Where to post for status on outages?

[vilain]

I looked at the newsgroups for any current outages when I couldn't get at various spamcop mail functions, specifically the webmail.spamcop.net message that's on the http://mailsc.spamcop.net page. That host wasn't in DNS (mail.spamcop.net), so I posted a message asking for information. Someone replied with an on-line web forum article explaining the current DNS outage.

But that leaves open the issue I've had with the spamcop community since it began--Where do I go for help? I post something to a newsgroup and am told it's the wrong newsgroup. Now I am I supposed to not use news and post only to the web forum?

One of the things I felt spamcop could have done better was communicate problems to it's users. This is still a problem as far as I'm concerned. There's no news on the main page (http://www.spamcop.net) explaining any outage either.

Every time there's been an outage, I'm faced with "_what the fsck is going on_" and no _consistant_ place to find out. I'd hoped this would change with the purchase of spamcop by Ironport. How can this get fixed once and for all?

[turetzsr]

...The place for support for SpamCop e-mail is the SpamCop Email forum. As I understand it, this was announced in the "SpamCop Email" newsgroup, the previous place for support, some time ago, so I can understand your confusion.

...This seems to also be announced at what is advertised as "the main menu for email users."

The best place for late-breaking information or to inquire about bugs or feature requests is our online forums. Just go to forum.spamcop.net.

[Wazoo]

Man, got that Timewarp thing goin gon here ... reading this and thinking "Dang, I just read this ...??? Oh yeah, the same post is over in the newsgroup I'd just caught up on" <g>

For the benifit of all, here's Mike Easter's response "over there"

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

> But that leaves open the issue I've had with the spamcop community

> since it began--Where do I go for help? I post something to a

> newsgroup and am told it's the wrong newsgroup. Now I am I supposed

> to not use news and post only to the web forum?

Most or all of the people you will talk to here are supportive of

newsgroup support. They would like for general spamcop parsing problem

discussions to take place in spamcop or spamcop.help. In the past,

we/they would have suggested going to spamcop.mail for mail related

problems. But JT, the mailboss, would like to believe that spamcop.mail

doesn't even exist and favors all discourse about spamcop.mail to take

place in the forums. Some people prefer nntp over forums and some of

the forum posters aren't nntp competent. Some of us never go to the

forum, or at least don't post there.

WazoO is the 'Sacagawea' Shoshone guide/translator/emissary who tries to

maintain a bridge between the ng/s and the forum, but he supports the

forum mail more than the spamcop.mail.

(Note from Wazoo: I posted into spamcop.mail once, and that was also pointing out that I didn't monitor that newsgroup at all <g>)

> One of the things I felt spamcop could have done better was

> communicate problems to it's users. This is still a problem as far

> as I'm concerned. There's no news on the main page

> (http://www.spamcop.net) explaining any outage either.

That is correct; however there is a post here in both spamcop.mail and

spamcop under the subject - {webmail,imap,mail}.spamcop.net not found? -

which was an original post of yours, which has quite a lot of

information in it.

> Every time there's been an outage, I'm faced with "_what the fsck is

> going on_" and no _consistant_ place to find out. I'd hoped this

> would change with the purchase of spamcop by Ironport. How can this

> get fixed once and for all?

We (tinw) think it would be good if there were some consistent places to

put 'everything spamcop' - somewhere in the forum, somewhere on the

spamcop non-forum site, and a crossposted to multiple groups with fups

to one in the newsgroups.

The problem is that there is confusion about whether to put something on

the front page underneath the parser [which doesn't seem like a good

place to me because it is hiding under there] or in the webmail login

place, or the old news place, or which forum place.

We should 'all' (tina) discuss it and figure out some logical places, so

that whether it is about the parser or the mailservice or the

nameservice or DDoS or general internet failure or whatever, where

something newsworthy might be found.

And crossposting this to spamcop.email won't work because the name of

the ng is spamcop.mail.

--

Mike Easter

kibitzer, not SC admin

-=-=-=-=-

and then a second bit of follow-up:

-=-=-=-=-=-

Tim McGraw wrote:

> Mike Easter wrote:

>> We (tinw) think it would be good if there were some consistent

>> places to put 'everything spamcop' - somewhere in the forum,

>> somewhere on the spamcop non-forum site, and a crossposted to

>> multiple groups with fups to one in the newsgroups.

