Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Mail List issues

Hello,

NoOp wrote on 2011-03-10 06.10:

> No idea&  no real preference other than the ablity for the user to login
> and modify their profile settings&  subscribe/unsubscribe. That said I

Which settings do you want to user to change? Basically, only his 
address as well as the subscription type, or anything else?

> find it hard to believe that you couldn't have mailman accounts for each
> list. Ubuntu have many:

Yes. But it would *not* be possible to have something like 
@de.libreoffice.org, @it.libreoffice.org or @us.libreoffice.org then, at 
least not as we have it now. Look at the Ubuntu page. All lists reside 
at the same subdomain. Quoting from the Mailman wiki: "The recommended 
method to support multiple virtual hosts without list name collisions 
with Mailman 2.1.x is to run a separate Mailman instance for each 
virtual host." This would mean we have about 20-30 different Mailman 
instances...

> Then my recommendation is to find something else, as the inability of
> the user to manager their list settings is a problem.

If you have a good proposal, let me know. We, however, tried every 
solution, and mlmmj seemed best. What we, and that's where I agree with 
you, need is some web interface that helps users in managing their 
subscriptions.

> It doesn't if it doesn't allow the user to modify their mail list
> preferences&  settings, and/or unsubscribe/subscribe without jumping
> through hoops.

Ok, then let me know what is so complicated? "Unsubscribe instructions: 
E-mail to discuss+help@documentfoundation.org" => Then you receive an 
e-mail how it works. So, again, what is complicated about that?

> And that is relevent to my questions how?

It explains why some people have problems in unsubscribing. If they 
click the "+" link and Google silently ignores it, of course you cannot 
unsubscribe then without manual interacton.

> Perhaps it is because by the time the reach point of unsubscribing to
> the list(s) that they don't want to read? Don't know, but if the
> unsubscribe/subscribe information were posted on the website mail list
> area maybe they could instead be referred to that instead of some
> special email?

If someone comes up with such a page, I am happy to add them to the 
footer. But my bet is, people would act the same way. It's no different 
to my experience with OOo, the amount of people having issues with 
mailing lists is not that small. No matter what you do.

> How about tagging moderated messages so that subscribed users know that
> the post is from a unsubscribed poster and has been forwarded by a
> moderator? It's rather simple: just as a [Moderated] tag to the subject
> of the message.

As said, we would have to iplement that ourselves. So, if there's a 
volunteer, willing to work on the mlmmj source code, I am happy install 
a patch. Sadly, no mailing list system I know of provides that, but it 
would indeed be a great feature.

> Then if the mandate is to allow unsubscribed posts, *please* identify
> the post as such with a [Moderated] tag in the subject. As you may/or
> may not have witnessed on the OOo list over the past 5 years or so, this
> issue has been a subject of contention that raises it's ugly head at
> least once a month. The general consensus was to allow unsubscribed
> posters; the key problem was/is that there was/is no easy way to know if
> the post came from such. So folks send off a reply only to be told later
> that the time they took to respond fell on deaf ears because the OP was
> from someone not subscribed to the list. They then have to decide
> whether they wish to reforward their response to the Unsub, or just move on.

I agree that this would be helpful, it just has to be developed, as no 
mailing list manager provides it out of the box. My take would be, btw, 
to add the information to the message body, in order to not break 
threading with a modified subject. Again, if someone wants to come up 
with a patch that does it, you're welcome! See 
http://mlmmj.org/bugs/bug.php?id=20

> Why is Google even an issue, or brought up? I don't understand the
> comment. I see users on the user list that have no relation to gmail or
> Google. So something else must be broken in the process.

From what I know, there exist three major problems, which are all 
outside our scope:

1. Google Mail archives e-mails one has sent to the lists, so people 
think their mail did not made it to the list.

2. Google Mail and Yahoo sometimes seem to have problems with the "+" 
addressing. Clear violation of the RFC.

3. Some French providers block our e-mails, for no obvious reason, and 
without replying to e-mails to the postmaster. Clear violation of the 
RFC, but seems to be better or even fixed now.

These are the existing problems I know of, but there of course may be more.

> Is it a limitation for mlmmj, or can the instructions that are received
> in the email be posted on the website?

Sure they can. If someone comes up with a website, I am happy to link to 
it in the footer. I just doubt it will help much...

> I don't dare. Can you post the instructions/response here?

Sure. An empty e-mail to users+help@libreoffice.org brings

==
The following options are available:

To unsubscribe send a message to:

users+unsubscribe@libreoffice.org

To unsubscribe from the digest of this list send a message to:

users+unsubscribe-digest@libreoffice.org

To unsubscribe from the "nomail" version this list send a message to:

users+unsubscribe-nomail@libreoffice.org
==

> Nor do I. But obviouly someone with mlmmj experience helped to
> decide/setup the list(s). Can we get them to assist?

I evaluated a variety of solutions, and mlmmj came out to be the best. I 
disabled digest subscriptions in the beginning, but many people demanded 
them, so I re-enabled them.

> I see that you made one post on the OOo user list back in 2005:
> Subject: Re: Ergebnis der DE Co-Lead Wahl
> (and of course I know about your posts on the OOo releases list),
> so it is apparent that you've never spent time nor participated on the
> OOo user list. Your comment(s) are both offensive and display ignorance
> of the issues.

Christian is one of the most active and longest standing contributors to 
not only the German, but also the international OOo community. Together 
with me and Stefan Taxhet from Oracle, he was also in charge for the 
infrastructure budget. I'm not commenting on the language (you also 
insulted me above, so don't throw the first stone), but he surely knows 
what he is doing in technical terms.

In a nutshell: Four things can help, and if someone works on them, that 
would be welcome

        1. A website explaining the unsubscription mechanism
        2. A web interface for moderators and users of the lists
        3. A patch to tag moderated messages
	4. A patch to improve the unsubscription mechanism, so that unsubscribe 
always unsubscribes you from everything, as long as you just have one 
type of list subscription

Florian

--
Florian Effenberger <floeff@documentfoundation.org>
Steering Committee and Founding Member of The Document Foundation
Tel: +49 8341 99660880 | Mobile: +49 151 14424108
Skype: floeff | Twitter/Identi.ca: @floeff

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