SpamCop FAQ problem

[DavidT]

In the SpamCop FAQ (which isn't even linked in an obvious place on the Forum system?) titled "How do I deal with my Held Mail?" found at:

http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/335.html

is found the following:

The main differences between getting at your Held Mail with webmail vs. VER: In webmail, you have full access to your entire Held Mail folder, and can manipulate it in all the same ways you can manipulate your inbox. But you cannot report spam or automatically whitelist from there.

On the contrary, in webmail, you most certainly CAN report spam AND also automatically whitelist. In fact, I find the webmail system to be the superior method of reporting spam, as long as you take care to make a few configuration changes away from the defaults, but if I go into that, then this message will belong in the "Email Setup" forum, and that's not my point. This Help forum *is* the place to report problems with the FAQ, isn't it? (that's not easy to discern from the FAQ, BTW)

David T.

[turetzsr]

<snip>

This Help forum *is* the place to report problems with the FAQ, isn't it?<snip>

...Might be better to report problems with the FAQ that deals with Email in the Email forum.

[StevenUnderwood]

There have been requests to update the FAQ since I've been here (12/2002) and I don't think any of them have been implemented. The best to hope for in the short term is to get the pinned items modified (if needed).

There was talk about the entire FAQ being redone, but that talk has quieted along with JT's absence here.

[DavidT]

...Might be better to report problems with the FAQ that deals with Email in the Email forum.

14035[/snapback]

Maybe so...but that certainly isn't clear in the official online Help. I think that Wazoo will need to clarify this...I tried to ask a question about this yesterday in this message:

http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?...indpost&p=13939

but it's been over 24 hours and no response to that question yet, so I decided to start posting from my growing list of "open questions, bugs, etc." and await further guidance.

David T.

[DavidT]

There have been requests to update the FAQ since I've been here (12/2002) and I don't think any of them have been implemented. 

14037[/snapback]

Hmmmm....then I think it's time for a friendly little "user uprising" to get something done about that. Let's not accept the current status quo of disorganized, incorrect, and out-of-date Support information...let's be "squeaky wheels" and see if we can get things to change.

DT

[turetzsr]

...Might be better to report problems with the FAQ that deals with Email in the Email forum.

Maybe so...but that certainly isn't clear in the official online Help.

...Not sure what you mean by "official online Help" -- I was going by my interpretation of the history of the moving of posts among the forums and the little notes under the forum names:

SpamCop Help

A forum to help users with the SpamCop Reporting System. Questions about SpamCop Email should be directed to the appropriate forum, not this one [emphasis mine].

[turetzsr]

There have been requests to update the FAQ since I've been here (12/2002) and I don't think any of them have been implemented.

Hmmmm....then I think it's time for a friendly little "user uprising" to get something done about that. Let's not accept the current status quo of disorganized, incorrect, and out-of-date Support information...let's be "squeaky wheels" and see if we can get things to change.

DT

...Great idea but for one thing: what can the rest of us do that Steven and Wazoo haven't already done? <g>

[DavidT]

Not sure what you mean by "official online Help"

I mean this:

http://www.spamcop.net/help.shtml

or once logged in, it's this:

http://mailsc.spamcop.net/help.shtml

IMO, that's what qualifies as the "official online Help" (in addition to these Forums, that is) and that's where the FAQ is located.

And as for the descriptions, yes, I read them, but a question about the FAQ isn't necessarily a question about SpamCop Email...it's a question about the Help resources for SC, which, IMO, is a bit more general in nature.

DT

[DavidT]

Great idea but for one thing: what can the rest of us do that Steven and Wazoo haven't already done?  <g>

14041[/snapback]

Increase the level of "squeaks" about these issues until they can't be ignored or neglected.

DT

[turetzsr]

I mean this:

http://www.spamcop.net/help.shtml

...Well, the information there says:

General help

If you are having trouble using SpamCop, if you have been listed on the SpamCop blocking list or are having trouble using the list, post here.

Email help

If you have a spamcop.net email account and need help, post here.

...Since your post here is not, IMHO, clearly "trouble using SpamCop, if you have been listed on the SpamCop blocking list or are having trouble using the list" but does clearly meet the criteria "If you have a spamcop.net email account and need help, post here," I think it best to conclude that the Email forum is the appropriate place for this. I agree it could be clearer, though. <g>

or once logged in, it's this:

http://mailsc.spamcop.net/help.shtml

...I can't see that one since I'm not an SpamCop e-mail subscriber. I'll have to trust you that whatever's there isn't clear. There should, IMHO, be a link there to the Email forum.

And as for the descriptions, yes, I read them, but a question about the FAQ isn't necessarily a question about SpamCop Email...it's a question about the Help resources for SC, which, IMO, is a bit more general in nature.

