[Starlingx-discuss] Mailing list notes
I just flushed the starlingx-discuss moderation queue, there were a number of messages from the last week or so stacked up along with a couple hundred spam emails (yay? we're well-known enough to attract spam? :) The top reasons most messages get caught in moderation are: 1) message too big - we have a limit of 60K on message size. I am aware that the majority of subscribers use a mail client that encourages top-posting and that leads to not trimming messages, in this environment that makes conversations over multiple messages hard to follow. Trimming unnecessary quoting in messages makes for a better record of conversations, and will ensure that you are not delayed by the size limit. 2) too many recipients - The list is configured to set Reply-to to the original poster and not the list itself, so many people hit reply-all to reply to the list. Again, some mail readers handle this poorly and It is good practice to trim the recipients when replying to a mailing list. 3) not subscribed - For whatever reason mailman (the list processor) doesn't think your email is subscribed and refuses to deliver. The size of the spam backlog is a testament to why we keep this on. We generally also allow these through as it is often new people to the community and they will get notified that they need to subscribe to the list. I am investigating a coupe of reports that messages are not being properly forwarded and the user is notified that they are not subscribed when they believe they are. If you think you are also having this problem let me know and I'll check it out. One is an anomaly, two is a coincidence, three, well at three we may have a pattern :) Also, you can verify your subscription settings at http://lists.starlingx.io/cgi-bin/mailman/options/starlingx-discuss dt -- Dean Troyer dtroyer@gmail.com
To play devil's advocate... For #1 below (message too big) - it looks to me like of the messages that were flushed, only one was due to a message body larger than 60K - most were due to attachments. Personally, I find it difficult to track conversations where the message has been "trimmed" (I am tempted to use other more descriptive words but I won't). I'd prefer to see the whole context of the conversation without having to track back through several messages in the history. Bart -----Original Message----- From: Dean Troyer [mailto:dtroyer@gmail.com] Sent: January 17, 2019 1:45 PM To: starlingx Subject: [Starlingx-discuss] Mailing list notes I just flushed the starlingx-discuss moderation queue, there were a number of messages from the last week or so stacked up along with a couple hundred spam emails (yay? we're well-known enough to attract spam? :) The top reasons most messages get caught in moderation are: 1) message too big - we have a limit of 60K on message size. I am aware that the majority of subscribers use a mail client that encourages top-posting and that leads to not trimming messages, in this environment that makes conversations over multiple messages hard to follow. Trimming unnecessary quoting in messages makes for a better record of conversations, and will ensure that you are not delayed by the size limit. 2) too many recipients - The list is configured to set Reply-to to the original poster and not the list itself, so many people hit reply-all to reply to the list. Again, some mail readers handle this poorly and It is good practice to trim the recipients when replying to a mailing list. 3) not subscribed - For whatever reason mailman (the list processor) doesn't think your email is subscribed and refuses to deliver. The size of the spam backlog is a testament to why we keep this on. We generally also allow these through as it is often new people to the community and they will get notified that they need to subscribe to the list. I am investigating a coupe of reports that messages are not being properly forwarded and the user is notified that they are not subscribed when they believe they are. If you think you are also having this problem let me know and I'll check it out. One is an anomaly, two is a coincidence, three, well at three we may have a pattern :) Also, you can verify your subscription settings at http://lists.starlingx.io/cgi-bin/mailman/options/starlingx-discuss dt -- Dean Troyer dtroyer@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Starlingx-discuss mailing list Starlingx-discuss@lists.starlingx.io http://lists.starlingx.io/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/starlingx-discuss
I'd agree with Bart. There have been many cases (not necessarily on this discussion list) where folks reply and truncate threads and remove all history and context from it, leaving an unintelligible message that can only make sense if you then go and read a dozen other truncated messages, in the correct order. I don't see how this leads to a "better record" -----Original Message----- From: Wensley, Barton [mailto:Barton.Wensley@windriver.com] Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2019 1:57 PM To: Dean Troyer; starlingx Subject: Re: [Starlingx-discuss] Mailing list notes To play devil's advocate... For #1 below (message too big) - it looks to me like of the messages that were flushed, only one was due to a message body larger than 60K - most were due to attachments. Personally, I find it difficult to track conversations where the message has been "trimmed" (I