward the replies to the original poster.. sometimes 3 or 4 people do that... or maybe no one forwards the reply (and then the original poster is back in a few days, upset that no one has replied to their question). The unsubscribed poster missed the 15 replies with solutions because they are allowed to post without needing to subscribe. The issue is not about keeping the list spam free.... it's making sure that people who ask questions actually find their answers. C --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, Sep 04, 2007 at 12:11:03AM +0200, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
The openSUSE mailing lists do not strike me as particularly open.
I have been contributing to free software projects for over ten years, but none I can remember appears as unfriendly when someone not subscribed to a list tries to post to that list.
Why do we have such a strict setup? As evidenced by hosts like gcc.gnu.org, it is possibly to keep lists spam free without it.
*If* we need such a form of moderation, could this be human moderators? Frankly, with unfriendly a reponse like this, I usually think twice about contributing.
If human moderation does not work, how about a simple scheme where one has to follow a URL provided in the auto-response to unlock his previously sent message? w3c does this very nicely, for example.
Also, the message refers to a "nomail version of the list" but a regular user certainly will have not idea whatsoever what that is and how to subscribe to that version of the list. </rant>
My recommendations are:
1. Abandon this level of strictness and instead use decent spam and virus filtering.
This does not help, as I see with the gphoto mailinglists.
2. If this does not work sufficiently well, employ human moderation or a challenge/reponse schema.
3. Better describe what the "nomail version of the list" refers to.
I am using "subscriber only, but hold postings in the mailman queue for approval and author whitelisting" for gphoto at least, and it works fine. Ciao, Marcus --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
I have been contributing to free software projects for over ten years, but none I can remember appears as unfriendly when someone not subscribed to a list tries to post to that list.
Why do we have such a strict setup? As evidenced by hosts like gcc.gnu.org, it is possibly to keep lists spam free without it.
There are plenty of examples to the contrary. Most lists I subscribe to have a subscribers-only policy. I think it's perfectly alright. /Per Jessen, Zürich --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Am Dienstag 04 September 2007 schrieb Gerald Pfeifer:
The openSUSE mailing lists do not strike me as particularly open.
I have been contributing to free software projects for over ten years, but none I can remember appears as unfriendly when someone not subscribed to a list tries to post to that list.
Why do we have such a strict setup? As evidenced by hosts like gcc.gnu.org, it is possibly to keep lists spam free without it.
Perhaps gnu.org isn't interesting enough for spammers? I can tell you from my experience as kde.org admin: the more popular the lists, the more spam, the more likely it's subscription only. I can't give you exact numbers though. What I consider _very_ ugly though is that these mails are simply wasted and not moderated or even replied full quote. Right now I have to dig in my sent folder to resend with the correct From header. Greetings, Stephan -- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Hi, On Tuesday, September 04, 2007 at 00:11:03, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
Why do we have such a strict setup? As evidenced by hosts like gcc.gnu.org, it is possibly to keep lists spam free without it.
That might be true for those lists. But this is not true in general. Most of the major FOSS mailinglists are subscribers only.
*If* we need such a form of moderation, could this be human moderators?
Are you volunteering? No problem, i can have you moderate everything in no time but that means we need to find a new Director Inbound Product Mgmt. :)
Frankly, with unfriendly a reponse like this, I usually think twice about contributing.
Could you please state whats unfriendly in that response?
If human moderation does not work, how about a simple scheme where one has to follow a URL provided in the auto-response to unlock his previously sent message? w3c does this very nicely, for example.
So self moderation? What use would that be?
Also, the message refers to a "nomail version of the list" but a regular user certainly will have not idea whatsoever what that is and how to subscribe to that version of the list.
True. I can modify that message. How about "If you want to be able to post from more than one email address, you can subscribe the other addresses to the nomail version of the list. For more information on of the openSUSE mailinglists see http://en.opensuse.org/Mailinglists" Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, openSUSE. Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Henne Vogelsang wrote:
*If* we need such a form of moderation, could this be human moderators?
