From: johnm@cory.Berkeley.EDU (John D. Mitchell)
Subject: Re: SIGNOFF PCGEOS-LIST
Keywords: netiquette
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 19:31:17 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.075450.18302@grot.starconn.com> brian@grot.starconn.com (Brian Smithson) writes:
[...]

First, thanks for the information.  I've never run a mailing list and so
have never given much thought to it's difficulties.  My position is that I
and most people on the 'net are busy enough as it is.  The purpose of the
mailing list is to provide a conduit by which those who don't have news
access can still participate in the discussions.  I've been seeing many
more of the subscription/administrivia posts than real postings.

[...]
>The people who are mis-addressing these messages don't get netnews!

Yes but that does not excuse them from appropriate behavior.  Ignorance, as
they say, is no excuse.  If someone can't get the appropriate information
(come on, there's got to be a mail server for one of the appropriate
archive sites that handles the news.whatever groups :-), then they should
be even more careful than to post blindly (if they found out about the
group from someone already on the group that they should have the correct
addresses).

[...Filters on the list...]
>This isn't all that easy.  Which keywords would you pick?  For example,
>would you *always* want to filter out any message which contained the
>word "remove"?  I suppose that you could set up a filter which held
>messages which contained keywords in some kind of holding tank for manual
>review by the gateway administrator, but adminstrating a
>mailing-list/newsgroup gateway is enough work already.  I can attest to
>that, and I'm sure that 
>Mitra would agree :-).

Very true now that I've thought about it for more than 10 seconds. :-)  I
would say that checking for posts of less than some size for the myriad of
keywords and putting them aside for review would be the most fair thing to
do (and, yes, most administrative work).  The goal is not to be perfect
(because that would be a waste of time and resources) but to cut down the
'fluff' crap to very low noise (IMO of course).

>Of course, you can set up your own keyword-based filter using the "kill"
>features of popular newsreader programs.

Yep.  But being under the time constraints that I am, I'll probably do the
simple thing and kill any post from Pandora and that goes against a lot of
things. :-(

[...]
>A better solution, IMHO, is to:
>
>1. Let the mailing list administrator manage the mailing list.  If you're
>   a comp.os.msdos.pcgeos newsreader, then you will not know whether and how
>   often Mitra sends out information to mailing list subscribers about the
>   proper mailing address for unsubscription.  Don't post your own information
>   about mailing list etiquette, especially if it isn't complete (e.g. it
>   tells you to use an administrative address but doesn't provide the actual
>   address).

Of course, I was speaking from the top of my head rather than from any
experience with how Mitra (and Pandora) run the list.  I did not mean to
imply anything negative about them.  I just noticed a area that annoys me
and that I'd like to see fixed.  Not including the addresses was definitely
my oversight.  Since the mailing list very definitely does affect this
newsgroup I feel wholly within my rights to comment on that aspect of the
mailing list.

>2. If you really think that the problem has gotten out of hand and you feel
>   that it is not being adequately addressed, send some *polite* e-mail to
>   the mailing list administrator.

I bracketed my harsh flamage.  If the comments made outside of that was too
harsh then I apologize.

Again, thanks for the corrections and additional information.

Take care,
	John
	johnm@cory.Berkeley.EDU

P.S.	My opinions.