...No, but your question is not about:

<snip> the SpamCop Reporting System <snip>

therefore it does not, IMHO, belong in the Help forum.

[turetzsr]

Great idea but for one thing: what can the rest of us do that Steven and Wazoo haven't already done? <g>

Increase the level of "squeaks" about these issues until they can't be ignored or neglected.

...Which we would accomplish by doing: ...?

[DavidT]

Which we would accomplish by doing: ...?

14048[/snapback]

By not letting questions/issues that aren't properly resolved scroll off the forum screens into oblivion. I'm collecting a list of such issues and am starting to bring them back up, primarily by posting a new reply at the end of a given thread. Wazoo has implied that only JT can many of these issues, but there's another "Admin" login used by a "Don" -- if he's around, maybe he can help JT fix some of these problems.

DT

[DavidT]

...No, but your question is not about:

<snip> the SpamCop Reporting System <snip>

therefore it does not, IMHO, belong in the Help forum.

14047[/snapback]

OK...then Wazoo will need to move it once he comes back online. Thanks for clarifying things.

However, I think there will be some issues that will have their feet in both the Reporting System and the Email areas, such as my post regarding the harvesting of messages from the Forums. Currently, there isn't a general-purpose Help forum, although I've seen some discussion in the Lounge that suggests a more logical organization that might include something of that nature.

DT

[StevenUnderwood]

Hmmmm....then I think it's time for a friendly little "user uprising" to get something done about that. Let's not accept the current status quo of disorganized, incorrect, and out-of-date Support information...let's be "squeaky wheels" and see if we can get things to change.

DT

14039[/snapback]

Well, Wazoo has been a skeaky wheel since this forum started and also has not gotten anywhere. Also, I am pretty satisfied with the status quo. Nothing you have refreshed today has a high priority in my mind.

Don is another of the deputies who along with Ellen help Julian with the reporting side of things (for the most part). The mail storage, webmail, newsgroups, and web forums are on JT's servers and he is the only one with the keys to them as far as I know.

[turetzsr]

Which we would accomplish by doing: ...?

By not letting questions/issues that aren't properly resolved scroll off the forum screens into oblivion.

...Not sure that will help (at least, not directly) since, AFAIK, JT doesn't set priorities for what he will address based on what posts appear on the front screen of the forum. It may have an indirect affect if Wazoo and StevenUnderwood (who seem to have a more direct communication line to JT than do the rest of us, although that doesn't always seem to help them) raise points with JT on the basis of what has the most recent replies.

I'm collecting a list of such issues and am starting to bring them back up, primarily by posting a new reply at the end of a given thread.

...Yep, I noticed that -- thanks for taking the time and effort! I hope it results in the desired affect, somehow....

Wazoo has implied that only JT can many of these issues, but there's another "Admin" login used by a "Don" -- if he's around, maybe he can help JT fix some of these problems.

...AFAIK, Don doesn't address forum or FAQ issues (I could easily be wrong, though -- especially about the FAQ).

[DavidT]

Also, I am pretty satisfied with the status quo.  Nothing you have refreshed today has a high priority in my mind.

14051[/snapback]

You are most certainly welcome to your opinion, but one of them is clearly a bug and is not listed on the "Known bugs" page (as well as some others I've not yet mentioned). The issue regarding Held Mail not expiring is clearly important...not sure why you disagree. However, now this is really starting to deal with SC Email issues, so I'll stop posting to this thread until Wazoo moves it to that Forum.

DT

[turetzsr]

Also, I am pretty satisfied with the status quo.  Nothing you have refreshed today has a high priority in my mind.

You are most certainly welcome to your opinion,

<snip>

...IMHO, Steven's opinion is a bit more significant than the opinion of the rest of us, for two reasons:

• his experience and knowledge of the SpamCop e-mail system is manifestly the greatest
  
• he seems to have a more direct communication link to JT than do the rest of us
  

However, now this is really starting to deal with SC Email issues, so I'll stop posting to this thread until Wazoo moves it to that Forum.

...FWIW, I don't see the need to suspend new replies to this thread until (and if) it's moved ... all replies will move if the thread is moved.

[StevenUnderwood]

one of them is clearly a bug and is not listed on the "Known bugs" page

I think your "bug" (if you are talking about the download to zip) is simply a feature JT has not implemented, for whatever reason. As I mentioned, none of the zip things seem to work, so zip is probably not installed on the server.

The issue regarding Held Mail not expiring is clearly important...not sure why you disagree.

Some people use the system differently than you use it. Some people would be very upset if their held messages did dissappear without them doing anything. What if someone went on a 2 week vacation for instance. People have posted that they leave their held mail there until they discover something is missing. JT has implemented no space quota on the server to this point, so I don't see the problem with leaving messages there (except that it slows down the person using it, but that is their decision).

