Notice about moderation of uk.rec.cycling.moderated
Chris Croughton as Control
The committee has received a formal complaint regarding the spam
filtering used on the contact email address for the
uk.rec.cycling.moderated moderators, and requesting that the committee
formally states its position on this.
In response, the committee notes that:
1. The complaint accurately describes the system used by the urcm
moderators and its technical shortcomings.
2. The opinion of the complainant is shared by many other contributors
to uk.net.news.management and uk.net.news.moderation.
3. The committee has asked the urcm moderation team for their comments
on the complaint, and they have stated that they are unwilling to make
any alterations to their current system.
4. The urcm moderation team have further stated that an alternative
address, postm...@chiark.greenend.org.uk, is available for those who
have problems with the official address,
uk-rec-cycling-m...@usenet.org.uk, and this is published
on the moderation team's website. The address of this website is
published on, and linked from, the group's official web presence at
http://www.usenet.org.uk/uk.rec.cycling.moderated.html.
5. The urcm moderators' response also contained this statement:
If someone wishes to contact the moderators but has trouble
because of spam filtering, we will arrange for an exception to
the spam filtering to allow that user to reach the moderators
directly in future.
6. The committee notes the provision of that alternative address and
the offer to whitelist anyone affected by the filtering applied to the
primary address.
However, the committee considers that requiring any significant
section of the public to jump through extra hoops, such as that
workaround, is unacceptable.
7. The moderators, having attempted to guess the identity of the
complainant, have whitelisted one particular individual so that (s)he
may now contact them.
However, this does not address the substance of the original
complaint, namely that they have a duty to provide easy access by the
general public to the service that they provide irrespective of the
identity of the person trying to contact them. Clearly, the moderators
are entitled to ignore any person who repeatedly bombards them with
repetitive or unjustified complaints, but they can hardly do that if
they never even receive the first complaint.
8. The Committee considers that for consistency, it should be possible
to contact moderators via the standard address and that this address
should not be subject to unreasonable filtration. The Committee
therefore upholds the complaint, and calls upon the moderators to
adopt a less aggressive means of filtering.
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Tom Crispin
<con...@usenet.org.uk> wrote:
[urc added to newsgroup line, follow-ups set to urc]
Judith Smith 1 urcm moderators 0
Just zis Guy, you know?
@\""@some.oddities-etc.co.uk> wrote:
>We users don't know whom made the complaint, only the complainant and
>the Committee know that and I wouldn't expect the Committee to say.
>There's enough people around who thought it wasn't acceptable that it
>could have been any of them.
True. And if it was jms then it's more than likely that the gesture
will be futile, there is nothing requiring moderators to respond to
vexatious complaints by email. All she's done is waste yet more of
everybody's time (which, I guess, was probably the aim).
Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/
The usenet price promise: all opinions offered in newsgroups are guaranteed
to be worth the price paid.
Molly Mockford
@\""@some.oddities-etc.co.uk> wrote in
<PMiyyov+...@fishcake.eternal-september.org>:
>In message <qmm5h5dq7c24hv0ih...@4ax.com>, at 20:37:53 on
>Sun, 29 Nov 2009, Tom Crispin <kije....@this.bit.freeuk.com.munge>
>wibbled
>>On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:09:07 +0000, Chris Croughton as Control
>><con...@usenet.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>[urc added to newsgroup line, follow-ups set to urc]
>
>Overridden. F/U set to unnc.
Unfortunately not; an intrusive comma meant that it went to uk.net
instead. Now re-posted to unnc as Pedt intended.
>>>8. The Committee considers that for consistency, it should be possible
>>>to contact moderators via the standard address and that this address
>>>should not be subject to unreasonable filtration. The Committee
>>>therefore upholds the complaint, and calls upon the moderators to
>>>adopt a less aggressive means of filtering.
>>>
>>
>>Judith Smith 1 urcm moderators 0
>
>We users don't know whom made the complaint, only the complainant and
>the Committee know that and I wouldn't expect the Committee to say.
>There's enough people around who thought it wasn't acceptable that it
>could have been any of them.
>
>FWIW, I think the Committee made the right judgement over the substance
>of the complaint and a sensible request to the moderators but I also
>think that you're just trolling with your comment and where you set
>follow-ups to.
--
Molly - I don't speak for the Committee. I speak for me.
Nature loves variety. Unfortunately, society hates it. (Milton
Diamond Ph.D.)
My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not be so for ever.
Pedt
2009, Molly Mockford <nospam...@mollymockford.me.uk> wibbled
>At 21:00:46 on Sun, 29 Nov 2009, Pedt <"\"@
>@\""@some.oddities-etc.co.uk> wrote in
><PMiyyov+...@fishcake.eternal-september.org>:
>
>>In message <qmm5h5dq7c24hv0ih...@4ax.com>, at 20:37:53
>>on Sun, 29 Nov 2009, Tom Crispin
>><kije....@this.bit.freeuk.com.munge> wibbled
>>>On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:09:07 +0000, Chris Croughton as Control
>>><con...@usenet.org.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>[urc added to newsgroup line, follow-ups set to urc]
>>
>>Overridden. F/U set to unnc.
>
>Unfortunately not; an intrusive comma meant that it went to uk.net
>instead. Now re-posted to unnc as Pedt intended.
Bugger! Not the first time I've hit an , instead of .
Thanks for the fix.
--
Pedt
Trevor A Panther
news:PMiyyov+...@fishcake.eternal-september.org...
> In message <qmm5h5dq7c24hv0ih...@4ax.com>, at 20:37:53 on
> Sun, 29 Nov 2009, Tom Crispin <kije....@this.bit.freeuk.com.munge>
> wibbled
>><con...@usenet.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>[urc added to newsgroup line, follow-ups set to urc]
>
>
>>>to contact moderators via the standard address and that this address
>>>should not be subject to unreasonable filtration. The Committee
>>>therefore upholds the complaint, and calls upon the moderators to
>>>adopt a less aggressive means of filtering.
>>>
>>
>>Judith Smith 1 urcm moderators 0
>
> Committee know that and I wouldn't expect the Committee to say. There's
> enough people around who thought it wasn't acceptable that it could have
> been any of them.
>
> FWIW, I think the Committee made the right judgement over the substance of
> the complaint and a sensible request to the moderators but I also think
> that you're just trolling with your comment and where you set follow-ups
> to.
>
> --
> uk.announce ~ moderated group to announce news / events of specific
> interest to
> a wider uk.* readership than the group(s) which their subjects would
> naturally
> place them. See charter at <http://www.usenet.org.uk/uk.announce.html>
It isn't necessary to see the indentity of the complainant to know that it
is the troll Judith. He/she is one of the prime reasons for the formation of
"uk.rec.cycling.moderated".
It seems that he/she is actually determined (deranged/disturbed) enough to
carry on the pointless war. I fail to understand his/her mind set that makes
her continue with her incessent anti ccycling outpourings! Mind you there
were a few regular posters who baited him/her without stop ( an indeed still
do so)
However I do feel the the access to moderators on "uk.rec.cycling.moderated"
is indeed very user unfriendly. For a newcomer to that group there is no
indication of a "FAQ" access where one can find out such details. The
group assumes that one has lived through the trauma of its setting up.and
has read every post ever made during that time.
I do feel that the "adjudication" is absolutely spot on, if perhaps a tad
severe.An infornation point would resolve much of the shortcomings.
Hopefully the "junta" will take appropriate sensible action --- but I do
suspect that there might be a slight digging in of the heels
Just got back ( about 6 hours ago) from a mini camping trip! Lots of
fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
--
From
Trevor A Panther
In South Yorkshire,
England, United Kingdom
www.tapan.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
c...@nospam.netunix.com
>
> The committee has received a formal complaint regarding the spam
> filtering used on the contact email address for the
> uk.rec.cycling.moderated moderators, and requesting that the committee
> formally states its position on this.
WHAT THE HELL.
There should be NO filtering of either the moderation address or the
moderator contact address.
Deleting spam is the job that the moderators have volunteered to do, only
a human can be relied upon to do this reliably without false positives.
I have been a moderator and it is not particularly time consuming.
The job simply requires a bit of dedication to do it properly and
a modicum of common sense and courtesy.
It is NOT the task of a moderator to be a source of conflict but rather
to be a quiet calming influence.
Steve Firth
> It is NOT the task of a moderator to be a source of conflict but rather
> to be a quiet calming influence.
You haven't met these jokers before, have you?
Tony Finch
>
>There should be NO filtering of either the moderation address or the
>moderator contact address. Deleting spam is the job that the
>moderators have volunteered to do, only a human can be relied upon to
>do this reliably without false positives.
That is not true, especially when the volume of spam is high relative
to the volume of legitimate email. About 90% of spam can be rejected
without any false positives based on the fact that it comes from known
spam bots. After that stage spam is still more than half of the rest
of the email. It's foolish not to use automatic assistance to filter it.
