Thread: Mailing list problem

Started: 2008-09-12 09:31:50
Last activity: 2008-09-12 18:05:14
Topics: SAC Developers
Kuang He
Mailing list problem
2008-09-12 09:31:50
Hi all,

Actually, this is something related to sac-help mailing list, but
since it is a development issue, I thought it should be more
appropriate to post it here.

In a lot of SAC documents, such as README, doc/README, configure
--help, any help pages, etc. you can see words like this:

If you experience problems at any stage please report the issue to
sac-help<at>iris.washington.edu

However, nowadays one has to subscribe to that mailing list first in
order to be able to send an email to it asking for help. Otherwise,
the mailing list system will _silently_ drop the emails from the
queue. I found out about this the hard way, having two of my emails
dropped when I tried to send a message to sac-help without being a
subscriber. One of the mailing list managers Tim Knight told me that:

The IRIS mailing lists were more open a couple of years ago until
we starting getting a huge number of spam messages, so the policy on
most mailing lists was to close the lists to subscribers only.

Therefore, I was wondering if we need to add something like

For further information, go to
http://www.iris.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/sac-help

to each instance where sac-help is mentioned, or maybe kindly ask the
mailing list managers to at least let the system REJECT emails (using
an SMTP error code) rather than silently DISCARD them, or both.


Best regards,

--
Kuang He
Department of Physics
University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT 06269-3046

Tel: +1.860.486.4919
Web: http://www.phys.uconn.edu/~he/

  • George Helffrich
    Re: Mailing list problem
    2008-09-12 16:03:06
    Dear All -

    The behavior Kuang highlights is certainly unfriendly and impairs
    honest efforts to help. It would be better if sac-help sent reject
    SMTP responses with a link to to join sac-help. Putting detailed
    mailing list clerical instructions into code warnings seems wasteful of
    developer time and is likely to become outdated again at some point.

    On 12 Sep 2008, at 07:31, Kuang He wrote:

    Hi all,

    Actually, this is something related to sac-help mailing list, but
    since it is a development issue, I thought it should be more
    appropriate to post it here.

    In a lot of SAC documents, such as README, doc/README, configure
    --help, any help pages, etc. you can see words like this:

    If you experience problems at any stage please report the issue to
    sac-help<at>iris.washington.edu

    However, nowadays one has to subscribe to that mailing list first in
    order to be able to send an email to it asking for help. Otherwise,
    the mailing list system will _silently_ drop the emails from the
    queue. I found out about this the hard way, having two of my emails
    dropped when I tried to send a message to sac-help without being a
    subscriber. One of the mailing list managers Tim Knight told me that:

    The IRIS mailing lists were more open a couple of years ago until
    we starting getting a huge number of spam messages, so the policy on
    most mailing lists was to close the lists to subscribers only.

    Therefore, I was wondering if we need to add something like

    For further information, go to
    http://www.iris.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/sac-help

    to each instance where sac-help is mentioned, or maybe kindly ask the
    mailing list managers to at least let the system REJECT emails (using
    an SMTP error code) rather than silently DISCARD them, or both.


    Best regards,

    --
    Kuang He
    Department of Physics
    University of Connecticut
    Storrs, CT 06269-3046

    Tel: +1.860.486.4919
    Web: http://www.phys.uconn.edu/~he/
    _______________________________________________
    sac-dev mailing list
    sac-dev<at>iris.washington.edu
    http://www.iris.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/sac-dev

    George Helffrich
    george<at>geology.bristol.ac.uk


    • James Wookey
      Re: Mailing list problem
      2008-09-12 14:53:03
      Dear all,

      The other alternative would be to scrap any mention of mailing lists,
      and simply direct the user to the main SAC web-page for help/bug
      reporting etc. From there it is easy to maintain up to date
      instructions for joining the mailing list, or further information.


      Dear All -

      The behavior Kuang highlights is certainly unfriendly and impairs
      honest efforts to help. It would be better if sac-help sent reject
      SMTP responses with a link to to join sac-help. Putting detailed
      mailing list clerical instructions into code warnings seems wasteful
      of developer time and is likely to become outdated again at some
      point.

      On 12 Sep 2008, at 07:31, Kuang He wrote:

      Hi all,

      Actually, this is something related to sac-help mailing list, but
      since it is a development issue, I thought it should be more
      appropriate to post it here.

      In a lot of SAC documents, such as README, doc/README, configure
      --help, any help pages, etc. you can see words like this:

      If you experience problems at any stage please report the issue to
      sac-help<at>iris.washington.edu

      However, nowadays one has to subscribe to that mailing list first in
      order to be able to send an email to it asking for help. Otherwise,
      the mailing list system will _silently_ drop the emails from the
      queue. I found out about this the hard way, having two of my emails
      dropped when I tried to send a message to sac-help without being a
      subscriber. One of the mailing list managers Tim Knight told me that:

      The IRIS mailing lists were more open a couple of years ago until
      we starting getting a huge number of spam messages, so the policy on
      most mailing lists was to close the lists to subscribers only.

      Therefore, I was wondering if we need to add something like

      For further information, go to
      http://www.iris.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/sac-help

      to each instance where sac-help is mentioned, or maybe kindly ask the
      mailing list managers to at least let the system REJECT emails (using
      an SMTP error code) rather than silently DISCARD them, or both.


      Best regards,

      --
      Kuang He
      Department of Physics
      University of Connecticut
      Storrs, CT 06269-3046

      Tel: +1.860.486.4919
      Web: http://www.phys.uconn.edu/~he/
      _______________________________________________
      sac-dev mailing list
      sac-dev<at>iris.washington.edu
      http://www.iris.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/sac-dev

      George Helffrich
      george<at>geology.bristol.ac.uk

      _______________________________________________
      sac-dev mailing list
      sac-dev<at>iris.washington.edu
      http://www.iris.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/sac-dev


      • Arthur Snoke
        Re: Mailing list problem
        2008-09-12 18:05:14
        James Wookey wrote:
        Dear all,

        The other alternative would be to scrap any mention of mailing lists,
        and simply direct the user to the main SAC web-page for help/bug
        reporting etc. From there it is easy to maintain up to date instructions
        for joining the mailing list, or further information.

        Towards the end of both the README and readme.buidsac, it says

        * If you need help ...
        ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        1. Use the online help from within sac
        2. Some features of SAC are described in the CHANGES file in this directory,
        and changes in new versions are summarized in HISTORY.
        3. URL http://www.iris.edu/manuals/sac/ has links to other resources and
        information about updates.
        4. A place to share problems and find solutions is the sac-help mailing
        list: <sac-help<at>iris.washington.edu>. For further information, go to
        URL http://www.iris.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/sac-help

        Let me know if you can think of ways to improve this.

        Arthur Snoke

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