I agree that the documentation should be updated, and I stated so when I started over 18 months ago in the newsgroups (before this forum was started). However, documentation has been a weak link in every part of the spamcop experience. They do not seem to have the capability and/or desire for adequate documentation and every offer I have seen has been met with a pretty loud silence. Even the thread here was being prepared for "cut and paste" isertion, but the format was (to my knowledge) never defined as to what was needed. I accept that and do my best to help the people who come here looking for help. I base all my answers on the "as built" plans (how they actually work) rather than the building plans (how they are supposed to work).

My opinion is that you are wasting your time posting the problems here. Personally, when I have come across a problem with the parsing, after confirming it here or elsewhere, I send an email to deputies. When I come across a problem with the email system, I send an email to support. It may or may not be taken care of, but that is not my decision.

[Wazoo]

Wow, activity galore!!!! I'll start with apologies .... had the funeral yesterday for a neighbor that lost a battle with cancer ... today the 'fun' started with some of the family members defining and determining property rights ... have been busy playing peacemaker, bouncer, and the "who the hell do you think you are" guy down there .... half wishing one of them would take a well aimed swing and knock a loose molar completely out of its socket .... still playing catch-up here, but there are so many posts here and some of them beg for historical facts and issues, it's going to take a bit .... right off the bat, I'm back to the search engine issues of looking for my earlier posts keying on FAQ, as it doesn't do three-letter searches ... dang-it .... then again, there's traffic dealing with Google archiving of these Forums going on .. maybe ..???

[Wazoo]

OK, as this is so encompassing, the Lounge is where it ended up.

PMs - when made a Moderator, I lost the ability to archive those folders(?) ... so it's a bit of a battle to keep that space from overflowing. I didn't send a direct response to you on your last as I was hoping that the response "here" would address the issue (and thus not adding in another iem stored in the (PM) Sent folder) ....

Don was the first paid employee of SpamCop ... hired on to handle the administrative thiings, back then the paid accounts, most of the interaction with other ISPs and such. Out of the remaining Deputies (Ellen, Richard, Micheal), I believe Ellen is the only other paid person. Micheal admits to not getting too involved, and Richard is pretty much "when he's got the time" .... (again, to the best of my knowledge)

Way back when, one of Richard's tasks was updating the FAQ (www.spamcop.net ) Tis was handled by the sugeested posting of a suggested change in the newsgroups, folks would bandy it about, and eventually, Richard would add it in. (Technically, at that point in time, only Julian, Don, and Richard had that access to the server) Time passed, JT offered up server space to handle the newsgroups and e-mail, eventually becoming a semi-separate entity. More time passed, and the separation (though flying under the same banner) grew. This is where JT's decision to further divide the reporting and e-mail sections came into play. The fact that the two sides are separate companies (JT has many more customers than just SpamCop users) but the reporting capabilities are co-mingled is part/most of the confusion.

As explained to me, there are shared servers between Julian and JT, and one of these is where the existing FAQs reside. (The growth from a single computer handling everything to the dozens (?) of servers now situated across the U.S. leaves me lacking a clue as to just where "this" server might be at the moment.) Recently, it was noticed that the FAQ for mole reporting was changed back to the original text, and conversations have pointed to that the FAQ was apparently re-installed from an old back-up. Richard's dilemma was wondering how many other FAQs were changed / dropped / whatever ... (I just checked and the mole-reporting FAQ is still the "original", so is definitely mis-leading to those newbies reading up on it)

Getting long here, so I'll jump a bit .... JT started with adding in the FAQ into the Help function within this software .... lots of issues ... he was going to look at something else, but .... there once was a time when he was going to talk to Julian about giving "us" access to the existing FAQ server, but have to assume that Julian said no .... somewhere is a post I did a long time ago going so far as suggesting that the existing FAQ be duplicated here, and thus "we" could make additions and changes here, but also noted the probable confusion of having two FAQs existing that weren't the same ... I can't recall (or find at the moment) how that Topic dwindled out, but I've got no doubt that it tied into the restructuring of these Forums.

OK, too much for one post, so will end this now .... am sending a note to Richard to see if he wants to weigh in on this, but I don't think this web-based thing thrilled him .. and I actually can't recall seeing a newsgroup post from him in quite a while ... taking a bit of a break here ....

[Wazoo]

http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=34 for the beginnings of the Pinned Item stage .... seems like a small bit of forever since then ...

[Richard W]

Don was the first paid employee of SpamCop ... hired on to handle the administrative thiings, back then the paid accounts, most of the interaction with other ISPs and such.  Out of the remaining Deputies (Ellen, Richard, Micheal), I believe Ellen is the only other paid person.  Micheal admits to not getting too involved, and Richard is pretty much "when he's got the time" ....  (again, to the best of my knowledge)

Way back when, one of Richard's tasks was updating the FAQ (www.spamcop.net )  Tis was handled by the sugeested posting of a suggested change in the newsgroups, folks would bandy it about, and eventually, Richard would add it in.  (Technically, at that point in time, only Julian, Don, and Richard had that access to the server)  Time passed,

Pretty close, Wazoo. Way back when, I declined the invite to become a deputy, mainly because I was still early in the learning phase of spam fighting. Instead I took on the challenge of the faqs.