A good spam filter can be more accurate than a human. See for example
http://crm114.sourceforge.net/docs/CRM114_paper.html
Tony.
--
f.anthony.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/
SOUTHEAST ICELAND: NORTH OR NORTHEAST 7 TO SEVERE GALE 9, INCREASING STORM 10
AT TIMES. VERY ROUGH OR HIGH. RAIN OR SQUALLY SHOWERS, WINTRY LATER. MODERATE,
OCCASIONALLY POOR.
Trollsworth LeTrole
wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
> The committee has received a formal complaint regarding the spam
> filtering used on the contact email address for the
> uk.rec.cycling.moderated moderators, and requesting that the committee
> formally states its position on this.
>
> In response, the committee notes that:
>
> 1. The complaint accurately describes the system used by the urcm
> moderators and its technical shortcomings.
This point 1 is innacurate. The short version is that you got trolled,
and trolled hard by a vexatious kook.
See, the proposed solution of making the chiarkies turn off their
blocking won't make a damned bit of difference, and if you'd paid
attention to the technical details rather than letting yourselves get
played you'd have realised this. Assuming they do follow the
recommendation[1] ...
Before:
1. Hotmail user emails the moderators@chiark
2. Email gets blocked, hotmail user gets pissed off
Result: Failure of communication
After:
1. Hotmail user emails the moderators@chiark
2. Moderator reads message
3. Moderator replies to message
4. Hotmail blocks the reply[2]
Result: Failure of communication.
Mission accomplished! Well done guys. I believed the URC regulars were
pretty pathetic for regularly bending over backwards to feed an
attention-seeking moron, but I thought the committee would know
better.
Trollsworth
[1] Because they seem such reasonable people who are open to
compromise!1!1!!
[2] The relationship between chiark and hotmail is one of mutual
hatred, rather than being one-sided
c...@nospam.netunix.com
> c...@NOSPAM.netunix.com wrote:
> >
> >There should be NO filtering of either the moderation address or the
> >moderator contact address. Deleting spam is the job that the
> >moderators have volunteered to do, only a human can be relied upon to
> >do this reliably without false positives.
>
> That is not true, especially when the volume of spam is high relative
> to the volume of legitimate email. About 90% of spam can be rejected
> without any false positives based on the fact that it comes from known
> spam bots. After that stage spam is still more than half of the rest
> of the email. It's foolish not to use automatic assistance to filter it.
Nonsense.
Both of the above mentioned addresses are new and have not had time to
be collected by spam bots.
The level of mail spam will be negligable, there is no need for filtering.
The only spam problem will be spam posted to the newsgroup, this
cannot easily be caught by email filtering and is a task for manual
management by the moderators.
c...@nospam.netunix.com
> >
> > The committee has received a formal complaint regarding the spam
> > filtering used on the contact email address for the
> > uk.rec.cycling.moderated moderators, and requesting that the committee
> > formally states its position on this.
> >
> > In response, the committee notes that:
> >
> > 1. The complaint accurately describes the system used by the urcm
> > moderators and its technical shortcomings.
> <snip>
> This point 1 is innacurate. The short version is that you got trolled,
> and trolled hard by a vexatious kook.
Kook or no kook, there is no excuse for filtering these addresses.
> See, the proposed solution of making the chiarkies turn off their
> blocking won't make a damned bit of difference, and if you'd paid
> attention to the technical details rather than letting yourselves get
> played you'd have realised this. Assuming they do follow the
> recommendation[1] ...
> Before:
> 1. Hotmail user emails the moderators@chiark
> 2. Email gets blocked, hotmail user gets pissed off
> Result: Failure of communication
This should not happen, there should be no filter.
> After:
> 1. Hotmail user emails the moderators@chiark
> 2. Moderator reads message
> 3. Moderator replies to message
> 4. Hotmail blocks the reply[2]
> Result: Failure of communication.
This should not happen. The moderators should send their replies via
a recognised ISP smarthost to avoid possible filtering of dynamic blocks.
> Mission accomplished! Well done guys. I believed the URC regulars were
> pretty pathetic for regularly bending over backwards to feed an
> attention-seeking moron, but I thought the committee would know
> better.
You clearly have no understanding of the technical issues involved.
Blaming one user is a futile avoidance of the real issues which can
and will affect many perfectly valid users.
Graham Drabble
wrote in news:79da70d0-2268-43b1-9527-bd9382f80f26
@m25g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
> After:
> 1. Hotmail user emails the moderators@chiark
> 2. Moderator reads message
> 3. Moderator replies to message
> 4. Hotmail blocks the reply[2]
> Result: Failure of communication.
Unless I'm mistaken not all the moderators use chiark as their sole
outbound mail route. Providing they are sensible enough to use someone
who isn't using chiark when mailing domains known to block it then I
don't see that as an argument.
--
Graham Drabble
http://www.drabble.me.uk/
Alan Braggins
>Deleting spam is the job that the moderators have volunteered to do
That's not what was stated during the RFD period. Not everybody was happy
with that, but it is what was voted for.
Alan Braggins
>On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:00:46 +0000, Pedt <"\"@
>@\""@some.oddities-etc.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>We users don't know whom made the complaint, only the complainant and
>>the Committee know that and I wouldn't expect the Committee to say.
>
Either it was judith, or it was another vexatious troll who has made no
attempt whatsoever to contact the moderators, or its someone using a
vexatious troll as an excuse for a political argument.
While only the committee and complainant will know for sure, we might as
well call it judith.
c...@nospam.netunix.com
>
> Either it was judith, or it was another vexatious troll who has made no
> attempt whatsoever to contact the moderators, or its someone using a
> vexatious troll as an excuse for a political argument.
> While only the committee and complainant will know for sure, we might as
> well call it judith.
You are totally missing the point. This is not about about a troll, it
is about a totally broken misconfiguration which affects many users,
including my perfectly valid email reply to you.
======begin paste
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<ar...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
(reason: 550 reverse DNS: 79.135.103.194: 79.135.103.194 ->
mail.netunix.com -> 193.111.200.151 [Irritated])
======end paste
This test is just bloody stupid.
I can think of at least 6 cases where it will reliably fail.
In this case your DNS seems to have returned a bum result.
It will fail in every case where reverse DNS does not match forward DNS.
It will fail for any host with multiple interfaces.
It will fail for any host system with multiple high availability servers.
which includes most decent ISPs.
How many more can you see ?
Just rip out the stupid tests, stop playing with things that you do
not fully understand, and accept any RFC compliant message.
Ian Jackson
The Committee asked the moderators to comment on the complaint.
The moderation panel sent a clear and detailed reply which is
unfortunately not well-represented in the Committtee's summary.
I have urged the urcm moderators to submit that full response for
publication in uk.net.news.announce. Clearly the Committee ought to
offer us the right of reply.
There need be no question of an endless succession of replies since
the Committee's message was itself a reply to ours and our message
covers nearly everything that needs to be said.
--
Ian Jackson personal email: <ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
These opinions are my own. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~ijackson/
PGP2 key 1024R/0x23f5addb, fingerprint 5906F687 BD03ACAD 0D8E602E FCF37657
Geoff Berrow
<ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>In article <notice-uk.rec.cycling.moderated-20091129200907$70...@gradwell.net>,
>Chris Croughton as Control <con...@usenet.org.uk> wrote:
>>In response, the committee notes that:
>
>The Committee asked the moderators to comment on the complaint.
>The moderation panel sent a clear and detailed reply which is
>unfortunately not well-represented in the Committtee's summary.
IMO the reply contained much that was irrelevant.
>
>I have urged the urcm moderators to submit that full response for
>publication in uk.net.news.announce. Clearly the Committee ought to
>offer us the right of reply.
The committee did offer you the right to reply to the complaint and
took your reply into consideration when making the ruling. Any
further comments you have on the ruling can be made here (or perhaps
more appropriately unnm)
>There need be no question of an endless succession of replies since
>the Committee's message was itself a reply to ours and our message
>covers nearly everything that needs to be said.
Well I would have thought you would wish to study the committee's
ruling and reply to that. Or are you saying that you intend to ignore
it?
--
Geoff Berrow (Put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker
Judith M Smith
>c...@NOSPAM.netunix.com wrote:
>>
>>There should be NO filtering of either the moderation address or the
>>moderator contact address. Deleting spam is the job that the
>>moderators have volunteered to do, only a human can be relied upon to
>>do this reliably without false positives.
>
>That is not true, especially when the volume of spam is high relative
>to the volume of legitimate email. About 90% of spam can be rejected
>without any false positives based on the fact that it comes from known
>spam bots. After that stage spam is still more than half of the rest
>of the email. It's foolish not to use automatic assistance to filter it.
>
>A good spam filter can be more accurate than a human. See for example
>http://crm114.sourceforge.net/docs/CRM114_paper.html
>
>Tony.
And it is pathetic to think that anything from hotmail or live is
spam. In my experience - there is very little (ie no) spam sent to me
from either types of addresses.
