[volunteers] Officers mailing list

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Edward Cherlin (echerlin at gmail.com):

[snip stuff overtaken by later developments]

> > However, it's simply really bad netiquette for people to be "put" on
> > mailing lists.
> 
> In general, I agree with you. In this case, it is part of the job to
> which she has been appointed but not yet approved. It seems to me
> perfectly reasonable to add her under the circumstances, but it is of
> course not necessary.

I'm going to cut to the chase:  No competent listadmin is going to 
"add" people to mailing lists.  

It's unprofessional, it makes one look incompetent, it stupidly eschews
two superior alternatives, and it prevents benefiting from the three-way
handshake that is built into the _real_ best-practices methods for
getting people onto mailing lists and that automatically vets the
address as deliverable, before it's used for listmail.

Every listadmin does that a few times.  They learn that (1) "Oh, damn.  
That address I was given turns out to generate errors.  What a pity 
I didn't do the regular three-way handshake auth."  (2) "Oh, heck.  If
I'd only been smart enough to use Mailman's built-in 'invite' function
(or just sent the user the URL of the subscribe form), this all would
have been taken care of much more smoothly."

The _really_ smart listadmins know that it's masochistic to try to
educate people about this, because a certain percentage of listeners
will want to argue without bothering to even understand how three-way
handshake subscriber authentication works.  

I'm not yet that smart:  I'm still a little masochistic, and have a
naive faith in education.

> No problem. Has Paul taken himself off listadminning? 

Alas, no.  Sadly, he just abused his ability to post personal commentary
to svlug-announce.  That ability has just now been curtailed.

> If not, would you remove him?

Your question is fuzzy.  I have a strong suspicion that this is because 
you are asking a question whose technical foundation you do not know,
e.g., if I were to talk about the notify roster vs. listadmin password
possession vs. moderator password possession, you would not know what
I'm talking about.  So:  I am in the middle of doing the appropriate
thing, as best I can.  I'd be able to do it faster if I were not being
barraged by fuzzy questions.

[snip more questions that appear to have been overtaken by events]

> > There is not shell login named "president", if that's what you're asking
> > about.
> 
> The password for accessing that account on the list page.
> 
> http://lists.svlug.org/lists/options/officers/president--at--svlug.org

Would you please in the future be more precise than just saying "account"
(as if that always had only a single meaning, which does not happen to
be the case)?  In this context, you appear to mean "e-mail address
subscribed to the Officers mailing list".

I have, accordingly, just removed "president at svlug.org" from membership
in the Officers mailing list, now that you've mentioned its having been
there.

Having done that was extremely dumb in the first place, and I will
certainly be knocking it off any other mailing lists where I might find
it.

(Yes, I _can_ explain why.  But please not this very moment.)

> > Bruce, Alvin, or some other candidate asking me why I unilaterally
> > ignored their candidacies, and realised I have no good answer.  If that
> > seems highhanded for any reason, imagine your and Bruce's situations
> > to be reversed, and reconsider.)
> 
> No, I agree entirely. Although I would have expected one of them to
> say something by now, if they wanted to.

They _have_ said something.  They're already declared candidates.
Please read your listmail.


> > [1] Actually, of late, it's been _worse_ than pointless, since numerous
> > members have tried to contact it, and encountered non-response only, having
> > no idea that their e-mails were, in fact, being autodiscarded.  I've
> > tried to ameliorate this debacle by putting the key paragraph on the
> > listinfo page into bold text, but it isn't 100% successful.
> 
> I assume that people just send mail without reading the page. Are
> people at least notified that they can't post?

No.  Didn't I already say that?