Deputies at the time were Don, Ellen (I won't remind everyone of her handle since she's now known as Ellen <g>), Michael, Pete, Kevin, Bill and Dollface. I didn't have access to any of the deputy stuff and only I and Julian could access the faqs. (originally they were open to anyone, but Julian closed that door when he made me moderator).

A few years ago the invite to become a deputy came again and this time I accepted. Things were fine for a while. I had lots of time for the faqs, newsgroups and deputy functions, but eventually it dwindled down to just Ellen and myself.

As the use of SpamCop became more popular and more changes were made, our focus also changed. Ellen had a number of responsibilities added to her duties and the mail queue continued to grow -- to the point that 200 emails per day is not unusual. I still don't know how Ellen manages to accomplish so much in a day, but basically she plugs away through the day and I try to clean up the queue at night, along with the night's mail.

Something had to give and unfortunately that ended up being my time spent in the newgroups (and now the forums). I admit that means the faqs have suffered, but I do still plug away when things are brought to my attention.

My "when I have time" does not mean 'when I have time for SpamCop'. It means when I have time for things not directly related to deputy duties. I still spend four to five hours plus per day on SpamCop related things, so it is not a case of my abandoning SpamCop.

Since I don't use the mail system to its design capacity, responsibility for the Mail system faqs was handed over to someone else, Slootsky(?). He wrote all the existing mail faqs, but I'm not sure if he is even around anymore.

As for the remaining faqs, we are in the process of handing that over to someone from Ironport. I'll still have access, but she has been tasked to do a major cleanup.

One other thing, Julian pointed out the faq on mole reporting is technically correct, that's why I never changed it again. ISPs are given aggregate numbers for mole reports and they do show up in the BL stats. All reports are weighted as to how they are applied in the listing calculation. spam reports = 1, traps = x and mole = y. Currently y = 0, but that could change.

Richard

[Wazoo]

Pete went on to do up the mailing list .. I recall asking a year or so ago if anyone knew whatever happened to Dollface .. power supply ate three hard drives and I was looking for a known good copy of AtGuard ... her site was long gone .... Kevnin & Bill .. man, too many lost brain cells, those name don't ring any bells ...

No bad meant by the "when he gets the time" ..... on the flip side, it's probably well known that I spend way too much time in here. That I'm still a free reporter, and earlier today was going to make note that I couldn't actually recall the last spam I'd actually parsed via SpamCop (then had to parse one just to verify another user's complaint that it wasn't working) ... kind of hard to jusrify why I'm actually here <g>

Spamtrap stuff .. yeah, he even e-mailed me about that, but it's still hard to generate any joy over that the reporting is only going to an aggregate number that is there for the asking, but basically doesn't do much beyond just sitting there ....

IronPort doing the FAQ .. hmmm, still leaves me wondering about putting one together "here" .. but that's also back to where JT is headed, I guess ...

Thanks for the time and words .. much appreciated.

[DavidT]

As for the remaining faqs, we are in the process of handing that over to someone from Ironport. I'll still have access, but she has been tasked to do a major cleanup.

14106[/snapback]

Richard,

Any chance you would be willing to make a few quick changes before handing it off? That would certainly help clear up some of the confusion regarding the webmail system.

For example, in the "SpamCop Mail Service" section, the item "How do I deal with my Held Mail?" (link) deals with the difference between accessing Held Mail with webmail vs. VER and incorrectly states: "But you cannot report spam or automatically whitelist from there." At a minimum, that phrase needs to be removed.

Another simple (but very important) fix would be the "Where can I get further assistance?" item (link) where mention is only made of the newsgroups and Tips page, but not these forums.

I'm sure you're aware of more, but those are two that would be good to deal with ASAP.

Thanks,

David T.

[Richard W]

In the SpamCop FAQ (which isn't even linked in an obvious place on the Forum system?) titled "How do I deal with my Held Mail?" found at:

http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/335.html

is found the following:

On the contrary, in webmail, you most certainly CAN report spam AND also automatically whitelist. In fact, I find the webmail system to be the superior method of reporting spam, as long as you take care to make a few configuration changes away from the defaults, but if I go into that, then this message will belong in the "Email Setup" forum, and that's not my point. This Help forum *is* the place to report problems with the FAQ, isn't it? (that's not easy to discern from the FAQ, BTW)

14029[/snapback]

Okie-dokie, I've rewritten this FAQ. Critique away!!

Richard