Jackson has his head up his arse.
--
Many cyclists are proving the need for registration by their contempt for the Highway Code and laws.
The answer:
All cyclists over 16 to take compulsory test, have compulsory insurance, and be registered.
Registration number to be clearly vizible on the back of mandatory hi-viz vest.
Habitual law breakers' cycles confiscated and crushed.
(With thanks to KeithT for the idea)
c...@nospam.netunix.com
> In article <notice-uk.rec.cycling.moderated-20091129200907$70...@gradwell.net>,
> Chris Croughton as Control <con...@usenet.org.uk> wrote:
> >In response, the committee notes that:
>
> The Committee asked the moderators to comment on the complaint.
> The moderation panel sent a clear and detailed reply which is
> unfortunately not well-represented in the Committtee's summary.
With all due respect Ian, you are missing the point.
See above for a typical example of my perfectly valid email being
rejected by chiark.
Your filtering is broken and is rejecting perfectly valid messages.
There is no good reason to filter mail to the moderators or the
moderations system.
This is a serious bug which affects potentially thousands of users.
You only have 2 sensible choices, either get rid of the broken filters
or move the moderation to an unfiltered system.
Nigel Cliffe
> Ian Jackson <ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> In article
>> <notice-uk.rec.cycling.moderated-20091129200907$70...@gradwell.net>,
>> Chris Croughton as Control <con...@usenet.org.uk> wrote:
>>> In response, the committee notes that:
>>
>> The Committee asked the moderators to comment on the complaint.
>> The moderation panel sent a clear and detailed reply which is
>> unfortunately not well-represented in the Committtee's summary.
>
> With all due respect Ian, you are missing the point.
> See above for a typical example of my perfectly valid email being
> rejected by chiark.
>
> Your filtering is broken and is rejecting perfectly valid messages.
> There is no good reason to filter mail to the moderators or the
> moderations system.
>
> This is a serious bug which affects potentially thousands of users.
Thousands ? How many people do you think use UK newsgroups, and
specifically the cycling ones ?
> You only have 2 sensible choices, either get rid of the broken filters
> or move the moderation to an unfiltered system.
Are you offering an alternative mail system for the moderators to use ? One
which offers some sensible filtering, because without filtering at the
moderator address, I will be using downstream filtering from my (crummy mass
market) ISP mail provider who don't offer any control over what it decides.
Its easy to pick holes in any system. Its harder to step up and offer to
run one, even with flaws.
- Nigel
--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/
Nigel Cliffe
> Ian Jackson <ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> In article
>> <notice-uk.rec.cycling.moderated-20091129200907$70...@gradwell.net>,
>> Chris Croughton as Control <con...@usenet.org.uk> wrote:
>>> In response, the committee notes that:
>>
>> The Committee asked the moderators to comment on the complaint.
>> The moderation panel sent a clear and detailed reply which is
>> unfortunately not well-represented in the Committtee's summary.
>
> With all due respect Ian, you are missing the point.
> See above for a typical example of my perfectly valid email being
> rejected by chiark.
>
> Your filtering is broken and is rejecting perfectly valid messages.
> There is no good reason to filter mail to the moderators or the
> moderations system.
>
> This is a serious bug which affects potentially thousands of users.
Thousands ? How many people do you think use UK newsgroups, and
specifically the cycling ones ?
> You only have 2 sensible choices, either get rid of the broken filters
> or move the moderation to an unfiltered system.
Are you offering an alternative mail system for the moderators to use ? One
Tony Finch
>
>And it is pathetic to think that anything from hotmail or live is spam.
So far today my mail servers have accepted just shy of 3000 messages
from hotmail.com (of which 10% were spam but not gratuitous enough to
be rejected) and rejected about 850 spam messages from them.
Tony.
--
f.anthony.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/
THAMES DOVER: SOUTH BECOMING CYCLONIC THEN NORTH, 6 TO GALE 8. MODERATE OR
ROUGH. RAIN OR SQUALLY SHOWERS. GOOD.
Alan Braggins
>c...@NOSPAM.netunix.com wrote:
>>
>> This is a serious bug which affects potentially thousands of users.
>
>Thousands ? How many people do you think use UK newsgroups, and
>specifically the cycling ones ?
He did say "potentially". (The number of actual posters affected appears
to be zero.)
Andy Leighton
> Judith M Smith <judith...@live.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>And it is pathetic to think that anything from hotmail or live is spam.
>
> So far today my mail servers have accepted just shy of 3000 messages
> from hotmail.com (of which 10% were spam but not gratuitous enough to
> be rejected) and rejected about 850 spam messages from them.
So just a hair under 30%. That's a pretty high percentage and is
indicative of hotmail being a relatively safe haven for spammers.
--
Andy Leighton => an...@azaal.plus.com
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_
thirty-six
<ta...@PSANTISPAMblueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> "Pedt" <"\"@ @\""@some.oddities-etc.co.uk> wrote in message
>
> news:PMiyyov+...@fishcake.eternal-september.org...
>
>
>
> > Sun, 29 Nov 2009, Tom Crispin <kije.rem...@this.bit.freeuk.com.munge>
Dont you know, justice jerk has a fire alarm bell wired up to ring
whenever judy's posts appear?
kat
Ian Jackson <ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> said
> In article
> <notice-uk.rec.cycling.moderated-20091129200907$70...@gradwell.net>,
> Chris Croughton as Control <con...@usenet.org.uk> wrote:
>> In response, the committee notes that:
>
> The Committee asked the moderators to comment on the complaint.
> The moderation panel sent a clear and detailed reply which is
> unfortunately not well-represented in the Committtee's summary.
It contained nothing that hadn't been previously said, as far as I could
see - but you are free to post the full staement here.
>
> I have urged the urcm moderators to submit that full response for
> publication in uk.net.news.announce. Clearly the Committee ought to
> offer us the right of reply.
>
We don't need to to - there is nothing stopping you from making that reply.
> There need be no question of an endless succession of replies since
> the Committee's message was itself a reply to ours and our message
> covers nearly everything that needs to be said.
Other than " yup, sorry, we'll fix it".
--
kat
>^..^<
Judith M Smith
<an...@azaal.plus.com> wrote:
>On 30 Nov 2009 14:10:52 +0000 (GMT), Tony Finch <d...@dotat.at> wrote:
>> Judith M Smith <judith...@live.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>And it is pathetic to think that anything from hotmail or live is spam.
>>
>> So far today my mail servers have accepted just shy of 3000 messages
>> from hotmail.com (of which 10% were spam but not gratuitous enough to
>> be rejected) and rejected about 850 spam messages from them.
>
>So just a hair under 30%. That's a pretty high percentage and is
>indicative of hotmail being a relatively safe haven for spammers.
Fascinating - and neither Hotmail nor Live make the Spamhaus top ten
ISPs for spammers this week - or in any other recent weeks I have
looked.
I wonder why there is this discrepancy between that and what Mr Finch
found?
Does he know what he is doing?
Perhaps he has subscribed to lots of dodgy sites - could that perhaps
be it?
Judith M Smith
Braggins) wrote:
"appears" eh?
and you know that precisely how?
Irrespective of the number - it is unacceptable.
Of course we have seen here quite recently - and also in the past -
how "reasonable" Mr Jackson can be.
I wonder if *that* is really the problem?
Perhaps it is just head up his arse syndrome - and he does not want to
see and understand.
Jon Ribbens
> Well I would have thought you would wish to study the committee's
> ruling and reply to that. Or are you saying that you intend to ignore
> it?
I am slightly curious as to the Committee's reasoning as to issuing
a "ruling" over something it has no power to control.
I would be interested to know what the Committee would do if someone
were to put in a "complaint" along the lines of "Bob McNasty is
posting to uk.pointless.wibble in clear contravention of the official
charter, please tell them to stop".
If they would reject this hypothetical complaint, what argument would
they use that would not apply equally to the urcm complaint?
Mike Bristow
Judith M Smith <judith...@live.co.uk> wrote:
> I wonder why there is this discrepancy between that and what Mr Finch
> found?
What discrepency? Spamhaus measures open incidents; Tony is measuring
individual mails. Even if you had Tony's top ten list, they would
differnt - but you don't even have that.
> Does he know what he is doing?
Yes. fanf knows internet email probably better than most, and has
been involved in running at least two huge email systems (I would
expect both were in the top 100 UK email systems at the time he was
invovled in them. I suspect one may have been the largest, actually).
> Perhaps he has subscribed to lots of dodgy sites - could that perhaps
> be it?
Given the users that Tony supports, it's certain that some of them have
subscribed to dodgy sites.
Cheers,
--
Please help Imogen May keep talking - www.imogenmay.com
tony
This is a complaint about how a group of people, charged with moderating
a group, are handling the technical side. It's about how the hierarchy
works, not about what someone is posting. I think the committee should
be cautious but were right to respond.
