Miss Betsy Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 13, 2004 Author Share Posted June 13, 2004 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> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turetzsr Posted June 14, 2004 Share Posted June 14, 2004 <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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 14, 2004 Author Share Posted June 14, 2004 ...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>) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenUnderwood Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 And I'll admit to falling victim to the burn-out thing. Please don't burn out. I think we already melted one moderator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zachariah Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 I'd like it if this were "fixed" http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=924 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 15, 2004 Author Share Posted June 15, 2004 and the answers provided in that Topic are still valid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zachariah Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 15, 2004 Author Share Posted June 15, 2004 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> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zachariah Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 no worries Wazoo -- sorry to hear about your bad luck -- you're much appreciated!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobbear Posted June 22, 2004 Share Posted June 22, 2004 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 22, 2004 Author Share Posted June 22, 2004 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbiel Posted June 23, 2004 Share Posted June 23, 2004 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 23, 2004 Author Share Posted June 23, 2004 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbiel Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 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? (confused?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 24, 2004 Author Share Posted June 24, 2004 Good suggestions, cetainly including items long begged for in the newsgroups <g> I'll say at this point that I'd guess that these would be entries to be found under the FAQ section. Of course, the monster problem (as has always been the case) who gets to flush these Topic lines into full blown entries .. and make sure that they are correct and understandable .. never mind the attempt at trying to cover all operating systems, platforms, applications, and the always problematic "your English is different than my English" .... We're sitting right now with that JT was going to try to find time to take a look at what the first post is showing. I've offered to try to recreate it in some other fashion if that would help make it a bit more of a cut/paste operation for him ... do need to point out that not only will he get to re-code this Forum thing, but there are links all over the SpamCop pages that will also need to be re-coded to match any and all changes made "here" ... and even noting that if he goes the full-mile and re-sequences some of the existing Forums, even links within this entire web-space are going to (possibly) be impacted ... but I'd suspect that this won't be a thing that JT would have the time to try to correct <g> mouse over the varrious clickable smilies you get a single common reply "smile" IE6 SP1 shows a java scri_pt entry in the status bar offering up a bit of code line that shows the ASCII representation of the various codes that the smiley is supposed to represent .... top left icon for instance shows java scri_pt emoticon('.huh') ... second line, far right shows java scri_pt emoticon('.lol') .... going to have to pull the iBook over here and see if Safari has any kind of "explanation" ... one of those things I've never bothered to look at, as I don't use them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lawless Posted June 26, 2004 Share Posted June 26, 2004 Recommendations: 1) Create a category dedicated to the reporting side of SpamCop. 2) Create a high-density headline display similar to what NNTP viewers show. These web-forums have *way* too much white-space. They are difficult to peruse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 26, 2004 Author Share Posted June 26, 2004 1) Create a category dedicated to the reporting side of SpamCop. Might you explain or expand this a bit? 2) Create a high-density headline display similar to what NNTP viewers show. These web-forums have *way* too much white-space. They are difficult to peruse. No way I can help you there. This software is skinnalble, HTML coding can do a lot, add in the PHP to organize bits on the fly, so lots of things "possible" .. but, the reality of it is that JT only has so much time in the day, so I'm not sure if time to tinker this much with the display will be available, noting also that there might be complaints then that the high-density stuff is too hard to read from others ...???? That said, do you have an example of a web-based Forum thing that displays stuff as you're requesting? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenUnderwood Posted June 26, 2004 Share Posted June 26, 2004 Create a high-density headline display similar to what NNTP viewers show. In addition to Wazoo's comment, you do realize the "high-density headline display" is a function of your NNTP viewer and not necessarily seen (or wanted) by anyone other than yourself. It all depends on what software you use to access the NNTP server what is seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted July 26, 2004 Author Share Posted July 26, 2004 Well, noted that this Topic had aged off the last-30-day view default setting, so am posting this to bring it back into view .... I've not heard a thing back from JT on doing any of this, and apparently my comments in the "new Forum look" Topic were misunderstood ... but, in hopes that there's more input, moving this back into a "current" setting with this posting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turetzsr Posted July 26, 2004 Share Posted July 26, 2004 Recommendations: 1) Create a category dedicated to the reporting side of SpamCop. <snip> ...Isn't that what the "Help" forum is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenUnderwood Posted July 26, 2004 Share Posted July 26, 2004 Help is also used for the Why am I listed types of questions from both users and administrators. Basically, I take it that "Help" is too generic a heading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Betsy Posted July 26, 2004 Share Posted July 26, 2004 I agree. It should be spamcop reporters help and Why Am I blocked Help. Miss Betsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted July 26, 2004 Author Share Posted July 26, 2004 I agree. It should be spamcop reporters help and Why Am I blocked Help. Miss Betsy 13975[/snapback] *SpamCop Blocklist Help *A forum to help those who have had their IP address blocked by the SpamCop dnsBL - Please read the Why Am I Blocked FAQ before posting here ???? this doesn't cover it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merlyn Posted July 26, 2004 Share Posted July 26, 2004 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 ... <snippety snip> Wazoo, you are doing a great job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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