[PLUG] [mailing-list] improving ease of use

[Arun Khan]

On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Sunil Beta Baskar <betasam at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> For those who are facing issues posting to PLUG mail.
> it is time that these are resolved  in a manner that increases
> e-mail participation and encourages people to post on this list.

+1.  I have faced the same problem.  Your message contains suspicious
header - awaiting moderator approval and then the message goes into a
bit hole.   I have brought up this issue with a few senior PLUG
members and although things have improved a bit, the filtering
policies should be revisited.

In other words, should it be restrictive and put it in the moderator
bit bucket  and perhaps turn off both newbies and experienced users as
well --

OR make it similar to other ILUG lists like Chennai and Delhi.   I
have been hanging out on those lists and abuse/Spam is minimal.    The
few that occur are auto corrected by the member ship of the list.  I
thnk that should be the policy here as well.  When I first joined this
list, there used to a be a lot of activity but it has slowed down to
less than a trickle nowadays.    To keep it vibrant let people post
without apprehensions of moderator approval.

> The plug mail administrator _must_be_ reachable on:
> list-manager at plug-mail.org.in
> or at a location defined by mailman as default.

I agree if you have not gotten any response when you contacted them.

> This can be mentioned on the page at plug.org.in
>
> The PLUG mailing list etiquette is here (it needs to be friendlier)
> http://www.plug.org.in/mailing-list/
> These guidelines should also be sent as part of a 'welcome message'.
> They also need some revision. Here are a few suggestions.
>
> Wikipedia has a very nice "Welcome Message" template to make sure that
> newbies who did incorrect edits are not discouraged.
>
> Suggestions:
> Section 1 'before posting'
> * Item 5
> ** Linux documentation is available at http://tldp.org/
>     ref: http://www.linuxdoc.org the docbook archive and Q&A
>
> Section 2 'posting to the list'
> * Item 3
> ** Please give a link for newbies to understand what is 'top-posting'
> (everyone needs a HowTo post without violating list guidelines,
> however relaxed.)
> ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Top-posting

+1 adds more clarity with examples.

> * Item 21
> ** Please give the administrator a maximum of 2-days [to permit moderated posts]
> 'a day or two' is ambiguous.

+1 I don't know if mailman has an option to send the messages anyway
i.e. send the queued message after 3 days (for example)  if it has not
been dispensed with.

>
> Reference for experts and mailing list administrators:
> http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html (RFC1855) - Netiquette including
> mailing lists (3.1.2)
>
> If the messages that have to be moderated are huge in volume, let us
> have more moderators.
> If SPAM is the issue, please consult us to get a better SPAM filter on-board.
>
> After seeing this mail being discarded, I think PLUG must become as
> friendly as before.

+1 There is no point in mailing list when the posting criteria is too
restrictive.

My 11.4 paise.

-- 
Arun Khan
"As a layman, I would say we have it, but as a scientist I have to
say, 'What do we have?'"
Rolf Heuer, Director General CERN on the announcement of Higgs Boson particle.