--
posted on the move, sorry for the brevity (replace invalid with .co.uk,
damn client won't let me set a reply-to)
Alan Braggins
>On 30 Nov 2009 08:23:57 +0000 (GMT), ar...@chiark.greenend.org.uk (Alan
>Braggins) wrote:
>
>>Either it was judith, or it was another vexatious troll who has made no
>>attempt whatsoever to contact the moderators, or its someone using a
>>vexatious troll as an excuse for a political argument.
>
>the complaint.
Has anyone suggested otherwise?
Mark Goodge
and typed:
>Judith M Smith <judith...@live.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>And it is pathetic to think that anything from hotmail or live is spam.
>
>So far today my mail servers have accepted just shy of 3000 messages
>from hotmail.com (of which 10% were spam but not gratuitous enough to
>be rejected) and rejected about 850 spam messages from them.
Were they from Hotmail's servers, or merely with a (forged) Hotmail
sender address?
Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk
Mark Goodge
keyboard and typed:
>On 2009-11-30, Geoff Berrow <blth...@ckdog.co.uk> wrote:
If we receive a formal complaint about anything related to uk.*, then
we have a duty to at least consider it. In some cases, the response
may well be that it's outside our remit, but we'd still have to
respond.
Mark Goodge
keyboard and typed:
>
>> You only have 2 sensible choices, either get rid of the broken filters
>> or move the moderation to an unfiltered system.
>
>Are you offering an alternative mail system for the moderators to use ? One
>which offers some sensible filtering, because without filtering at the
>moderator address, I will be using downstream filtering from my (crummy mass
>market) ISP mail provider who don't offer any control over what it decides.
>
>Its easy to pick holes in any system. Its harder to step up and offer to
>run one, even with flaws.
The urcm moderators had the option of using moderation.org.uk, in
common with several other uk.* moderated groups. Or someone reasonably
competant could write their own (as I have done, for a different
group). So it would be very easy to move the urcm moderation to a
system which has better email filtering, if you wanted to.
Geoff Berrow
I don't see that the two are comparable. Each complaint is dealt with
on its merits and in this instance the committee felt there was a case
to answer.
Rob Morley
Phil W Lee <phil(at)lee-family(dot)me(dot)uk> wrote:
> You shouldn't blame the moderation system for the fact that hotmail is
> broken, and there is absolutely no point in accepting mail to which
> there is no way to reply using the system that the mail was addressed
> to.
When was it ever about apportioning blame? It's a simple matter of
making things work, where the 'system' is about group users and group
administrators communicating with each other. The situation is that
Hotmail isn't going to move, a change to Chiark config will allow it to
receive from Hotmail, and I'm pretty sure someone could set up an MTA
to allow replies using Hotmail too, if he wanted to.
c...@nospam.netunix.com
>
> exactly that.
>
> You shouldn't blame the moderation system for the fact that hotmail is
> broken, and there is absolutely no point in accepting mail to which
> there is no way to reply using the system that the mail was addressed
> to.
This is tosh.
My perfectly formed message was rejected by a broken filter.
There is NOTHING wrong with my systems, my MX record points correctly
to a working system, without this I would not have recieved the bounce.
You clearly do not understand the problem.
Hotmail (which I do not use) has more than one server in the same way as
most ISPs. A DNS query will return the IP of a randomly selected server
which is unlikely to match the IP of the server from which the mail
originated.
This is perfectly correct behaviour which will result in a false rejection
by the broken filter at chiark. The chiark filter does a reverse DNS
query which correctly returns the FQDN of my MX server. The broken
filter then asks DNS for the IP of my server. This is broken behavior
because is assumes that my server is unique and rejects my message
because the IP does not match the original IP.
THERE IS NO GUARANTEE that the reply to the forward query will equal
the IP of the reverse query and the test will FAIL for perfectly good
messages especially, but not exclusively, for high availability
systems with multiple servers.
Consider an RFC compliant A or AAAA record which contains a list of
IPs and will return a different answer to each query on either a
round robin or random basis.
Chiark is broken.
Chiark will falsely reject perfectly good messages because it is making
a broken assumption about the way in which the DNS system works.
Here (AGAIN) is the broken rejection :-
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<ar...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
(reason: 550 reverse DNS: 79.135.103.194: 79.135.103.194 ->
mail.netunix.com -> 193.111.200.151 [Irritated])
There is nothing wrong with the DNS results, there is NO GUARANTEE than
mail.netunix.com will resolve to 79.135.103.194
Just fix the damn thing - it is BROKEN.
jms
wrote:
<snip>
May I paraphrase your comments:
>Chiark is broken.
Just zis Guy, you know?
<ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>I have urged the urcm moderators to submit that full response for
>publication in uk.net.news.announce. Clearly the Committee ought to
>offer us the right of reply.
Just fix it, Ian, there's a good chap. You can delete the vexatious
complainant's crap just as effectively as your filters can.
Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/
The usenet price promise: all opinions offered in newsgroups are guaranteed
to be worth the price paid.
Steve Firth
Yes some tit called Braggins seemed to think that who made the complaint
mattered more than the complaint itself.
Steve Firth
> Clearly the Committee ought to offer us the right of reply.
Clearly you ought to get your head out of your arse and stop trying to
play tin-pot dictator.
You're doing a very good impression of having the technical competence
of a five year old who just found daddy's hammer.
Steve Firth
> So far today my mail servers have accepted just shy of 3000 messages
> from hotmail.com (of which 10% were spam but not gratuitous enough to
> be rejected) and rejected about 850 spam messages from them.
Were the mails actually from hotmail.com, or were they sent with forged
From: and Reply-To: lines?
Because of the 3000 plus emails a day that my system rejects, a fair
majority purport to originate from hotmail, but none of them do.
Geoff Berrow
wrote:
>What a pointless waste of your time.
Quite possibly. Let's see if the person who accused the committee of
not taking its duties seriously has the grace to accept the decision
of the body he so badly wanted to join.
c...@nospam.netunix.com
Do you honestly believe that being abusive is going to encourage Ian
to fix the problem ?.
GROW UP.
I have explained (one of ?) the technical problems twice in this thread.
Ian - Please fix it - pretty please.
Jon Ribbens
> On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:35:07 +0000 (UTC), Jon Ribbens
><jon+u...@unequivocal.co.uk> wrote:
>>I am slightly curious as to the Committee's reasoning as to issuing
>>a "ruling" over something it has no power to control.
>
> on its merits and in this instance the committee felt there was a case
> to answer.
Well, there you go again. The phrase "there was a case to answer"
is highly misleading since it implies some sort of judicial framework
which simply does not exist.
I have no problem with the Committee considering the complaint, but
I am rather surprised with the phrasing of the response. What does it
even *mean* to say that "The Committee therefore upholds the complaint"?
Denis McMahon
It means that the committee have determined that the complaint was a
valid one.
The committee has considered the technical nature of the complaint. The
committee is not interested in the socio-political machinations and
posturing between various factions within the newsgroup, including if
applicable the moderators, but rather whether the technical methods used
by the moderators to discharge their duties are adequate and correctly
functioning.
In this case, the committee has determined that the moderation system,
or some aspect of it, is in a technical or mechanical sense "not fit for
purpose" and thus needs to be fixed or repaired.
In simple terms, for the benefit of those who don't follow the long
words used above:
The moderation system is broken. The moderators need to fix it.
Ensuring that it gets fixed is the responsibility of the moderators, but
they don't have to do the technical bits themselves, as long as it gets
fixed.
Rgds
Denis McMahon
Jon Ribbens
> Ensuring that it gets fixed is the responsibility of the moderators, but
> they don't have to do the technical bits themselves, as long as it gets
> fixed.
They don't "have" to do anything, which is kind've my point.
Percy Picacity
news:slrnhh91p5.b...@snowy.squish.net:
The committee does have sanctions available, though it is unlikely they
would find it proportionate to use them in this case.
--
Percy Picacity
Dick Gaughan
03:01:11 +0000 (UTC), Jon Ribbens <jon+u...@unequivocal.co.uk>
wrote:
>On 2009-12-01, Denis McMahon <denis.m....@gmail.com> wrote:
Agreed. And isn't that where the self-adjusting nature of Usenet
at its best kicks in?
It's purely my opinion, but I think the most likely result is that
the moderated group becomes what I believe it was always intended
to be, a small private club controlled by the Jacksonites and
inhabited by those who are happy to do as they're told, including
adopting posting methods which the broken mod software can cope
with. Those who dislike control freakery or content-based
moderation will avoid/abandon it.
Those interested in genuine exchange of views already have a group
and those who wish to use it will use/learn the very simple
techniques for filtering those they regard as nuisances.
The latter of which, IMO, would have elimated the need for the
moderated group and all the ensuing stramash.
--
DG
Geoff Berrow
<jon+u...@unequivocal.co.uk> wrote:
>I have no problem with the Committee considering the complaint, but
>I am rather surprised with the phrasing of the response. What does it
>even *mean* to say that "The Committee therefore upholds the complaint"?