Are you volunteering? No problem, i can have you moderate everything in no time but that means we need to find a new Director Inbound Product Mgmt. :)
It's only necessary to moderate non-subscriber posts, not so many. and these posts could be set on the list with a flag to show one must answer to all the reason is not to lose any user jdd -- http://www.dodin.net --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Hi, On Tuesday, September 04, 2007 at 13:21:39, jdd wrote:
Henne Vogelsang wrote:
*If* we need such a form of moderation, could this be human moderators? Are you volunteering? No problem, i can have you moderate everything in no time but that means we need to find a new Director Inbound Product Mgmt. :)
It's only necessary to moderate non-subscriber posts, not so many.
You dont want to know the current ratio of non-subscriber(ham+slipped trough spamfiltering) to subscriber messages. This is a full time job for 2 40h/week persons. Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, openSUSE. Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Henne Vogelsang wrote:
You dont want to know the current ratio of non-subscriber(ham+slipped trough spamfiltering) to subscriber messages. This is a full time job for 2 40h/week persons.
yes, I do want to know :-) such infos whould be good to have serious discussion, of course. jdd -- http://www.dodin.net --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Tuesday 04 September 2007 03:41, Henne Vogelsang wrote:
...
If human moderation does not work, how about a simple scheme where one has to follow a URL provided in the auto-response to unlock his previously sent message? w3c does this very nicely, for example.
So self moderation? What use would that be?
I think the expectation is that spammers are mostly automated and would not bother to unlock their blocked posts (or even see the "blocked" reply). I tend to think it's probably true.
...
Henne
Randall Schulz --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Henne Vogelsang escribió:
That might be true for those lists. But this is not true in general. Most of the major FOSS mailinglists are subscribers only.
IMHO if you want to participate or contribute in a project, the very minimun effort that the user should take is subscribing to a list, not willing to do so denotes a lack of interest.
Frankly, with unfriendly a reponse like this, I usually think twice about contributing.
Could you please state whats unfriendly in that response?
I think there is nothing unfriendly.
If human moderation does not work, how about a simple scheme where one has to follow a URL provided in the auto-response to unlock his previously sent message? w3c does this very nicely, for example.
So self moderation? What use would that be?
Not to mention that writting a bot in PHP to bypass this highly questionable method should not take more than an hour ;) -- "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." --Ray Bradbury Cristian Rodríguez R. SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, 4 Sep 2007, Marcus Meissner wrote:
1. Abandon this level of strictness and instead use decent spam and virus filtering. This does not help, as I see with the gphoto mailinglists.
That means the gphoto mailing lists don't have good filters. Those on gcc.gnu.org hardly ever let spam or viruses through. On Tue, 4 Sep 2007, Stephan Kulow wrote:
What I consider _very_ ugly though is that these mails are simply wasted and not moderated or even replied full quote. Right now I have to dig in my sent folder to resend with the correct From header.
Ack. On Tue, 4 Sep 2007, Henne Vogelsang wrote:
Frankly, with unfriendly a reponse like this, I usually think twice about contributing. Could you please state whats unfriendly in that response?
As Coolo pointed out, it doesn't allow me unblock or simply resend my own message, but I first have to subscribe (where the response doesn't tell me where) and then find my original message and resend it. It would be nice to see the following changes: o Include a reference to the respective mailing list page on www.opensuse.org, so that subscription is just a link away. (I see you're actually proposing this below. ;-) o Describe how to subscribe using mail. o Provide more details on the "nomail" magic.
If human moderation does not work, how about a simple scheme where one has to follow a URL provided in the auto-response to unlock his previously sent message? w3c does this very nicely, for example. So self moderation? What use would that be?
Basically the original message is put into quarantine and instructions are provided how to self-approve it. That self-approval step takes care of bots and similar. w3c.org really handles this nicely, for example.
True. I can modify that message. How about
"If you want to be able to post from more than one email address, you can subscribe the other addresses to the nomail version of the list. For more information on of the openSUSE mailinglists see http://en.opensuse.org/Mailinglists"
That would be great, thanks. (s/on of/on/, I assume.) It would be nice to also provide direct instructions on how to subscribe by e-mail, so that one doesn't have to go through the web; basically add To subscribe to a mailing list, send e-mail to <LISTNAME>+subscribe@opensuse.org to the snippet above. Thanks, Gerald -- Dr. Gerald Pfeifer E gp@novell.com SUSE Linux Products GmbH Director Inbound Product Mgmt T +49(911)74053-0 HRB 16746 (AG Nuremberg) openSUSE/SUSE Linux Enterprise F +49(911)74053-483 GF: Markus Rex --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
Basically the original message is put into quarantine and instructions are provided how to self-approve it. That self-approval step takes care of bots and similar. w3c.org really handles this nicely, for example.
