[volunteers] Mail list monitoring

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Margaret Wendall (mwendall at gmail.com):

> Rick -
> 
> I agree you need help, but we may need some help in knowing who/what gets to
> post and what should be deleted. I look at the list below and wonder how
> many people would understand a post in Spanish.

Hmm, I'm a bit puzzled, because none of that was Spanish.


Here's how one (wielding listadmin access*) determines what to approve:

1.  Look at the admin queue (for a given SVLUG mailing list, such as
Jobs*) in a Web browser.  It shows you in summary form the (claimed)
senders, the Subject headers, message sizes, and reasons why they were
held.  In almost all cases, the held spam will be unbelievably obvious,
from the (claimed) sender, from (especially!) the Subject headers, or
from other aspects.  

The Jobs queue is empty at the moment, but here's an ASCII rendition of
what's currently in the queue for svlug-announce:

   messages from bf.schneider.christopher at mail.bryantstratton.edu
  	 
   [1] Subject: SPAM: 7.6: Hello Friend!!
       Size: 2258 bytes
       Reason: Post by non-member to a members-only list
       Received: Wed Oct 14 15:53:49 2009

   messages from svlug-announce at lists.svlug.org

   [1] Subject: SPAM: 32.0: Hi
  	Size: 5491 bytes
  	Reason: Post by non-member to a members-only list
  	Received: Sun Oct 11 03:15:21 2009

   [2] Subject: Sales Receipt from Amazon
        Size: 3507 bytes
        Reason: Post by non-member to a members-only list
        Received: Mon Oct 12 11:39:04 2009

I said "claimed" sender because spammers almost universally put a forged 
address in their From: headers.  

I hope it's obvious that all of the above are spam.  If not, a couple of
days doing listadmin duty will make it really clear.


2.  In case you're in doubt about any of the items displayed, click the
link to show detail (including message body) for that item.  In all
cases in my experience, it then becomes incredibly obvious if something
is spam.  


3.  When you're sure you've approved all the real mails, check the
"Discard all messages marked Defer" checkbox and hit the "Submit All
Data" button.  All held spam is then discarded.

Once you've done the above for a while, processing the queue becomes 
extremely quick (5-30 seconds), because non-spam simply looks different.


FYI, all of our mailing lists except Jobs are set to autoexpire held
mails after, if I recall correctly, five days in the queue.  So, it's
not strictly necessary to purge spam:  It'll go away by itself.  (So,
unfortunately, will any non-spam held post, which is why the queue must
be checked occasionally.)

In the case specifically of Jobs, SVLUG's only moderated mailing list,
we require not only that the posting be non-spam, but also that it 
comply with a very modest set of rules.  They are here:
http://lists.svlug.org/lists/listinfo/jobs

    The posting rules are:

    * Posted jobs must be Unix- or Linux-centric (AIX, HP-UX, IRIX,
      Solaris, etc. all OK). Having Linux or Unix as a nice-to-have is
      not enough.

    * Full-time positions must be within a 75-mile radius of San Jose.
      No exceptions. (Contract positions may be anywhere.)

    * No resumes, no job-wanted postings, no discussions of postings or
      jobs, just announcements of available positions.

    * The poster must clearly state if he/she is an agency, recruiter,
      headhunter, or direct employer in EVERY posting.

    * Do not post the same job more than once a week.


The first three rules are the important ones, and also the ones most
frequently ignored.  Therefore, it is important to actually read
non-spam held postings to Jobs before approving them, and make
sure they're Linux- or Unix-centric, specify a local city where the jobs
is, and are actual jobs-offered rather than, say, yet another applicant
trying to respond on-list to a posting and say "Here's my resume."

Implicit in the above set of rules is the understanding that the 
posting must include _details_ of the job, because the listadmins
must verify that it is Linux- or Unix-centric, etc.  I have rejected
headhunters' postings that say "Please see [URL] for details of this
job."  Sorry, no, the posting needs to include the job description.

Also, headhunters will sometimes try to pull the stunt of throwing three
MS-Windows jobs in amongst five Linux/Unix ones, and then argue with you
when you reject the post.  Sorry, no.  I gently explain that this is not
a negotiation, and that his/her revised posting that actually complies
with our rules will be approved, but ones that try to pull a fast one
will not.


Being moderated, Jobs is unique in that _all_ postings are held for
listadmin review.  (That's what "moderated list" means, in Mailman.)
On _other_ lists, the only non-spam held postings will be these:

1.  A legitimate poster who sent mail from a non-subscribed address,
    e.g., the user normally posts from his/her ISP account, and
    has that address subscribed, but forgot about that and used
    his/her free webmail account, instead.  Skip Evans did 
    exactly that, this morning.

    In such cases, do a Reject with a polite, 5-line or so 
    explanation message.  For Skip, I wrote one like this:
    "Hi, Skip.  You need to re-send from your subscribed 
    address, not your googlemail one.  Alternatively, you
    could subscribe your googlemail address, via
    http://lists.svlug.org/lists/listinfo/svlug, and set 
    the 'nomail' option.  Subsequently, you can post from
    that address, too, without having to receive list traffic there."

2.  (rare)  Held for reason "Message is too large".  Inevitably,
    it'll turn out that someone tried to file-attach an enormous
    binary file, most often a PowerPoint or a PDF.  You should
    do a Reject with a polite explanation that attachments should
    almost never be posted to mailing lists, especially huge ones,
    and that the sender should either put the file in Web space
    somewhere and include its URL rather than the whole huge 
    file, or (if he/she's trying to send it to some limited 
    number of individuals) should e-mail it offlist.

3.  (rare)  Held for reason "Too many recipients".  This will
    turn out to be _either_ a crosspost across numerous 
    mailing lists (most common) or a post to our mailing list
    Cc'd to a bunch of individuals.

    In either case, you should do a Reject with a polite note
    saying that he/she is welcome to send the post to lots
    of places, but should do so by first posting to (just) 
    our mailing list and then forwarding the sent mail to
    wherever else he/she has in mind.

I believe that about covers it.


> I'm going to be at Cabal next weekend and maybe we can talk about this???

Sure.



*You will need SVLUG's listadmin password, available upon request by
any core volunteer whom we trust to not do crazy things.  It allows
you access to _both_ the held-postings queue and to all details of 
mailing list configuration, for each of SVLUG's mailing lists.  That is
why you must be someone we trust not to do crazy things, because
possession of the listadmin password permits one to carry out very
serious damage, up to and including _deleting_ mailing lists.

There are a number of ways to get to "admin" login prompts for Mailman. 
One of them is here:  http://lists.svlug.org/lists/admin/

Please note that SVLUG hosts one non-SVLUG mailing list, "Smaug", for
the Santa Cruz LUG of that name.  It has a different listadmin password.