The committee used the same phrasing it always does when dealing with
complaints. It either upholds or it doesn't.
AFAIAC it means the committee deemed the complaint to be justified.
kat
Percy Picacity <k...@under.the.invalid> said
The committee has few powers, something Mr Jackson didn't seem to think was
right, funnily enough. We said over and over that the community pushes for
changes, it's the way uk* works.
--
kat
>^..^<
Geoff Berrow
Irrelevant.
The remit of the UK Usenet Committee is to provide leadership in
policy concerning the uk.* news hierarchy.
Steve Firth
> Do you honestly believe that being abusive is going to encourage Ian
> to fix the problem ?.
No, I beleive that it's going to leave him in no doubt that he's a
fuckwit with his head up his arse.
> GROW UP.
FUCK OFF YOU BRAINLESS NUMPTY.
BTW, NO NEED FOR CAPITALS. NOR FOR FULL STOPS AFTER QUESTION MARKS.
Mr Benn
<c...@NOSPAM.netunix.com> wrote in message
news:hf1mgc$pl1$1...@news.albasani.net...
> Steve Firth <%steve%@malloc.co.uk> wrote:
>> Ian Jackson <ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> > Clearly the Committee ought to offer us the right of reply.
>>
>> Clearly you ought to get your head out of your arse and stop trying to
>> play tin-pot dictator.
>>
>> You're doing a very good impression of having the technical competence
>> of a five year old who just found daddy's hammer.
>
> Do you honestly believe that being abusive is going to encourage Ian
> to fix the problem ?.
Neither is asking him nicely.
Owen Dunn
> Well I would have thought you would wish to study the committee's
> ruling and reply to that. Or are you saying that you intend to ignore
> it?
Does the committee's ruling have any force? As far as I can tell the
most they can do within the rules is get one of their number to
RFD/CFV a forced moderator change.
(S)
Judith M Smith
<guy.c...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>On 30 Nov 2009 11:33:04 +0000 (GMT), Ian Jackson
><ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>
>>I have urged the urcm moderators to submit that full response for
>>publication in uk.net.news.announce. Clearly the Committee ought to
>>offer us the right of reply.
>
>Just fix it, Ian, there's a good chap. You can delete the vexatious
>complainant's crap just as effectively as your filters can.
>
>Guy
Ho, ho ho
Is that an "order" Mr Chapman?
What has made *you* change your mind.
I recall you said that there was nothing wrong with the way that
chiark worked.
--
Many cyclists are proving the need for registration by their contempt for the Highway Code and laws.
The answer:
All cyclists over 16 to take compulsory test, have compulsory insurance, and be registered.
Registration number to be clearly visible on the back of mandatory hi-viz vest.
Habitual law breakers' cycles confiscated and crushed.
(With thanks to KeithT for the idea)
Molly Mockford
wrote in <83ws17g...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>:
*Anybody* can RFD for a change of moderators. Whatever action needs to
be taken is taken by the community; it's the way it works. If one
person cares enough to raise an RFD, and if enough other people agree
with them for it to pass a vote, then there has to be a change of
moderators. It doesn't need the Committee to have any hand in the RFD
process. Just the electorate. This is how things work in the uk.*
hierarchy.
--
Molly - I don't speak for the Committee. I speak for me.
Nature loves variety. Unfortunately, society hates it. (Milton
Diamond Ph.D.)
My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not be so for ever.
Tony Finch
>
>Fascinating - and neither Hotmail nor Live make the Spamhaus top ten
>ISPs for spammers this week - or in any other recent weeks I have
>looked.
The key difference between webmail providers and general ISPs is that
ISPs have many home computers connected to their systems, and the vast
majority of spam (90% or so) is sent from home computers that have
been compromised with a virus and are being used as spam bots. If you
look at the Spamhaus web site you'll see that two of their anti-spam
blacklists, the XBL and the PBL, are targeted specifically at
compromised computers and home computers, respectively.
It's somewhat easier for a large webmail provider to police their
users, since they don't provide general-purpose connectivity, and they
can more easily gather statistics that are directly relevant to email,
rathe than having to work up from the level of raw packets.
Nevertheless they have a big problem with being targeted for bogus
account sign-ups (often from spam-bot infected home computers) and
their users are targeted by phishers aiming to get hold of webmail
usernames and passwords so that legitimate accounts can be used to
send spam.
Tony.
--
f.anthony.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/
WEST FORTIES CROMARTY FORTH TYNE: NORTHERLY 5 TO 7, OCCASIONALLY GALE 8 AT
FIRST IN TYNE, BACKING SOUTHERLY 5 OR 6 LATER. MODERATE OR ROUGH. SQUALLY
SHOWERS. GOOD.
Tony Finch
>
>Yes. fanf knows internet email probably better than most, and has
>been involved in running at least two huge email systems (I would
>expect both were in the top 100 UK email systems at the time he was
>invovled in them. I suspect one may have been the largest, actually).
You of all people should know that I didn't work on Demon's email
system when I worked there :-)
Tony.
--
f.anthony.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/
FAIR ISLE FAEROES: SOUTHERLY 7 TO SEVERE GALE 9. ROUGH OR VERY ROUGH. RAIN.
MODERATE OR GOOD, OCCASIONALLY POOR.
Tony Finch
>
>Were they from Hotmail's servers, or merely with a (forged) Hotmail
>sender address?
From Hotmail's servers. So far today we've rejected nearly 900
messages from Hotmail's servers, and nearly 7400 with a Hotmail sender
address. We've accepted 2400 from their servers of which 250 were spam.
For comparison, we've rejected 340 from Google's servers and 2200 with
gmail.com or googlemail.com sender addresses. We've accepted 8400 from
their servers of which 50 were spam.
Tony.
--
f.anthony.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/
WIGHT PORTLAND: SOUTH OR SOUTHWEST 3 OR 4, INCREASING 5 TO 7, PERHAPS GALE 8
LATER. ROUGH. RAIN THEN SHOWERS. MODERATE OR GOOD, OCCASIONALLY POOR.
Charles Lindsey
>On 2009-11-30, Geoff Berrow <blth...@ckdog.co.uk> wrote:
>> Well I would have thought you would wish to study the committee's
>> ruling and reply to that. Or are you saying that you intend to ignore
>> it?
>I am slightly curious as to the Committee's reasoning as to issuing
>a "ruling" over something it has no power to control.
So as to make it clear that the moderators were in gross breach of their
public duty to to make competent arrangements for carrying out their
duties.
Admittedly the Committee cannot walk into Chiark and forcibly re-configure
their server.
But please bear in mind that the moderators were appointed to their task
by the users of Usenet in the UK, acting through due processes carried out
within this present newsgroup.
That process is not irreversible.
--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: c...@clerew.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5
Charles Lindsey
>> You only have 2 sensible choices, either get rid of the broken filters
>> or move the moderation to an unfiltered system.
>Are you offering an alternative mail system for the moderators to use ? One
>which offers some sensible filtering, because without filtering at the
>moderator address, I will be using downstream filtering from my (crummy mass
>market) ISP mail provider who don't offer any control over what it decides.
I doubt your ISP mail provider will be so stupid as to reject all messages
from Hotmail just because they come from Hotmail, so in fact it would
probably do a better job than Chiark are currently doing.
The particular method that Ian has chosen to use is widely regarded by
mail administrators as being a cure worse than the disease (the moderators
were provided with chapter and verse to support that contention).
But it is known that his system can be configured to various less
aggressive levels, and we already know that many Chiark users have found
it necessary to do just that for their own requirements.
The need to apply sensible filtering to incoming mail feeds is not in
dispute, but even if Ian were merely to whitelist Hotmail addresses en
bloc for messages sent to the moderation contact address it would remove
the present problem (unless there are other widely used sites out there
that have incurred his displeasure). Do you suppose in that case there
would be more spam emails arriving from Hotmail than emails from people
with a real need to contact the moderators (bearing in mind that the
overall proportion of spam emails from Hotmail is pretty small and easily
caught by other techniques)? Indeed, we are probably looking at very
small numbers of either sort in absolute terms.
>Its easy to pick holes in any system. Its harder to step up and offer to
>run one, even with flaws.
Though the rest of the world's moderators seem to have managed it. Even
the URCM submission address (a far bigger spoam target than the contact
address) seems to have managed it.
Geoff Berrow
Very little of what the committee does has any force. But the
committee is the elected body and the proponents chose to create a
group in a hierarchy managed by the committee.
We need to wait and see how the moderators respond.
Ian Jackson
Charles Lindsey <c...@clerew.man.ac.uk> wrote:
>... Do you suppose in that case there would be more spam emails
>arriving from Hotmail than emails from people with a real need to
Yes, by an order of magnitude. I don't suppose this, I know it,
because the moderators asked me to look through my logs.
>Though the rest of the world's moderators seem to have managed it. Even
>the URCM submission address (a far bigger spoam target than the contact
>address) seems to have managed it.
