Subject: RE: namedroppers, continued

From: "Bill Strahm" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 15:46:38 -0800

Silly question,

But you DO know what it will take to get your message to be immediately
seen by the list, you just aren't willing to do it... 

I believe the problem is in your court, easily solved and it is not time
to move on to something that might be slightly productive

Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of D.
J. Bernstein
Sent: Friday, November 29, 2002 3:22 PM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: namedroppers, continued

Keith claims that allowing ``contributions from outsiders'' requires
delay and manual review. That claim is absurd. Immediately bounce the
message to the ``outsider,'' with instructions explaining how to have
the message sent to subscribers; end of problem.

---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago

--
to unsubscribe send a message to [email-masked] with
the word 'unsubscribe' in a single line as the message text body.
archive: <http://ops.ietf.org/lists/namedroppers/>

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 Nov 2002 20:07:11 -0000

[ post by non-subscriber.  with the massive amount of spam, it is easy to miss
  and therefore delete posts by non-subscribers.  your subscription address is
  [email-masked], please post from it or, if you
  wish to regularly post from an address that is not subscribed to this
  mailing list, send a message to [email-masked] and ask to
  have the alternate address added to the list of addresses from which
  submissions are automatically accepted. ]

Bush stuck the following note into the top of my latest message to
namedroppers:

   [ post by non-subscriber.  with the massive amount of spam, it is
   easy to miss and therefore delete posts by non-subscribers.  your
   subscription address is [email-masked],
   please post from it or, if you wish to regularly post from an address
   that is not subscribed to this mailing list, send a message to
   [email-masked] and ask to have the alternate address
   added to the list of addresses from which submissions are
   automatically accepted. ]

Okay, Bush: Put [email-masked] on the list of addresses from which
submissions are automatically accepted.

Furthermore: Stop publishing private subscription addresses. This
includes malicious actions by the list owner, accidents by the list
owner, failure to configure the mailing-list software to keep
subscription addresses private, etc.

Furthermore: When you want to say something to a sender, say it in an
immediate bounce message to that sender (which in this case would have
been [email-masked]), not in a stupid editorial note
on the top of the sender's message to the list. You're perfectly aware
that many senders don't read messages to the list.

Furthermore: Stop delaying messages. The delay is unacceptable. The
excuse for the delay, namely manual review, is also unacceptable. Under
United States antitrust law, standard-setting procedures must ``prevent
the standard-setting process from being biased by members with economic
interests in stifling product competition''; your reviews plainly flunk
this test.

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 Nov 2002 23:22:03 -0000

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 30 Nov 2002 01:01:11 -0000

Bill Strahm writes:
> I believe the problem is in your court

That's patently absurd. It's not _my_ fault that a bunch of messages
from _other_ people are being silently discarded.

(As I said before, there have been more than 100 messages in the past
three months on namedroppers labelled as coming from non-subscribers,
only a small fraction of those being mine. Furthermore, Bush has
silently discarded several of my recent messages. If we believe Bush's
claim that he isn't selectively targeting my messages, the only
reasonable conclusion is that he has silently discarded a huge number of
messages overall, only a small fraction being mine.)

Most namedroppers contributors who don't post from subscription
addresses are, presumably, people who don't watch the list at all---for
example, people from other lists involved in cross-posted discussions.
How are they supposed to find out about the problem?

I do tend to watch the list. I noticed the problem. I pointed it out.
That doesn't mean I'm the only person with the problem.

If the problem is fixed _for me_, but not _for everybody_, then it
hasn't gone away. The procedures are still broken. Legitimate messages
to namedroppers---potentially quite valuable messages---continue to be
thrown away.

---

From: "John S. Quarterman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 21:37:16 -0600

> from _other_ people are being silently discarded.

If they're not subscribers and they're not on a posting exception list,
there's no reason their messages should be posted.

Every complaint message I've seen from djb about this has had an
explanation prepended by the list software like the one above,
and su bscription information appended automatically.

This is a non-problem.  Could we stop hearing about it.

-jsq

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 01:38:57 -0500 (EST)

I would agree the problem is solved if Bush adds the proper addresses to
the approved subscribers list, as publicly requested.

But since it has taken so much discussion to arrive at that solution (and
I'm not sure we have yet), list management is clearly a problem, and has
been a chronic problem.

		--Dean

---

From: Bruce Campbell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 14:11:23 +0100 (CET)

> I'm not sure we have yet), list management is clearly a problem, and has

urm... if you read back, you'll find that a number of people have been
suggesting this very solution (ie, Bernstein should ask to have his
preferred posting address added to an allow-posters list) for a number of
days now.  The fact that Bernstein felt that he had to ignore all of these
and continue on ancient history until Bush spelled it out for him[1] would
tend to indicate a lack of Common Sense on Bernstein's part.

Next topic.

--==--
Bruce.

[1] One would think that something is up when most of one's posts from
    16th of March 2002 have all been labeled with something like '[post
    from non-subscriber]' when they get forwarded to a mailing list,
    particularly when one has publically complained about mailing list
    software and written one's own.

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 15:00:21 +0200 (EET)

[ post by non-subscriber.  with the massive amount of spam, it is easy to miss
  and therefore delete posts by non-subscribers.  if you wish to regularly
  post from an address that is not subscribed to this mailing list, send a
  message to <listname>[email-masked] and ask to have the alternate
  address added to the list of addresses from which submissions are
  automatically accepted. ]

> the message sent to subscribers; end of problem.

No, it's not 'end of problem'.

If I cross-post a reply to some message with was cross-posted to a list
I'm subscribed at and a list I'm not, in the general case I do *not* want
to subscribe to the other list to be able to send my cross-post reply to
both.

Waiting for moderator approval is just fine for me, much better than
requiring to subscribe or do something else.

It's not black and white.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "Tell me of difficulties surmounted,
Netcore Oy                   not those you stumble over and fall"
Systems. Networks. Security.  -- Robert Jordan: A Crown of Swords

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 17:47:01 -0500 (EST)

> tend to indicate a lack of Common Sense on Bernstein's part.

This isn't a fair or accurate description of whats been going on.

Bush has been asked numerous times (publicly and privately) to do this,
over a period of months, but hasn't. Instead, he has delayed or deleted
posts from the [email-masked] address. Bush has been exploiting the fact
that djb doesn't receive mail at [email-masked], and so can't use the
automated methods to change the subscription address.  That is the
problem. (this time).

This is a willful and reckless disregard by Bush in order to inconvenience
and harass Dr. Bernstein.  It is not the only time Bush has used his
position to inappropriately harrass Dr. Bernstein and other people.

		--Dean