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Mar. 11th, 2002
(no subject)
Mar. 11th, 2002 05:51 pmSometimes the life of a mailing-list administrator is not fun.
I am the owner of an SCA list for Jewish topics (Jewish personas and/or issues around practicing the religion in an SCA context). I didn't create the list; I inherited it.
Someone posted a message with all the hallmarks of spam -- style of language, vagueness, formatting -- implying relevance to Israel today. But this isn't a list about Israel. If I were a regular subscriber I would have simply deleted it (probably parsing it as run-of-the-mill spam and missing the Jewish connection entirely), but I'm the list owner and I really don't want to see an increase in the volume of off-topic messages.
So I looked up the sender, and he's a subscriber. I sent him mail saying (politely) "please don't post off-topic stuff to this list". I was very diplomatic, because I perceived an error of judgement rather than blatant disregard. (Sort of like the people who post virus warnings to every mailing lis they're on. They mean well, but they're usually quite clueless.)
I got mail back from him saying "When you will be off topic we will still help you...". Ok, poster needs time with a clue-by-four. I sent one reply explaining why we have topic rules, and I don't really expect to hear back. I have also put him on the "messages must be approved by list owner" list, but I didn't tell him that.
I am the owner of an SCA list for Jewish topics (Jewish personas and/or issues around practicing the religion in an SCA context). I didn't create the list; I inherited it.
Someone posted a message with all the hallmarks of spam -- style of language, vagueness, formatting -- implying relevance to Israel today. But this isn't a list about Israel. If I were a regular subscriber I would have simply deleted it (probably parsing it as run-of-the-mill spam and missing the Jewish connection entirely), but I'm the list owner and I really don't want to see an increase in the volume of off-topic messages.
So I looked up the sender, and he's a subscriber. I sent him mail saying (politely) "please don't post off-topic stuff to this list". I was very diplomatic, because I perceived an error of judgement rather than blatant disregard. (Sort of like the people who post virus warnings to every mailing lis they're on. They mean well, but they're usually quite clueless.)
I got mail back from him saying "When you will be off topic we will still help you...". Ok, poster needs time with a clue-by-four. I sent one reply explaining why we have topic rules, and I don't really expect to hear back. I have also put him on the "messages must be approved by list owner" list, but I didn't tell him that.