There are other straightforward ways to tell whether messages to the
submission address really are submissions.
--
Ian Jackson personal email: <ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
These opinions are my own. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~ijackson/
PGP2 key 1024R/0x23f5addb, fingerprint 5906F687 BD03ACAD 0D8E602E FCF37657
Jon Ribbens
> On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 03:01:11 +0000 (UTC), Jon Ribbens
><jon+u...@unequivocal.co.uk> wrote:
>>On 2009-12-01, Denis McMahon <denis.m....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Ensuring that it gets fixed is the responsibility of the moderators, but
>>> they don't have to do the technical bits themselves, as long as it gets
>>> fixed.
>>
>>They don't "have" to do anything, which is kind've my point.
>
> Irrelevant.
>
> The remit of the UK Usenet Committee is to provide leadership in
> policy concerning the uk.* news hierarchy.
OK, I give up. You still don't seem to have understood my point,
but I've got no particular desire to keep flogging this dead horse.
Andrew Mobbs
>
>Admittedly the Committee cannot walk into Chiark and forcibly re-configure
>their server.
They'd probably hurt their shins if they tried. (Chiark is just the
server, not an organisation or any particular group of people.)
--
Andrew Mobbs - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~andrewm/
kat
Jon Ribbens <jon+u...@unequivocal.co.uk> said
I think we know they don't /have/ to do anything - but if they do nothing,
other people may decide to do what can be done. One possibility is RFD for a
change of moderators to those who would ensure it gets fixed.
--
kat
>^..^<
Jon Ribbens
>> OK, I give up. You still don't seem to have understood my point,
>> but I've got no particular desire to keep flogging this dead horse.
>
> I think we know they don't /have/ to do anything
So the other half of my point is that this makes the wording of the
Committee response confusing at best.
> - but if they do nothing, other people may decide to do what can be
> done. One possibility is RFD for a change of moderators to those who
> would ensure it gets fixed.
Indeed.
Mike Bristow
In article <YSf*be...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,
Tony Finch <d...@dotat.at> wrote:
> You of all people should know that I didn't work on Demon's email
> system when I worked there :-)
I'm sure you touched it at least once - I don't have the CVS logs
to prove it - as I'm sure I remember a semi-sober converstation
about MMDF being lovely.
--
Please help Imogen May keep talking - www.imogenmay.com
Judith M Smith
>Mark Goodge <use...@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>Were they from Hotmail's servers, or merely with a (forged) Hotmail
>>sender address?
>
>From Hotmail's servers. So far today we've rejected nearly 900
>messages from Hotmail's servers, and nearly 7400 with a Hotmail sender
>address. We've accepted 2400 from their servers of which 250 were spam.
How many emails have you received overall - ie what percentage of the
total traffic is spam from genuine hotmail accounts.
Geoff Berrow
<jon+u...@unequivocal.co.uk> wrote:
>>>They don't "have" to do anything, which is kind've my point.
>>
>> Irrelevant.
>>
>> The remit of the UK Usenet Committee is to provide leadership in
>> policy concerning the uk.* news hierarchy.
>
>OK, I give up. You still don't seem to have understood my point,
>but I've got no particular desire to keep flogging this dead horse.
Oh I think I do - I'm just not sure why you are making it.
'Call upon' is just another way of saying 'ask'. I don't see any
problem with asking them to fix their systems. If we don't ask, it'll
never happen. And in asking the committee is pointing out how it
thinks things should be done ie providing leadership.
Jon Ribbens
>>but I've got no particular desire to keep flogging this dead horse.
>
> Oh I think I do - I'm just not sure why you are making it.
Evidently you don't, since none of your posts make any attempt to
address it.
> 'Call upon' is just another way of saying 'ask'. I don't see any
> problem with asking them to fix their systems. If we don't ask, it'll
> never happen. And in asking the committee is pointing out how it
> thinks things should be done ie providing leadership.
I entirely agree. But again this is nothing to do with the point I was
making.
Tony Finch
>total traffic is spam from genuine hotmail accounts.
Yesterday, in total accepted 305335 (of which 16007 spam) rejected
3110417; from Hotmail's servers accepted 6510 (of which 475 spam)
rejected 1510; from Google's servers accepted 25194 (of which 165
spam) rejected 898; from Facebook accepted 18613 (of which my filters
marked none as spam; humans might disagree) and rejected 163. These
numbers are typical.
Tony.
--
f.anthony.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/
BISCAY: SOUTH VEERING SOUTHWEST 5 TO 7, PERHAPS GALE 8 LATER. ROUGH OR VERY
ROUGH. SQUALLY SHOWERS. MODERATE OR GOOD.
Simon Brooke
wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
> The committee has received a formal complaint regarding the spam
> filtering used on the contact email address for the
> uk.rec.cycling.moderated moderators, and requesting that the committee
> formally states its position on this.
>
[Snip]
Here is the response that the urcm moderators sent to the committee
when the committee asked us to comment (I have edited out the email
addresses):
From: [Simon Brooke]
To: committee@...
Cc: [urcm moderators]
Subject: Re: Access to URCM contact address
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:58:40 +0000
Charles Lindsey writes ("Access to URCM contact address"):
> The comittee has recieved a formal comaplaint concerning the filtering of
> the moderators' contact address for uk.rec.cycling.moderated, in the
> following terms:
Thank you for your message. The moderators have considered both this
and the related matter of the official contact addresses for
reaching the moderators.
As you know, the moderators' current position, as set out on the
group information page maintained by the moderators, is as follows:
The moderators can be reached at
urcm-mo...@chiark.greenend.org.uk
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/urcm/
If there are problems contacting the moderators, then you may
contact the moderators via postmaster (at) chiark.greenend.org.uk
To expand on that: if someone wishes to contact the moderators but has
trouble because of spam filtering, we will arrange for an exception to
the spam filtering to allow that user to reach the moderators directly
in future.
It is our opinion that this provides a good level of service for
readers to talk to the moderators while preserving a spam-free
environment for the moderation panel.
As the Committee will be aware, all spam filtering systems, including
that used by usenet.org.uk, have some "false positive" rejections.
The email infrastructure currently in use for the moderators' list is
not unique or special in this respect.
It is possible to argue that some anti spam techniques are more or
less
justifiable and/or more or less effective than others. However, the
moderators consider that these questions are a matter for the
moderation panel as a whole to consider. We do not wish to argue
whether any particular technique is "outdated".
It is true that the moderators' hosting provider offers the moderators
the ability to apply stricter, or less strict, filtering to incoming
email. The moderators have deliberately decided that they wish
stricter filtering as this reduces (so far, eliminates) spam received
by the moderation panel.
Relaxing the spam filtering for all email directed to the moderators
would not, in our opinion, be beneficial. Instead, we provide (with
the assistance from our hosting provider) an alternative facility
which can be used to contact us in case of problems and so that
specific exceptions can be put in place for individual correspondents.
The moderators consider the complaint received by the Committee to be
vexatious. The complainant has not followed the moderators'
well-publicised instructions for reporting the problem, so that the
workaround can be put in place - despite the fact that the complainant
is aware of the workaround facility.
No doubt this is because the complainant wishes to preserve their
artificial grievance. If the complainant really wanted to talk to the
moderators there would be no difficulty with this at all.
Since the moderators would like to put in place an exception for this
complainant, so that the excuse for the complaint could be removed, we
have exceptionally asked our hosting provider to undertake an search
through the logs to see if the relevant information could be found and
a filtering exception made. Our hosting provider reports as follows:
I've taken a look at the rejection logs for urcm-moderators, and
found that 6 mails from judithsmith@[...] or
moderation2009@[...] were rejected, along with lots of spam
and a number of what look like tests.
As instructed I've made exceptions to the spamfiltering for those
two @live.co.uk addresses. Please ask them to resend their
messages, which should now go through.
It's possible that I've made a mistake or that there's something
else wrong. This is the first exception for urcm-moderators so
it's possible that I've done it wrong. It can't really be tested
without trying it from the other end. So if the user still can't
email urcm-moderators please have them contact postmaster@chiark
and I will, with their cooperation, solve the problem.
Unfortunately, the situation has been compounded by the refusal of
Control to publish the preferred contact details for the moderators,
as determined by the moderators. Essentially, the complainant writes
that "I followed the instructions on usenet.org.uk and was blocked".
The root cause here is that the instructions on usenet.org.uk are
incomplete, which gives the complainant the ability to ignore the
moderators' perfectly functional and flexible arrangements.
In particular, the complainant is able to pretend that they are
completely blocked and that no effective workaround is advertised.
So we thank the Committee for taking an interest, and we request that
the Committee:
1. Instruct Control to publish the moderators' preferred contact
details, including the information for users affected by
spam filtering false positives.
2. Assist the moderators' hosting provider by asking the complainant
to cooperate with the hosting provider (postmaster@chiark) by
forwarding bounces, etc.
3. Recognise that decisions about email filtering are a matter for the
moderators, and that the Committee's role is to offer advice and
assistance.