>

> If JT wants to use the boards and Julian likes the news server, I have

> no problem with that (except for the lousy registration for the board

> - which is why I won't/don't post there).

Well, I don't know that JT is the 'greatest' or even as good as mediocre

when it comes to using the forum, I think he shows up there very

infrequently, and he is a total *zero* when it comes to supporting the

ng. I wouldn't exactly say that Julian 'likes' the news server - maybe

he likes for it to 'survive' and he's willing to accept its 'overhead' -

but you don't see him in here much, do you? He's been in the forum

since he's been here, and not much there. I don't think it is Julian's

'job' to be jawboning support - unless he just feels like it.

> I know it's no longer listed on http://www.spamcop.net/help.shtml, but

> just DELETE the s.mail newsgroup altogether if no one checks it! It's

> the "black hole" of sc customer service!

I disagree. In the first place, there are some people who detest or are

very averse to posting in the forum; and there /is/ support here -

where 'here' = help for spamcop.mail. Altho' I sed WazoO is in the

forum more than the ng, he is good about looking in on the ng and

supporting it by aiming people at the relevant part of the forum. That

actually works, since it helps other people 'here' ie ng, support the ng

even if we don't know mail.

>> The problem is that there is confusion about whether to put

>> something on the front page underneath the parser [which doesn't

>> seem like a good place to me because it is hiding under there] or in

>> the webmail login place, or the old news place, or which forum place.

>

> Since that's a page I see every day, I like it there and I notice when

> the "news" changes - but there's never any email "problem" news, only

> spamcop parser news. I rarely use the Webmail interface so that's not

> the ideal spot for me personally.

Well, the issue is that you might think of one place and not another;

and someone else might think of some other place and not the one you

tho't of.

--

Mike Easter

kibitzer, not SC admin

-=-=-=-=-

Not sure that there's a lot to add, but I suspect the discussion will continue <g>

While I'm at it,a bit of counter-balance to the above:

-=-=-=-=

Tim McGraw wrote:

Stop for one moment and think - really think - about the daily support

and maintenance required to hold sc together. It's amazing.

Julian gets hit with new "methods" for getting around sc every day.

JT has been hit really, really hard in the past seven days: the method

for retrieving AOL mail broke for several days and the DNS problem

reared its ugly head.

This could truly annoy an sc user, and particularly one that *needs*

their email for business. Three words which will help you get through

any current and future crises: patience, patience, patience.

My spamcast DNS servers are now up-to-date. The filters work flawlessly.

The sc service is an extremely reasonable value for what you get.

Three cheers for sc staff. Thank you, Julian, for "inventing" sc. Thank

you, JT, for handling enormous email delivery responsibilities.

And three cheers for WazoO, Easter and everyone else who keeps this this

thing running.

-=-=-=-=-

and Mike Easter responded;

That's a good point. While 'bad mouthing' JT about not newsgroup

posting stuff; the important thing is not the posting but all the stuff

which goes on behind the scenes which makes it all work or start working

again..

It is probably very very hard to post in the middle of the confusion

because you don't exactly know what is going on and you are very very

busy trying to figure it out and do something about it.

[Miss Betsy]

IMHO, major changes, outages, etc. should be posted on the web page where one gets to either the forum or the ng. If people can't find it somewhere else, then eventually they will go to the Help page.

For most there is no need to go further to discuss it or ask questions, but if they want to they have a choice of forum or ng.

Miss Betsy

[Jeff G.]

I try to monitor the spamcop.mail ng, but I generally don't have time for the spamcop and spamcop.help ngs any more.

[Miss Betsy]

It is probably very very hard to post in the middle of the confusion

because you don't exactly know what is going on and you are very very

busy trying to figure it out and do something about it.

Perhaps. However, there are deputies and moderators and possibly even an Ironport employee who could be notified to put a message on the 'where to find help' page that says "Spamcop (or spamcop.email) is having problems and they are being worked on. Please go to forum or ng for 'this topic subject' for further information and discussion."

Miss Betsy