Would anyone like to volunteer to topic check newbie posts until they have the topic tagging thing down? Would anyone like to spend the time and learn how to admin this list better than I can in the time I have? I think our only major problem at this point is the bouncing thing and I just don't have the time to look at every single error message to try to figure out which ones are just "that email server was rebooting" and which are "real bounce problems." As I remember, there were about 200 to 300 error message for an average 100 post day. Keep in mind that 100 posts times 2000 subscribers is 200000 emails sent per day so 200 errors is only an 0.1 percent error rate. And you get errors for "mail box full" "I don't know who that is" "can't contact that server" "that domain doesn't exist" "that server has been down for 24 hours" "I'm out of the office until..." etc... Applicants should have about 1 hour daily to spend and have a complete working knowledge of email servers. --- James Newton (PICList Admin #3) mailto:jamesnewton@piclist.com 1-619-652-0593 PIC/PICList FAQ: http://www.piclist.com or .org -----Original Message----- From: LISTSERV list owners' forum [mailto:LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM] On Behalf Of Paul Russell Sent: Monday, April 02, 2001 09:09 To: LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM Subject: Re: Duplicate Posting problem Change the configuration to "Default-Options= Repro,Review". This will cause postings from future new subscribers to be sent to the moderator for approval. On-topic postings can be approved; off-topic postings can be deleted, or returned to the sender with an appropriate explanation. When the moderator is satisfied that the newcomer is posting in a responsible manner, the newcomer's subscription can be changed to "Noreview". The review/noreview option setting can be changed only by the list owner, not by the subscriber. If you want to impose the same restriction on existing subscribers who have not yet demonstrated their ability to post on-topic, issue the command: quiet set listname review for user@host.domain.tld for each subscriber who is to be placed on review. Change "listname" to the list name and "user@host.domain.tld" to the subscriber's address. These changes may alleviate the problem, but they will not resolve it. As a LISTSERV site administrator, I am concerned by your description of the ignorance and apathy (don't know and don't care) exhibited by everyone involved with the list, including the list owners. It seems to me that the principal problem with the list is not that it may be poorly configured, but rather, that it is poorly managed by owners who are apparently unwilling to accept their responsibilities. We explicitly inform our list owners that they are responsible for the day-to-day management of their lists, including adding and deleting subscribers, serving as the initial contact point for subscribers who have questions or problems, and dealing with any social problems which may arise on the list . If the current owners are too busy to be bothered to fulfill their responsibilities, then perhaps it is time to find new owners. The logical place to start the search is with the current subscribers. If none of the current subscribers place enough value on the list to make a commitment to keep it going, then perhaps it is time to retire the list. We have retired more than one apparently active list because the owner left the university without providing a forwarding address and no one else was willing to take on the job. It sounds harsh, but it is realistic. TANSTAAFL. -- Paul Russell Senior Systems Administrator University of Notre Dame -----Original Message----- From: LISTSERV list owners' forum [mailto:LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM]On Behalf Of j newton Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 10:12 To: LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM Subject: Re: Duplicate Posting problem Importance: Low The list is pretty well described at http://www.piclist.org Its not company sponsored (read: us admins don't have much time to spend on it) and is hosted by a server at MIT on a "don't bug us and we'll forget about you" basis (read: no site manager or developer). We have a HUGE number of lurkers (read: lots of subscribers who have no investment in the list content) and a few active professionals who have somehow developed a need to help out the newbies (read: most posts either come from people who just subscribed to the list and didn't read the welcome message or from very busy pros who don't have time to worry about list issues) When one of the lurkers in lower Astonia has an ISP who doesn't know how to run a mail server, the newbies don't know what to do and often react by posting wild... stuff, the lurkers don't care and the pros start getting pissed of and leave (very bad). My concern with Auto-Delete is that, at least the last time we tried it, it has to send error messages to all the list owners and, as I mentioned, most of us don't have time to read them. We currently just have the messages being dumped in to a bit bucket at jory-bounce-proc@hungry.com. Can the auto-delete messages be routed to only one owner? Also, the last time we tried it, it seemed to cause more problems than it solved... ...maybe it's time to give it another shot. The headers are: PUT PICLIST LIST PW=XXXXXXXX * pic microcontroller discussion list * * Owner= jory@mit.edu * Owner= mwillis@foxinternet.net * Owner= eplus1@san.rr.com * Owner= reznaeous@earthlink.net * Review= jory@mit.edu * Review= jory@org.org * Review= eplus1@san.rr.com * Review= mwillis@foxinternet.net * Review= reznaeous@earthlink.net * Subscription= Open,Confirm * Send= Private * Notify= Yes * Reply-To= List,Respect * Files= No * Mail-Via= DIST2 * Ack= No * Loopcheck= Full * Validate= No * Language= NOHTML * Notebook= Yes,G,Monthly,Public * Stats= Normal,jory@mit.edu * Stats= eplus1@san.rr.com * Stats= reznaeous@earthlink.net * Stats= mwillis@foxinternet.net * Errors-To= jory-bounce-proc@hungry.com * Daily-Threshold= 250 * Sizelim= 1000 * Created 1995 * Topics= [PIC], [EE], [AD], [OT], [SX], [AVR], [BUY] * Default-Topics= All * Default-Options= Repro * * Confidential= Yes Thanks for takeing the time to read it over and make suggestions. --- James Newton (PICList Admin #3) mailto:jamesnewton@piclist.com 1-619-652-0593 PIC/PICList FAQ: http://www.piclist.com or .org -----Original Message----- From: LISTSERV list owners' forum [mailto:LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM]On Behalf Of Winship Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 16:44 To: LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM Subject: Re: Duplicate Posting problem On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, j newton wrote: > I don't see how your second statement can be true. You can see in the > headers that the post came from some third part, to the list server, out to > the bouncer, and back to the list server where it was distributed to ALL > list members, not just the one who posted the original message. Everyone on > the list is seeing these bounces, not just the original poster. Oh, well, if the braindead systems of your subscribers, are sending the errors to the list itself, and you let them go through, due to how you have your list header set, you do have a problem. It is very easy to prevent such things being distributed to the list. Let's see your list header, the whole thing. Sounds like their are some major keywords misset or missing, and maybe your filter= keyword is messed up. How *DO* you have this list set up? What is it and what is its purpose? Douglas -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads