xfree86-list administrivia

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



I'm sending this email out to clarify a few things about how the
list is managed, and what is expected of the participants in
order to make the list run smoothly and to minimize
administrative effort.

This list does not allow posting to it by non-subscribers, and it
will never allow that.  Anyone who wants to post a message on
this list, must subscribe to the list either via the website or
via the xfree86-list-request@xxxxxxxxxx mechanism, confirm their
subscription, and then after receiving the "you are now
subscribed" message back from GNU mailman, people are free to
post.

The reason this is done on this mailing list, like many others,
is to filter out the humongous plethora of spam, viruses,
unsubscribe messages posted by users to the list instead of done
properly, as well as other junk mail sent to it, all of which get
trapped by GNU mailman's filters and put in the administrative
queue.  The overwhelming majority of stuff that gets put in the
administrative approval queue, is pure junk, something like 99.9%
of it.

Due to the volume of this kind of junkmail, the administrative
approval queue just gets dumped on the floor and either discarded
or rejected in a batch once or twice a week.  Any emails posted
to the list by non-subscribers gets dumped on the floor unread.  
Reason being, if someone can't take the time to subscribe first
prior to posting, then I can't be bothered to read their posting
and approve it, as doing so would just encourage them to not ever
subscribe, and would leave me having to then approve one by one
all of their followups.  That isn't something I consider worthy
of spending time doing.  If someone wants to be able to post to
the list freely, and does not want to receive emails from the
list, they can subscribe and configure mailman to not send them
mail.

The second thing I'd like to note, is that there has been an 
increase in the last 3-4 months of people's email accounts 
bouncing due to various reasons including:  1) They no longer 
work at a company and their email address is disabled  2) They've 
changed email addresses and their old address isn't working any 
more  3) They've ran out of disk quota/space  4) Some other 
random reason.

Up until now, mailman was set to disable sending of mail to
accounts that bounce, but keep people subscribed.  I've changed
mailman to unsubscribe people who's email bounces now, so that 
dead email addresses don't stay subscribed forever.  So if anyone 
finds they aren't getting the list anymore all of a sudden some 
day, check to make sure you're still subscribed, and resubscribe 
if you're not and still wish to be.

Summary:  If anyone posts a message to the list whom is not
currently subscribed to the list, it won't ever make it to the
list and will never be read by anyone.  Subscribe to the list
first, confirm it, and then wait until mailman tells you you're
subscribed _before_ posting.  If anyone wants to be unsubscribed,
follow the link at the bottom of every mail posted to the list
and unsubscribe yourself.  Bouncing email accounts will be
unsubscribed automatically without human intervention.  The
intention of all of these list policies, is to minimize the
administrative effort of sifting through bucketloads of junkmail
to find individual pleas for help, which can be very time
consuming.  Other types of administrative mails, which are sent
to the admin address however, do get read and handled regularly 
though.

Hope this clarifies a few things for people who have asked 
privately, as well as others.  Feel free to pass the info on.

	Cordially,
 
	The evil xfree86-list administrator



_______________________________________________
xfree86-list mailing list
xfree86-list@xxxxxxxxxx
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/xfree86-list
IRC: #xfree86 on irc.redhat.com

[Red Hat General]     [Red Hat Watch]     [Red Hat Development]     [Kernel Development]     [Yosemite Camping]

  Powered by Linux