Forum configuration, additions, changes, input requested Options

[Wazoo]

name the two forums you propose for the Email service with the less ambiguous label of SpamCop Flat-Rate Email Service Setup and SpamCop Flat-Rate Email Service (System and Accounts) -

The catch is, (maybe I need to go back and check) the "basic" e-mail Forum seems to currently cover both the flat-rate accounts and e-mail submittals from all types of account holders, even the free account types. Though submitting is a "reporting" function, those confirmation e-mails would seem to obviously push users to the "E-Mail" forum ...???

[agsteele]

The catch is, (maybe I need to go back and check) the "basic" e-mail Forum seems to currently cover both the flat-rate accounts and e-mail submittals from all types of account holders, even the free account types.  Though submitting is a "reporting" function, those confirmation e-mails would seem to obviously push users to the "E-Mail" forum ...???

Yes, I think that is broadly what I was suggesting needs to be tested by some means - to see what happens in real life. You won't please everyone, and certainly there'll be loads of folk who'll post incorrectly (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Andrew

[elvey]

You might be creating too many fora. No, never mind.

Sending rants to the lounge doesn't make sense currently - the lounge is said to be for stuff NOT relates to spamcop.

And the thread I started about SpamcopIsNotHarmful is something about spamcop that doesn't fit into any category and suggests that the new misc category would be useful.

BTW, is using the faq-o-matic to sugggest edits pointless?

This post has been edited by elvey: Jun 10 2004, 02:22 PM

[Wazoo]

You might be creating too many fora.  No, never mind.

Maybe my "example" layout is a bust .... I started with the Forum Title blocks, then added in some sample subjects .... then added in some sample "data" ... trying to demonstrate that things were actually intended to be included .... now I'm suspecting that folks are looking at how frigging huge the front page is going to look . when in reality, you won't see 90% of the stuff until you "go into" one of the Forum sections ..???

Sending rants to the lounge doesn't make sense currently - the lounge is said to be for stuff NOT relates to spamcop.

And here we go again ... I added a "legend" above and below that list to show the symbols I used to designate certain things . in this case, the legend entry;
() = suggested changes to existing

Such that the line:
"... anything except SpamCop (reporting and account issues) and spam fighting" would actually read:
"...anything except SpamCop reporting and account issues and spam fighting"

And the thread I started about SpamcopIsNotHarmful is something about spamcop that doesn't fit into any category and suggests that the new misc category would be useful.

This doesn't fit?

*SpamCop Other Things
*For whatever reasons, my SpamCop situation doesn't fit into any other Forum. Note that the Moderators / Admin may not agree and move your post to the appropriate Forum.

BTW, is using the faq-o-matic to sugggest edits pointless?

I don't recall seeing that "using the faq-o-matic for suggestion" in a long while. Last time I looked, the description of changes/suggestions was to post in the newsgroups, beat it to death until there was a consensus, then it would be incorporated. This has been "the way" for a number of years now, long before this web-based thing was thought of. And the situation since has been basically where to stick "the FAQ" ... the genesis of this forum thing has been discussed many times before. so won't so it again.

For the most part, Deputy Richard is the one that handles the FAQ on the SpamCop web pages. The Pinned items here were what I'd suggested to JeffG to try in the interim of waiting for JT's decision on what to do with the FAQs here. The Pinned items started getting out of hand, and here we are, still shooting for some other way to handle things.

[elvey]

Thanks for the info.

"...anything except SpamCop reporting and account issues and spam fighting"
IS "the misc category" I was referring to.


Should
SpamCop Reporting Help &
SpamCop Blocklist Help
only be for Help with these things, or should "Help" be removed and they be about these things in general? They're still tightly defined, but then general ranting about the topic would no longer be OT. Bad thing?

[Miss Betsy]

Should
SpamCop Reporting Help &
SpamCop Blocklist Help
only be for Help with these things, or should "Help" be removed and they be about these things in general? They're still tightly defined, but then general ranting about the topic would no longer be OT. Bad thing?