Sincerely
Simon Brooke, for and on behalf of uk.rec.cycling.moderated moderators
c...@nospam.netunix.com
> In article <Ktz01...@clerew.man.ac.uk>,
> Charles Lindsey <c...@clerew.man.ac.uk> wrote:
> >... Do you suppose in that case there would be more spam emails
> >arriving from Hotmail than emails from people with a real need to
> >contact the moderators ...
>
> Yes, by an order of magnitude. I don't suppose this, I know it,
> because the moderators asked me to look through my logs.
Is there any reason why you have failed to respond to my messages
regarding a bug in your RDNS filtering which causes messages
arriving via a mail system with load balancing or high availability
to be falsely rejected ?.
This does not only affect Hotmail, it can bite any large ISP's
servers and even managed to reject my message to a chiarc user.
Worse, it depends on deliberately random DNS behaviour and will
only reject 50% of messages from an ISP with 2 servers or 5% of
messages from an ISP with 20 servers.
This behaviour is clearly broken.
It may well catch a lot of forged addresses but the false positives
are not acceptable.
Simon Brooke
> On 30 Nov 2009 11:33:04 +0000 (GMT), Ian Jackson
>
> >I have urged the urcm moderators to submit that full response for
> >publication in uk.net.news.announce. Clearly the Committee ought to
> >offer us the right of reply.
>
>
> Anything you think you want to say should be posted here. You have no
> right to reply as the response from the committee was to the
> 'complaint'. Sorry if you're unable to understand.
>
> >There need be no question of an endless succession of replies since
> >the Committee's message was itself a reply to ours and our message
> >covers nearly everything that needs to be said.
>
> The committee responded to the _complaint_.
Look, there's fifth form politics, and there's practical reality.
Practical reality is that u.n.n.c - with its named panel of moderators
- was voted into being less than three months ago with a majority
which is historically unusual in votes within the uk. hierarchy. The
committee do not have remit to dictate the methods used by the
moderators; on the contrary the charter explicitly states:
"The moderators may use whatever tools and processes they collectively
feel appropriate to ensure the smooth running of the group."
There it is, in black and white, as voted on by the users of the
group. The moderators decide, the committee do not. The committee are
ultra vires and have no competence whatever in this matter.
If they did have remit, they would have precisely two sanctions; they
could RFD replacement of the moderation panel, thus setting themselves
up for another historic vote; or they could authorise control to
rmgroup an active group with a positive readership. In real politics,
neither of these sanctions are viable - yes, control has his finger on
an effective nuclear button, but no, he can't actually use it.
So the committee would be better advised to go away and do something
they do have competence to do and effective power to enforce, and stop
wittering.
This is posted on behalf of myself, and without consulting my fellow
moderators.
Ian Jackson
Simon Brooke <stil...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>Here is the response that the urcm moderators sent to the committee
>when the committee asked us to comment (I have edited out the email
>addresses):
Thanks for posting that, Simon.
For me thing that is particularly irritating is the Committee's
inconsistency. They have "upheld" the complaint from jms, which was
entirely outside their remit.
However they have completely ignored our complaint about Control:
>The root cause here is that the instructions on usenet.org.uk are
>incomplete, which gives the complainant the ability to ignore the
>moderators' perfectly functional and flexible arrangements.
...
>So we thank the Committee for taking an interest, and we request that
>the Committee:
>
>1. Instruct Control to publish the moderators' preferred contact
> details, including the information for users affected by
> spam filtering false positives.
It's a shame that the committee have taken such pains over a trumped
up complaint from a troll who doesn't really want to email the
moderators but just wants to make trouble, relating to a matter
outside the Committee's powers.
Worse is that the Committee have completely ignored a complaint from
the 11-strong moderation panel of the newsgroup created with the
biggest vote margin ever, about the behaviour of the Committee's
servant, Control, who is exceeding the powers granted to the
usenet.org.uk establishment.
At least the Committee have done this:
>3. Recognise that decisions about email filtering are a matter for the
> moderators, and that the Committee's role is to offer advice and
> assistance.
--
Judith M Smith
<and...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>Charles Lindsey <c...@clerew.man.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>Admittedly the Committee cannot walk into Chiark and forcibly re-configure
>>their server.
>
>They'd probably hurt their shins if they tried. (Chiark is just the
>server, not an organisation or any particular group of people.)
Ho, ho ho, - thanks for pointing that out. Surely not.
I think most people thought is was an organisation of/for fuckwits.
It must just be a coincidence.
Simon Brooke
> But please bear in mind that the moderators were appointed to their task
> by the users of Usenet in the UK, acting through due processes carried out
> within this present newsgroup.
Exactly. The moderators are appointed by the users, not by the
committee, and are answerable to the users, not to the committee. The
users voted for a charter with the explicit wording:
"The moderators may use whatever tools and processes they collectively
feel appropriate to ensure the smooth running of the group.
The committee has no authority to overrule the users, or the charter;
discussion ends.
jms
<ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>In article <Ktz01...@clerew.man.ac.uk>,
>Charles Lindsey <c...@clerew.man.ac.uk> wrote:
>>... Do you suppose in that case there would be more spam emails
>>arriving from Hotmail than emails from people with a real need to
>>contact the moderators ...
>
>Yes, by an order of magnitude. I don't suppose this, I know it,
>because the moderators asked me to look through my logs.
Perhaps you could publish your figures in the same way as Mr Finch has
produced his system's figures.
It look something like 0.06% of the total spam he receives is from
Hotmail servers. Hardly a major problem there then.
Still - I think he runs his system in a professional capacity and
manner.
Simon Brooke
>
> Look, there's fifth form politics, and there's practical reality.
> Practical reality is that u.n.n.c - with its named panel of moderators
> - was voted into being less than three months ago with a majority
> which is historically unusual in votes within the uk. hierarchy.
Must proof read better.
I meant, of course, 'Practical reality is that
uk.rec.cycling.moderated...'
Percy Picacity
news:7nk2gjF...@mid.individual.net:
> Percy Picacity <k...@under.the.invalid> said
>> Jon Ribbens <jon+u...@unequivocal.co.uk> wrote in
>> news:slrnhh91p5.b...@snowy.squish.net:
>>
>>> On 2009-12-01, Denis McMahon <denis.m....@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> Ensuring that it gets fixed is the responsibility of the
>>>> moderators, but they don't have to do the technical bits
>>>> themselves, as long as it gets fixed.
>>>
>>> They don't "have" to do anything, which is kind've my point.
>>>
>>
>> The committee does have sanctions available, though it is
>> unlikely they would find it proportionate to use them in this
>> case.
>
> The committee has few powers, something Mr Jackson didn't seem to
> think was right, funnily enough. We said over and over that the
> community pushes for changes, it's the way uk* works.
>
>
You do have the power to use rmgroup. Though I suspect you would
not want to use it in these circumstance, and, if you did want to
use it, would do so only after an RFD.
That's something to do with not suspecting yourselves of
omniscience, probably.
--
Percy Picacity
Rob Morley
Perhaps you're making it so poorly that it isn't apparent what it
actually is.
Pedt
<1e46e8e1-0d65-4e96...@g27g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, at
08:29:10 on Tue, 1 Dec 2009, Simon Brooke <stil...@googlemail.com>
wibbled
>Practical reality is that u.n.n.c - with its named panel of moderators
>- was voted into being less than three months ago with a majority
>which is historically unusual in votes within the uk. hierarchy.
No such thing happened with uk.net.news.config
--
Pedt
Ian Jackson
>Is there any reason why you have failed to respond to my messages
>regarding a bug in your RDNS filtering which causes messages
>arriving via a mail system with load balancing or high availability
>to be falsely rejected ?.
Where did you send these messages ? If you mean that you posted them
to usenet then you shouldn't be surprised if I ignored them. I often
ignore whole threads if I find them boring. Netnews is not a support
desk. If you want to report a problem report it to postmaster@chiark
and I will investigate.
>This does not only affect Hotmail, it can bite any large ISP's
>servers and even managed to reject my message to a chiarc user.
Did you contact postmaster@chiark, or the user (by other means), to
report the problem ? I guess not. You would rather whinge.
>It may well catch a lot of forged addresses but the false positives
>are not acceptable.
All spamfiltering systems have false positives. There is a tradeoff
between the effectiveness of an antispam system and its false positive
rate. chiark's system (when turned on) is exceptionally effective,
but does indeed have more false positives than many.
That's why I provide a working alternative contact address so that
problems can be reported or worked around and why I have provided the
ability for my users to make their own policy exceptions.
Adrian
much like they were saying:
> Where did you send these messages ? If you mean that you posted them to
> usenet then you shouldn't be surprised if I ignored them. I often
> ignore whole threads if I find them boring. Netnews is not a support
> desk. If you want to report a problem report it to postmaster@chiark
> and I will investigate.