am tempted to use other more descriptive words but I won't). I'd prefer to see the whole context of the conversation without having to track back through several messages in the history. Bart -----Original Message----- From: Dean Troyer [mailto:dtroyer@gmail.com] Sent: January 17, 2019 1:45 PM To: starlingx Subject: [Starlingx-discuss] Mailing list notes I just flushed the starlingx-discuss moderation queue, there were a number of messages from the last week or so stacked up along with a couple hundred spam emails (yay? we're well-known enough to attract spam? :) The top reasons most messages get caught in moderation are: 1) message too big - we have a limit of 60K on message size. I am aware that the majority of subscribers use a mail client that encourages top-posting and that leads to not trimming messages, in this environment that makes conversations over multiple messages hard to follow. Trimming unnecessary quoting in messages makes for a better record of conversations, and will ensure that you are not delayed by the size limit. 2) too many recipients - The list is configured to set Reply-to to the original poster and not the list itself, so many people hit reply-all to reply to the list. Again, some mail readers handle this poorly and It is good practice to trim the recipients when replying to a mailing list. 3) not subscribed - For whatever reason mailman (the list processor) doesn't think your email is subscribed and refuses to deliver. The size of the spam backlog is a testament to why we keep this on. We generally also allow these through as it is often new people to the community and they will get notified that they need to subscribe to the list. I am investigating a coupe of reports that messages are not being properly forwarded and the user is notified that they are not subscribed when they believe they are. If you think you are also having this problem let me know and I'll check it out. One is an anomaly, two is a coincidence, three, well at three we may have a pattern :) Also, you can verify your subscription settings at http://lists.starlingx.io/cgi-bin/mailman/options/starlingx-discuss dt -- Dean Troyer dtroyer@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Starlingx-discuss mailing list Starlingx-discuss@lists.starlingx.io http://lists.starlingx.io/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/starlingx-discuss _______________________________________________ Starlingx-discuss mailing list Starlingx-discuss@lists.starlingx.io http://lists.starlingx.io/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/starlingx-discuss
Arguably trimming too much information is due to the people in question not showing good judgement about what bits to remove, rather than a problem with the technique in the first place. I personally would rather see something like *this* message where the not-directly-relevant bits have been dropped so that it's easier to see the flow of the discussion. (Although I'd argue that writing below the quoted bits makes it easier to catch up on a thread that you haven't been following--but it's also less convenient for people on mobile devices that have to scan through a long message.) While we're on the topic of emails, Bart/Don it looks like your email clients are not indenting or otherwise indicating which sections are quoted. I suspect this is default Outlook behaviour (it can be changed), but it does make it a lot more difficult to break up a message and reply to it in sections without resorting to things like prefixing with initials or using different colours for different people. On the other hand, multiple levels of indentation become problematic on mobile devices with limited screen size. The choice of tool influences which writing style is easiest to use and most clear to the recipient. Chris On 1/17/2019 12:35 PM, Penney, Don wrote:
I'd agree with Bart. There have been many cases (not necessarily on this discussion list) where folks reply and truncate threads and remove all history and context from it, leaving an unintelligible message that can only make sense if you then go and read a dozen other truncated messages, in the correct order. I don't see how this leads to a "better record"
-----Original Message----- From: Wensley, Barton [mailto:Barton.Wensley@windriver.com]
Personally, I find it difficult to track conversations where the message has been "trimmed" (I am tempted to use other more descriptive words but I won't). I'd prefer to see the whole context of the conversation without having to track back through several messages in the history.
-----Original Message----- From: Dean Troyer [mailto:dtroyer@gmail.com]
The top reasons most messages get caught in moderation are:
1) message too big - we have a limit of 60K on message size. I am aware that the majority of subscribers use a mail client that encourages top-posting and that leads to not trimming messages, in this environment that makes conversations over multiple messages hard to follow. Trimming unnecessary quoting in messages makes for a better record of conversations, and will ensure that you are not delayed by the size limit.
participants (4)
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Chris Friesen
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Dean Troyer
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Penney, Don
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Wensley, Barton