Speaking as a technically non-fluent person who tried spamcop because I was fed up with spam: When you don't know the difference between forward inline and forward as attachment, you don't want discussion and rants, you want answers!

The purpose of the forum was to provide a place for newbies to go to get information on how to deal with spamcop technically. The newsgroups are still available for ranting and discussion (and much better suited than the forum).

Since the web pages direct everyone here, there still needs to be a help group for how to use spamcop reporting; a help group for why am I blocked? (which since many admins are asking can get somewhat technical and therefore scary to the newbie spamcop reporter) and now a "discussion group" for all different aspects of spam fighting, blocklists, etc.

A little bit in the help section is not bad and introduces the newbie to how discussions can be carried on, but having it moved to the "catchall" section keeps the help forum clean and neat and shows newbies where to go. It also allows the discussions to be less 'helpdesky' polite which makes for more interesting reading, but isn't appropriate for the help sections.

Anyway, that's the theory.

Miss Betsy

[Wazoo]

general ranting about the topic would no longer be OT. Bad thing?

I'll back up Miss Betsy. One would like a "Help" place to be just that.

However, a bit of rant .... as one of those strange people that upon opening the box, I first look for the manual .. I then read the manual ... then I'll pull the unit out of the box and start assembly or hook-up ... at which point I'll then be able to play with the stuff that didn't make any sense in the reading of the manual ... more often than not, everything works when I turn it on ....

A FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions list) is supposed to be there to fill in the gaps, point out the obvious mis-steps, correct the wording of some confusing instrucrions elsewhere, etc. .... Some newsgroups have their FAQ posted daily, people don't read them. Some newsgroups have their FAQ posted weekly, people don't read them. Some newsgroups have their FAQ posted monthly, people don't read them. This web-based thing has some FAQ, some Pinned statements, posted right on the same page that people are posting in, and guess what, these items don't appear to be read. (or not understood, or read and ignored, or ....????) There's an infamous rant here that one poster felt dirtied, sullied, and abused by reading one FAQ, somehow ignoring the "work-in-progress" line, definitely skipping over the "request for input on changes, fixes, and additions" line, and went into complaint mode that he/she was "forced" to read 20-30 or more "comments" on additions and corrections to the "First Post/FAQ entry" .. because it was obvious that if all these extra comments were "necessary" then the FAQ wasn't completed.
I find it difficult to relate to people with these kinds of issues. So the point I'm attempting to make here is that even if we get all kinds of folks involved, come up with the "ultimate" solution, and even have everything under the sun already addressed, we're still going to see the postings that start with "I've looked everywhere, but I can't find ...." and of course, the ever popular "I don't have time to look around, so e-mail me with the answer ..."

rant mode off, as I could go on for days <g>

[turetzsr]

<snip>
However, a bit of rant .... as one of those strange people that upon opening the box, I first look for the manual .. I then read the manual ... then I'll pull the unit out of the box and start assembly or hook-up ... at which point I'll then be able to play with the stuff that didn't make any sense in the reading of the manual ... more often than not, everything works when I turn it on ....

A FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions list) is supposed to be there to fill in the gaps, point out the obvious mis-steps, correct the wording of some confusing instrucrions elsewhere, etc. ....  Some newsgroups have their FAQ posted daily, people don't read them.  Some newsgroups have their FAQ posted weekly, people don't read them. Some newsgroups have their FAQ posted monthly, people don't read them.  This web-based thing has some FAQ, some Pinned statements, posted right on the same page that people are posting in, and guess what, these items don't appear to be read.  (or not understood, or read and ignored, or ....????)  There's an infamous rant here that one poster felt dirtied, sullied, and abused by reading one FAQ, somehow ignoring the "work-in-progress" line, definitely skipping over the "request for input on changes, fixes, and additions" line, and went into complaint mode that he/she was "forced" to read 20-30 or more "comments" on additions and corrections to the "First Post/FAQ entry" .. because it was obvious that if all these extra comments were "necessary" then the FAQ wasn't completed.
I find it difficult to relate to people with these kinds of issues.  So the point I'm attempting to make here is that even if we get all kinds of folks involved, come up with the "ultimate" solution, and even have everything under the sun already addressed, we're still going to see the postings that start with "I've looked everywhere, but I can't find ...." and of course, the ever popular "I don't have time to look around, so e-mail me with the answer ..."