> Did you contact postmaster@chiark, or the user (by other means), to
> report the problem ? I guess not. You would rather whinge.
Your attitude is a long way from "customer-focussed", Ian. Many would
call it unacceptable and arrogant in the extreme.
It really shouldn't matter where a complaint is posted - if it's
somewhere you can be reasonably expected to come across it, or where it
can be reasonably expected to be brought to your attention, it should
reach you - and be dealt with. Yes, it's preferable to be through the
published channels, but that should not be a pre-requisite to being
attended to.
>>It may well catch a lot of forged addresses but the false positives are
>>not acceptable.
> All spamfiltering systems have false positives.
Any responsibly responsible and professional administrator will make
_every_ effort to minimise them. A sizable number of false negatives is
preferable to a single false positive.
Alan Braggins
>On 1 Dec, 11:11, "Charles Lindsey" <c...@clerew.man.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> But please bear in mind that the moderators were appointed to their task
>> by the users of Usenet in the UK, acting through due processes carried out
>> within this present newsgroup.
>
>Exactly. The moderators are appointed by the users, not by the
>committee, and are answerable to the users, not to the committee. The
>users voted for a charter with the explicit wording:
>
>"The moderators may use whatever tools and processes they collectively
>feel appropriate to ensure the smooth running of the group.
And the current complaining has added precisely nothing that wasn't
covered in the RFD period leading up to that vote.
Ian Jackson
Adrian <tooma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Ian Jackson <ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> gurgled happily, sounding
>much like they were saying:
>> Where did you send these messages ? If you mean that you posted them to
>
>Your attitude is a long way from "customer-focussed", Ian. Many would
>call it unacceptable and arrogant in the extreme.
>
>It really shouldn't matter where a complaint is posted - if it's
>somewhere you can be reasonably expected to come across it, or where it
>can be reasonably expected to be brought to your attention, it should
>reach you - and be dealt with. Yes, it's preferable to be through the
>published channels, but that should not be a pre-requisite to being
>attended to.
You seem to have misunderstood me.
I wasn't saying that I had come across complaints and deliberately
ignored them. That's not the case and I wouldn't do that.
I'm just saying that I either never saw them, or overlooked them, most
likely because they were posted in the middle of some giant newsgroup
flamewar.
>Any responsibly responsible and professional administrator will make
>_every_ effort to minimise them. A sizable number of false negatives is
>preferable to a single false positive.
I think that's a matter for the recipients to decide. In this case
the recipients are the urcm moderators and they have made their
decision.
Of course as one of the moderators I'm very much in favour of that
decision, and I made my views known in the discussions amongst the
moderators. But the decision to maintain the current system was made
by the moderators as a whole.
Note that *NO-ONE who wants to mail the moderators has been prevented*.
The only messages rejected have been spam, tests, and the six messages
from jms. jms doesn't want to talk to the moderators; it only wants
to cause trouble. The Committee's position is a gift to trollery.
Personally I find that if I get too many false negatives (ie too much
spam) my wetware spamfilter (ie my brain) starts to make mistakes and
to misclassify non-spam as spam. When that happens the sender doesn't
get told, obviously. It's better to have a filter that is more
visible when it makes mistakes.
Andy Leighton
Simon Brooke <stil...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> Look, there's fifth form politics, and there's practical reality.
> Practical reality is that u.n.n.c - with its named panel of moderators
> - was voted into being less than three months ago with a majority
ITYM urcm.
--
Andy Leighton => an...@azaal.plus.com
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_
Percy Picacity
news:sHg*kf...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk:
> It's a shame that the committee have taken such pains over a
> trumped up complaint from a troll who doesn't really want to email
> the moderators but just wants to make trouble, relating to a
> matter outside the Committee's powers.
>
> Worse is that the Committee have completely ignored a complaint
> from the 11-strong moderation panel of the newsgroup created with
> the biggest vote margin ever, about the behaviour of the
> Committee's servant, Control, who is exceeding the powers granted
> to the usenet.org.uk establishment.
>
> At least the Committee have done this:
>
>>3. Recognise that decisions about email filtering are a matter for
>>the
>> moderators, and that the Committee's role is to offer advice and
>> assistance.
>
It seems a shame that you are looking at this from the point of view
of a naughty child protesting his innocence after a playground
fight, and wanting the other child punished more. Both from
Control's point of view and the Committee's, I would have thought,
the problem is that any newcomer to ukcrm (even one with appropriate
views on bicycles) would expect to be able to contact the moderators
via a standard form of address. That explains the reason for both
your grievances. I doubt if the committee were concerned about the
particular needs of the complainant, whose identity, of course we
don't know for certain - it could have been me.
--
Percy Picacity
Simon Brooke
> Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> gurgled happily, sounding
> much like they were saying:
>
> > Where did you send these messages ? If you mean that you posted them to
> > usenet then you shouldn't be surprised if I ignored them. I often
> > ignore whole threads if I find them boring. Netnews is not a support
> > desk. If you want to report a problem report it to postmaster@chiark
> > and I will investigate.
> > Did you contact postmaster@chiark, or the user (by other means), to
> > report the problem ? I guess not. You would rather whinge.
>
> Your attitude is a long way from "customer-focussed", Ian. Many would
> call it unacceptable and arrogant in the extreme.
No-one here is a customer of Ian's.
Matthew Vernon
> It look something like 0.06% of the total spam he receives is from
> Hotmail servers. Hardly a major problem there then.
On the flip side, of the 8020 emails hotmail tried to send fanf's
site, 1985 were spam, so around a quarter.
> Still - I think he runs his system in a professional capacity and
> manner.
Funny, earlier you seemed to be questioning his competence.
Matthew
--
Rapun.sel - outermost outpost of the Pick Empire
http://www.pick.ucam.org
Simon Brooke
>
> It seems a shame that you are looking at this from the point of view
> of a naughty child protesting his innocence after a playground
> fight, and wanting the other child punished more. Both from
> Control's point of view and the Committee's, I would have thought,
> the problem is that any newcomer to ukcrm (even one with appropriate
> views on bicycles) would expect to be able to contact the moderators
> via a standard form of address. That explains the reason for both
> your grievances. I doubt if the committee were concerned about the
> particular needs of the complainant, whose identity, of course we
> don't know for certain - it could have been me.
Ian has, on behalf of moderators, investigated every message sent to
moderators which have bounced. Every single one has been accounted
for, with the exception of messages coming from two of Judith's known
addresses. Unless you posted from one of Judith's address on Hotmail,
you were not one of them. So, unless you are a sock-puppet of Judith's
(or she of you), then either you did not make the complaint, or else
you had not investigated whether the complaint was valid prior to
making it.
Pedt
1 Dec 2009, Ian Jackson <ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wibbled
>In article <5600f61e-40ce-476d...@d21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
>Simon Brooke <stil...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>However they have completely ignored our complaint about Control:
>
>>The root cause here is that the instructions on usenet.org.uk are
>>incomplete, which gives the complainant the ability to ignore the
>>moderators' perfectly functional and flexible arrangements.
>...
>>So we thank the Committee for taking an interest, and we request that
>>the Committee:
>>
>>1. Instruct Control to publish the moderators' preferred contact
>> details, including the information for users affected by
>> spam filtering false positives.
>
>It's a shame that the committee have taken such pains over a trumped
>up complaint from a troll who doesn't really want to email the
>moderators but just wants to make trouble, relating to a matter
>outside the Committee's powers.
It is certainly within the Committee's powers to offer advice and
adjudicate on a complaint. Thought you were saying the Committee had a
lot of powers when you were standing for election.
Oh, and by the way, Deputy Control put a link on usenet.org.uk to the
moderators own page which certainly pre-dates the reply from Simon.
Perhaps you would have rather it said "The moderators make it difficult
to contact them. If your email to direct to the moderators is bounced
then write to postm...@chiark.greenend.org.uk"
Do you check everything sent to it just in case it's in response to a
bounce from the moderators contact address. If you don't, why not?
>
>Worse is that the Committee have completely ignored a complaint from
>the 11-strong moderation panel of the newsgroup created with the
>biggest vote margin ever, about the behaviour of the Committee's
>servant, Control, who is exceeding the powers granted to the
>usenet.org.uk establishment.
"we request that" is not how you make a complaint and urcm is not the
"biggest vote margin ever" either.
If this 'exceeding the powers" is what you've already whinged about
making suggestions, it's noticeable that the only people who thought
>
>At least the Committee have done this:
>
>>3. Recognise that decisions about email filtering are a matter for the
>> moderators, and that the Committee's role is to offer advice and
>> assistance.
>
So? They've offered advice and the moderators response is "Te audire non
possum. Duos rota sanctimonia tracto fixa est in aure", or perhaps more
accurately, "Commodo clementia diligo factum quod eo".[1]
We can see now why various people were suggesting and supporting making
it a show of hands with no objections against to get moderated group but
almost impossible to rmgroup. u.n.n.c regulars have long memories.
[1] Translations supplied on request.
--
Pedt