[volunteers] Status of (Jobs) List

[Rick Moen]

Scott, you sent a message to jobs-owner at lists.svlug.org with Subject header
'Status of List', in which you said (in part) that you'd been trying to
figure out how to make use of SVLUG's Jobs mailing list, since EBLUG doesn't
have one -- this preseumably in reference to your cent 'Subject: Test"
posting that we rejected.

I'm answering your couple of questions with CC to SVLUG's publicly archived
Volunteers mailing list because that is where discussions about SVLUG
administration should occur.  Also, I have a dream that some day people
might bother to check that mailing list's archive to see the last nn time
the topic has been addressed.


On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 2:58 AM, Scott DuBois <sdubois at linux.com> wrote:
> Anyone can post but only subscribers can see? No discussions?

Correct.  Also, all posting are vetted to ensure that the comply with the
four simple rules on the listinfo page (where you do Web-mediated signup).
For example, the mailing list is for jobs-available announcements only.  It
is not for people responding to job offers saying 'Gosh, I want to apply for
that; here's my resume.'  Nor is it for 'I need a job' postings, nor
kvetching about the general state of the job market, etc.  We frequently
have to reject 'Here's my resume' reply postings with some relatively gentle
rejection messages that's less harsh than what we're thinking, which is 'Did
you _really_ think that several hundred subscribers needed to see the fact
that you were interested in a particular position and to get a copy of your
resume?  Honestly?'

Also, we send back a gentle rejection notice whenever the job-available
posting contains almost nothing but a URL for some company or job-agency Web
page.  The posting is supposed to be a reasonably self-contained set of
information to applicants.  We had to do that after a pattern of abuse where
what was linked to kept morphing, and also such postings are almost
impossible to vet against the rules given that Mailman's admin queue shows
the posting with quoted-printable gibberish encoding.

> Has the list ever gotten any use?

See the archive.  Honestly, Scott, do you think we're your unpaid research
librarians?

The mailing list was created to solve a problem circa (IIRC) 1998-2000:
Recruiters were mail-bombing the main mailing list, behaving in a completely
crazy manner (e.g., multi-posting the same position multiple times daily),
and ignored all warnings from listadmins to fix their behaviour.  Setting up
a separate, moderated mailing list for job offers was the decision made by
SVLUG's then-officers.  Jobs traffic was effectively banished to the
separate list (and can be posted there if it meets the separate list's
rules).

Arguably that problem has gone away - for now.  

The Jobs mailing list has the problem that about 50% of the people posting
to it have no idea what a mailing list _is_, and apparently think they are
submitting comments to staff of a Web board for jobs postings -- at least,
judging by the large number of postings with insane Subject headers like
'Please post this', and other signs of extreme confusion.

We've optimised it for minimum listadmin hassle to the extent possible,
e.g., edited down the wording of the list's four posted to rules to as few
words as possible, minimising the likelihood of them being ignored.  The
mailing list still causes more hassle than all the rest of them combined.
It could be worse, though:  We could just turn it into a discussion-list
free-for-all, which would piss off hundreds of subscribers who subscribed
for the sort of regime it's been under for 15+ years and create a chaotic
forum for blather having nothing to do with what SVLUG's about.

If you want to create such a list elsewhere, go for it.