rant mode off, as I could go on for days <g>

...Myself, I'm not quite so sensitive to this. I'll just say that I believe that the fact that "people don't read [the FAQ]" isn't relevant to me -- I like the FAQ to be there because it's usually easier for me to write, "please see the FAQ at <URL>" than it is to type in the answer.

[Wazoo]

...Myself, I'm not quite so sensitive to this. I'll just say that I believe that the fact that "people don't read [the FAQ]" isn't relevant to me -- I like the FAQ to be there because it's usually easier for me to write, "please see the FAQ at <URL>" than it is to type in the answer

And I'll admit to falling victim to the burn-out thing . I keep referencing the Microsoft newsgroups, but I still have to go there daily to keep up on issues. It just gets so tiring to pop into one group, see over 1000 new posts since yesterday or the day before ... work my way through all those posts .. but basically seeing that 997 of those "new" posts are the same questions, same answers that were handled the day before ... and those questions and answers repeated those asked the day before that ... on and on .... So there's a level of frustration there .. then I walk in over "here" ....

Yesterday, I had three PMs dealing with users asking "me" to fix their mail-host problems. Two of them showing no posts on the Forums at all, one showing an unrelated post in the Mail-Hosts forums a couple of months ago .... I'm asking myself how to "gracefully" answer any of those without the pointing to the Pinned item that both Ellen and myself had added the words "read before posting" to the Title and Description, then wondering why these folks picked "me" to PM about something that I have no dealings with what-so-ever .... (and only one of these had anywhere near enough data to even think about looking at anything, thus that's the only one that I forwarded to Ellen .. once again risking her chastising me for continuing to "get in the middle" of things, vice the simple "tell them all to send an e-mail to Deputies .... which of course, is what the Pinned FAQ states anyway <g>)

[StevenUnderwood]

And I'll admit to falling victim to the burn-out thing.

Please don't burn out. I think we already melted one moderator. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

[zachariah]

I'd like it if this were "fixed"
http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=924

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

This post has been edited by zachariah: Jun 14 2004, 11:24 PM

[Wazoo]

and the answers provided in that Topic are still valid.

[zachariah]

ok -- it just seemed like you were looking for things that were overlooked -- and since it hadn't changed, I thought I'd mention it again -- I'm sorry if it was any trouble

[Wazoo]

Apologies .... I'd actually had that one-line response up in edit mode, had something like 3 paragraphs, a passle of links ... and ran into something worse that the blue screen ... the damn monitor went totally black ... spent some time later dealing with the results of having way too many things running and open when I hit the reset button to force a re-boot .... obviously not done, as this thing has locked up three times this morning ... I'm going to leave this that JT is the only one with access to the server that holds these pages, it's become apparent that he doesn't actively monitor things here (maybe because "we're" doing such a fine job?) and to be honest, I'm not always getting timely answers to stuff I kick up to him ... so a small change as you've pointed out before (that wasn't handled) I'm kind of letting lie until I can get something agreed to for "the big change" ... and if you've read through this Topic, you'll note that it appears that things are a long way from getting close to a consensus ... and the lack of participation by the "general masses" hasn't helped ... most of the participants thus far actually come from the NNTP side of the house, so dealing with this web-based thing in general is a pain to begin with <g> ... geeze, turned into a bit of a ramble .. wish I could remember half the stuff I had typed in last night before things blew up <g>

[zachariah]

no worries Wazoo -- sorry to hear about your bad luck -- you're much appreciated!!!

