Hi, I have just (08:40 BST, 30 Sept) received Sam Tuke's posting dated Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:02:04 +0000. The successive headers encapsulating the delay are:
Received: from col0-omc1-s16.col0.hotmail.com ([65.55.34.26]) by the.earth.li with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from samtuke@hotmail.com) id 1MrZio-0005vC-VR for main@lists.alug.org.uk; Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:02:07 +0100
Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=the.earth.li) by the.earth.li with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk) id 1Mstm5-0003BE-Tq; Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:38:57 +0100
This isn't the first time recently that I've noticed substantial delays, though not on the 4-day scale until today.
Is there a problem? Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 30-Sep-09 Time: 08:58:01 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
Ted Harding wrote: [...]
I have just (08:40 BST, 30 Sept) received Sam Tuke's posting dated Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:02:04 +0000. [...]
Is there a problem?
There's also a X-Mailman-Approved-At: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:38:09 +0100 header, so it wasn't a technical problem at earth.li.
Why was it held for moderation? I'm guessing, but
1. it quotes the entire digest;
2. it has a poor subject line;
3. it's html email.
Why was it let onto the list? I don't know. I think it should have been returned to the sender with a polite pointer to a "how to write an email for a discussion list" guide.
Having badly-titled, top-post-whole-quote-digest emails is a drain on the community, making every reader waste time reestablishing context, instead of the sender spending a little more time to write the email. All are welcome, but please try to write easy-to-read emails.
Hope that explains,
On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 10:14:17AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
Why was it let onto the list? I don't know. I think it should have been returned to the sender with a polite pointer to a "how to write an email for a discussion list" guide.
Because I Can't be bothered. Moderation now gets used to reject spam only. HTML mail will eventually get through on this list unless it is either stupidly massive or has a giant attachment. If anyone disagrees with this policy and wants to send the polite reminders then let me know and as long as you have some verifiable history of being on Alug or similar mailing lists I'll share the admin password. Be warned though, being a moderator will only ever mean you get complained at.
Adam
Adam Bower wrote:
[...] Moderation now gets used to reject spam only. HTML mail will eventually get through on this list unless it is either stupidly massive or has a giant attachment.
Isn't quoting a whole digest for a two-line reply "stupidly massive"? It even asks for a more specific subject line than "Re: main Digest..."
[...] Be warned though, being a moderator will only ever mean you get complained at.
That's not necessarily so. I've had compliments for moderating other lists, but this list does have three characteristics that I think make complaints more likely:-
1. weak/vague charter (partly my fault - I was inexperienced); 2. slow/irregular moderation; 3. being on a tech topic.
It'll be great if a volunteer steps up and runs the queue daily, which would help with one of those.
Regards,
On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:59:25PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
Isn't quoting a whole digest for a two-line reply "stupidly massive"? It even asks for a more specific subject line than "Re: main Digest..."
No, not really, in context of a single mail maybe but not compared to current computer capabilities. Anyhow it was certainly not in comparison to the traffic generated discussing it anyhow.
[...] Be warned though, being a moderator will only ever mean you get complained at.
That's not necessarily so. I've had compliments for moderating other
It seems that it is necessarily so on this list ;)
lists, but this list does have three characteristics that I think make complaints more likely:-
- weak/vague charter (partly my fault - I was inexperienced);
The "rules" are fairly well set out. Just getting people to pay attention to them is more of a problem.
- slow/irregular moderation;
It used to be done daily, but I got bored of almost daily complaints so it now gets done when I get tired of the moderation messages.
It'll be great if a volunteer steps up and runs the queue daily, which would help with one of those.
Until they get bored of the complaints and stop doing it anyhow ;)
Adam
Adam Bower wrote:
It used to be done daily, but I got bored of almost daily complaints so it now gets done when I get tired of the moderation messages.
As moderator of the PLUG list, I can add some context to this. I'm far more lazy with the moderation that Adam is, and now have 200+ messages going back over the last month to check. Since this thread made me feel a bit guilty I have just processed them, and they were all spam.
Mailman makes this as painful as possible (in my opinion) and is a large part of the problem.
On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 02:55:53PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
Adam Bower wrote:
It used to be done daily, but I got bored of almost daily complaints so it now gets done when I get tired of the moderation messages.
As moderator of the PLUG list, I can add some context to this. I'm far more lazy with the moderation that Adam is, and now have 200+ messages going back over the last month to check. Since this thread made me feel a bit guilty I have just processed them, and they were all spam.
Mailman makes this as painful as possible (in my opinion) and is a large part of the problem.
listadmin IYF. I use it to process a number of lists fairly quickly on a daily basis. main@lists.alug is one of these lists, but I mostly just clear out the spam - I don't really like HTML mail so don't approve it, but understand Adam's point about rejecting it perhaps putting off newcomers.
J.
2009/9/30 Jonathan McDowell noodles@earth.li:
listadmin IYF. I use it to process a number of lists fairly quickly on a daily basis. main@lists.alug is one of these lists, but I mostly just clear out the spam - I don't really like HTML mail so don't approve it, but understand Adam's point about rejecting it perhaps putting off newcomers.
I'm with Noodles on this one HTML mail is not welcome on this list, it is in the rules if subscribers can't be bothered to read the rules expect the post to bounce. However newbie members should be given a gentle polite reminder and pointed to the rules.