I wonder which mailing list manager they use? /Per Jessen, Zürich --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2007-09-09 at 13:43 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:
Basically the original message is put into quarantine and instructions are provided how to self-approve it. That self-approval step takes care of bots and similar. w3c.org really handles this nicely, for example.
I wonder which mailing list manager they use?
Mailman does, I think. But I have not seen a self-approval procedure; what I have seen is that either you wait for the moderator to approve it, or you subscribe and click somewhere to resubmit it. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFG5DDLtTMYHG2NR9URAp2JAKCLus97yOCFUo5yJFXeeIOJShpJIQCeJ1Bw vMmTWfHwr1z+jbXT+y/PvDc= =SQXr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Monday 03 September 2007 15:11, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
The openSUSE mailing lists do not strike me as particularly open.
I have been contributing to free software projects for over ten years, but none I can remember appears as unfriendly when someone not subscribed to a list tries to post to that list.
What - exactly - is "unfriendly" about the message? I've been on various mailing lists since the '80s and have never noticed this list as being any more or less friendly than other subscriber-only lists.
Why do we have such a strict setup? As evidenced by hosts like gcc.gnu.org, it is possibly to keep lists spam free without it.
Considering you have a novell.com on your email, why don't you go talk to someone in your organization. It IS your list, after all. We're just the end users. -- kai ponte www.perfectreign.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, 4 Sep 2007, Kai Ponte wrote:
Considering you have a novell.com on your email, why don't you go talk to someone in your organization. It IS your list, after all. We're just the end users.
Well, this is not how openSUSE is supposed to work, is it? This is not my list, nor -- to the extent possible -- is it ours (as in SUSE or Novell), but ours (as in openSUSE). It seems very appropriate to raise and discuss such issues in public. And if the majority here feels mlmmj should respond in Klingon, that's what we should consider. As long as it uses proper MIME headers, of course. ;-) Gerald -- Dr. Gerald Pfeifer E gp@novell.com SUSE Linux Products GmbH Director Inbound Product Mgmt T +49(911)74053-0 HRB 16746 (AG Nuremberg) openSUSE/SUSE Linux Enterprise F +49(911)74053-483 GF: Markus Rex --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Hello, on Donnerstag, 6. September 2007, Gerald Pfeifer wrote: [...]
And if the majority here feels mlmmj should respond in Klingon, that's what we should consider. As long as it uses proper MIME headers, of course. ;-)
*lol* To add my 2 cents: - making the "you are not subscribed" bounce more verbose/helpful is a good idea - attaching the rejected message is also a very good idea, for both - people who wanted to post to the mailinglist, because they don't have to search their sent folder for the message - people whose mail address got abused, because they at least see which mail (including Received: headers) caused the bounce but: - having an option to send a mail without being subscribed (titled self-confirmation in some mails) is very problematic. Reason: With this option, everybody will _have to_ use reply-to-all instead of list-reply (so that the answer reaches the questioner for sure), causing lots of complaints from regular subscribers receiving mails twice. Oh, and the nomail subscription is basically the same thing, just without a nice web interface ;-) Regards, Christian Boltz -- Hmm.. Good point Adrian. I should get used to that thing close to my keyboard... how did you call it? Mouse? :-) [Dominique Leuenberger in opensuse-factory] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, Sep 04, 2007 at 12:11:03AM +0200, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
My recommendations are: 2. If this does not work sufficiently well, employ human moderation or a challenge/reponse schema.
Strongly oppose human moderation. I waste a lot of my day doing mail moderation for the apparmor mail lists, and that's only four. I was just thinking it'd be nice to try to explore some way to more aggressive drop spam. I can appreciate the rest of the sentiment though.
participants (14)
-
Carlos E. R. -
Christian Boltz -
Clayton -
Cristian Rodriguez -
Gerald Pfeifer -
Henne Vogelsang -
jdd -
Kai Ponte -
Marcus Meissner -
Pascal Bleser -
Per Jessen -
Randall R Schulz -
Seth Arnold -
Stephan Kulow