[bobbear]

Wow - well the suggested format already seems to have gone through a great evolution and is looking good. I'm not sure I can add anything apart from a general opinion as a fan of php/vbb etc forums rather than newsgroups which I consider far less user friendly.

I think forums tend to evolve slowly in response to long term suggestions and comments as long as the forum manager(s) are responsive to the users. I'm not sure if a drastic change won't throw up more problems than it solves, but I'm in favour of implementing the format as suggested - as someone else suggested, obtaining a prior consensus will probably prove problematic.

What I would say in general as a 'non-networking geek' is that it is easy for FAQ's and help pages to baffle rather than help by the use of language and acronyms that might be obvious to the writer, but not to the 'lay' reader, (unless some form of Glossary of terms is provided), (which might be useful in itself). e.g.: "NDR and / or AV notices being sent to forged From: address Lines". NDR? Non Delivery Return I assume, but I had to think about it.....

The 'Suggested Tools and Applications' forum is a good idea as might be a 'Protect Yourself' advice list containing all the usual advice & links to free programs such as free firewalls, (Sygate Personal Firewall, ZoneAlarm, Omniquad Personal Firewall, Kerio Personal Firewall etc), free A/V (Avast! Antivirus, AVG Antivirus, Anti Vir, EZArmour Antivirus etc) and spyware/Adware protection such as Adaware, Pest Patrol, Spybot Search and Destroy, SpyWare Blaster, SpyWare Guard, Zero Popup etc.

[Wazoo]

Thanks all. Guess it's time to see just how to coerce a few minutes out of JT's day and see if he'll go along with at least some of these changes.

[dbiel]

Thanks for the hard work
A thought about how to reduce the overall size of the opening page might be to list the general headers only and then use "mouse over" to expand each header for a more detailed definition when the users mouse touches the header

I would find it very helpful to have the FAQ available from this site

Of course, there is always the problem of keeping the FAQ current

Queue up spam for reporting (there are more steps than just queueing unless you use the BETA quick reporting -- not recommended for the newbie)

the above is taken from SpamCop FAQ : SpamCop Mail Service : FAQ about Filtering and Held Mail :
How do I deal with my Held Mail?

Is quick reporting still considered "BETA"?

By the way, I am still looking for a definition of quick reporting, the email report sent does detail exacting what quick reporting did do, which aparently is to send reports to a very limited set of people as compared to full reporting.

Keep in mind that I am not expecting a reply to the above mentioned questions as this is not the right place to post them. But they are posted here as fuel for the need to make changes to the forum structure.

This post has been edited by dbiel: Jun 23 2004, 03:53 AM

[Wazoo]

Is quick reporting still considered "BETA"?

Hmmmm, yes, no , maybe??? It was a BETA, it then got moved to frontstage, then got whacked, then moved to a position where one could request to be allowed to use it, based on review of your past reporting history .... I'm not sure what kind of a description fits this at the moment <g>

By the way, I am still looking for a definition of quick reporting, the email report sent does detail exacting what quick reporting did do, which aparently is to send reports to a very limited set of people as compared to full reporting.

Basically, quick-reporting only spends time looking for and reporting to the source of the e-mail. It was this submit, boom, and complaint was sent that ended up with way too many users reporting themselves/their ISP that caused the halt to the blanket availability of this particular tool.

[dbiel]

It looks like this thread may have reached the end of it life cycle since there has been only one post in the last 2 days on the subject, but just incase it is still alive, I would suggest the following addition.
[SpamCop for Dummies]
[Step by step instructions for beginners on how to use Spam Cop Services]
[ Differences between the varrious services]
[How to decide what method of reporting to use]
One could build quite a index here, but I am currently out of time.
Does anyone else think this is a good idea?

Additional change - "Clickable Smilies"
Currently if you mouse over the varrious clickable smilies you get a single common reply "smile" For dummies like me, could the mouse over be changed to a specific title for each smilie as several of them I have no idea as to what they mean, and I tend to think that I can't be the only one it that position, or am I? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) (confused?)