Cheers, BJ (another lazy list administrator)
Jonathan McDowell wrote:
listadmin IYF. I use it to process a number of lists fairly quickly on a daily basis.
listadmin[1] looks good, although a quick attempt at getting it working didn't get me very far.
Do you (or anyone else) have an example config file for moderating lug.org.uk mailman lists?
[1] http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin
Mark Rogers wrote:
Do you (or anyone else) have an example config file for moderating lug.org.uk mailman lists?
I answered my own question; it was too trivial so I'd tried too hard.
All it needs is the following in ~/.listadmin.ini password "mypassword"
default discard spamlevel 6 discard_if_from ^(postmaster|mailer(-daemon)?|listproc|no-reply)@
<listname>@mailman.lug.org.uk
where <listname> for me is peterboro. Then run: listadmin .. and follow the prompts!
I do get a warning on submitting changes: WARNING: Failed to append to http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/admindb/peterboro: No such file or directory .. but it seems to have worked. See here: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=461210
Just a quick follow-up: Thanks for the pointers to listadmin, it really is a massive improvement over the Mailman web interface!
I actually look forward to having something to moderate now! OK, so that novelty will wear off soon enough, but still I never enjoyed the web interface even from day 1.
On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 02:55:53PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
Mailman makes this as painful as possible (in my opinion) and is a large part of the problem.
That's why you want to be using listadmin ;)
http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~kjetilho/hacks/ < available as a package in all good Linux distributions.
Adam
MJ Ray wrote:
That's not necessarily so. I've had compliments for moderating other lists, but this list does have three characteristics that I think make complaints more likely:-
- weak/vague charter (partly my fault - I was inexperienced);
- slow/irregular moderation;
- being on a tech topic.
I have no problem with the slow/irregular moderation.
If the list admins are finding enough time to trawl through what I imagine is a mountain of spam to find the odd post from new members and then just either bouncing it back with reasons why it was rejected or accepting it for the list so that others can explain why it was moderated in the first place then I think they are doing the most that can be reasonably be expected and this doesn't need to happen immediately.
What I think would help is if it was obvious in some way that the message had been moderated, changing the subject might break threading for people, but is there a way of automating the addition of a line at the top saying "moderated" when something hits the moderation queue ? That way we wouldn't get other members on the list wondering why a backdated message has suddenly appeared.
Often when this comes up it seems to be approached with a total disregard to the moderators being voluntary and actually having other stuff to do. Of course normally such complaints are missing the offer of help you have made.
Wayne Stallwood wrote: [...]
for people, but is there a way of automating the addition of a line at the top saying "moderated" when something hits the moderation queue ? That way we wouldn't get other members on the list wondering why a backdated message has suddenly appeared.
It's already automated: the X-Mailman-Approved-At header. I don't think that appears in messages which didn't require approval.
I agree with many of the points others are making, especially those about Mailman admin being painful. As some of you know, I've tried to send patches to Mailman in the past and they never got integrated. I've also used ecartis and mlmmj on other servers and they're more email-driven but not much better really.
What's the most moderator-friendly mailing list server?
Regards,
MJ Ray wrote:
Wayne Stallwood wrote: [...]
for people, but is there a way of automating the addition of a line at the top saying "moderated" when something hits the moderation queue ? That way we wouldn't get other members on the list wondering why a backdated message has suddenly appeared.
It's already automated: the X-Mailman-Approved-At header. I don't think that appears in messages which didn't require approval.
Having it in the headers when many mail clients don't display such information by default doesn't make it clear to the other list members. My feeling is that it would be better if it was obvious in all mail clients that a message has been moderated and I think noting it in the message body is the only universal way to achieve this.
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
MJ Ray wrote:
Wayne Stallwood wrote: [...]
for people, but is there a way of automating the addition of a line at the top saying "moderated" when something hits the moderation queue ?
[...]
It's already automated: the X-Mailman-Approved-At header. [...]
Having it in the headers when many mail clients don't display such information by default doesn't make it clear to the other list members.
I thought mail clients were supposed to show X- headers by default, but I can't find where I read that now. I hope that anyone who cares can tell their client to display that header, or at least report the inability to do so as a bug to the developers.
Can anyone reading this not see the X-Mailman-* headers if they want?
My feeling is that it would be better if it was obvious in all mail clients that a message has been moderated and I think noting it in the message body is the only universal way to achieve this.
If it is added to the body, I feel it should be added to the footer because it's less important than the message and the footer is where list admin info goes on discussion lists.
Hope that helps,
On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 08:58:58AM +0100, Ted Harding wrote:
I have just (08:40 BST, 30 Sept) received Sam Tuke's posting dated Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:02:04 +0000. The successive headers encapsulating the delay are:
Received: from col0-omc1-s16.col0.hotmail.com ([65.55.34.26]) by the.earth.li with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from samtuke@hotmail.com) id 1MrZio-0005vC-VR for main@lists.alug.org.uk; Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:02:07 +0100
Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=the.earth.li) by the.earth.li with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk) id 1Mstm5-0003BE-Tq; Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:38:57 +0100
This isn't the first time recently that I've noticed substantial delays, though not on the 4-day scale until today.
Is there a problem?
Yes. Sam's mail had an HTML part to it and was thus held for moderation.
J.
-
Adam Bower -
John Woodard -
Jonathan McDowell -
Mark Rogers -
MJ Ray -
Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk -
Wayne Stallwood