tooangry Posted June 7, 2004 Share Posted June 7, 2004 I think that Ozziegiraffe's posts have highlighted two issues that need careful consideration. I have started a new thread in order not to distract attention in his original thread away from ways to deal with his immediate problems. First, there are many places where there are a very limited choice of ISPs. The Solomon Islands may be an extreme, with one ISP with a legal monopoly, but many places have, for reasons of government policy, geography or local economic conditions, far fewer choices than the USA. The choice may be even more limited in practice if you need a high quality broadband service. The usual advice given on these boards to people whose ISPs are having their IP addresses listed by Spamcop is to try to persuade the ISP to change its ways (clearly proposed by those who have never had to deal with a government-run telecoms company) or to change their ISP (something which in many parts of the world is a complicated, expensive, and time-consuming activity even if it is possible). When it comes to the Solomons ISP the first of these suggestions is likely to be pointless, the second not possible. Can I suggest that in this instance the perminant removal of the Soloman Islands IP adddress from the blocklist is unlikely to damage materially the fight against spam. Secondly, we have again had the situation where a new arrival is given a very hard time by regulars on the boards. As I have said many times before, this is not an approach that will win Spamcop friends. I am aware that you are volunteers, and I know that there is a lot of information provided on the site that in an ideal world people would read and digest before posting. In practice, however, you have to understand that many people coming to this site are not experts in Internet computing. Also the site is very hard to navigate, and newcomers can easily miss much of the available information. When this happens brief, polite posts providing the relevent links are the most useful approach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Betsy Posted June 7, 2004 Share Posted June 7, 2004 The usual advice given on these boards to people whose ISPs are having their IP addresses listed by Spamcop is to try to persuade the ISP to change its ways (clearly proposed by those who have never had to deal with a government-run telecoms company) or to change their ISP (something which in many parts of the world is a complicated, expensive, and time-consuming activity even if it is possible). Nevertheless, if enough people attempt it, sometimes things are changed. Internet connectivity and email service are not the same thing. There are some people who are reporters who have comcast as their internet service provider because comcast is the only broadband service available in their area. However, one can use hotmail or other web based email service that is not free and is responsible about spam. Also the site is very hard to navigate, and newcomers can easily miss much of the available information. When this happens brief, polite posts providing the relevent links are the most useful approach. Can you give some specific examples where you think that spamcop help information could be improved? There is a thread in the Lounge specifically on that subject. (Forum Something started by Wazoo). The only way I know to provide that link now that I have started typing is to open another window and find it and I don't have time, at the moment. Since you aren't new, you should be able to find it. Miss Betsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noone_here Posted June 7, 2004 Share Posted June 7, 2004 I've come to the conclusion that the only thing that works to reduce spam is blocklists and SMTP rejects. I lose more good mail trying to sift through hundreds of pieces of spam every day, than i would through blocking, and SMTP rejects at least let legitimate senders know about the problem, without penalizing innoncents in the from line of spam. Most Ip's only treat their spam problem as a part time annoyance, if their customers are sreriously blocked they actually might act and take their own spammer problems seriously. People suffering rejects can always resort to hotmail, yahoo and the like. Believe me if comcast was blocked by a number of big isp's their spam problem would be solved. spam filters simply don;t work, you still have to either ignore your junk folder or plough through it for false positives, which is no better than sorting through the InBox. Most users now already pretty much filter on a whitelist basis, so the inbox and junkbox are essentially equivalent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noone_here Posted June 7, 2004 Share Posted June 7, 2004 I've come to the conclusion that the only thing that works to reduce spam is blocklists and SMTP rejects. I lose more good mail trying to sift through hundreds of pieces of spam every day, than i would through blocking, and SMTP rejects at least let legitimate senders know about the problem, without penalizing innoncents in the from line of spam. Most Ip's only treat their spam problem as a part time annoyance, if their customers are sreriously blocked they actually might act and take their own spammer problems seriously. People suffering rejects can always resort to hotmail, yahoo and the like. Believe me if comcast was blocked by a number of big isp's their spam problem would be solved. spam filters simply don;t work, you still have to either ignore your junk folder or plough through it for false positives, which is no better than sorting through the InBox. Most users now already pretty much filter on a whitelist basis, so the inbox and junkbox are essentially equivalent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spambo Posted June 7, 2004 Share Posted June 7, 2004 Can I suggest that in this instance the perminant removal of the Soloman Islands IP adddress from the blocklist is unlikely to damage materially the fight against spam. You can suggest it, but that doesn't mean the suggestion isn't stupid. Granting special status to the Solomon Island's mail server's IPs would detract from the SCBLs fairness in all IPs being treated the same. set a precedent for other IPs to be given special treatment. make those servers, and every machine sending email through those servers a target of spammers intent on getting their spewage delivered from machines that aren't listed. A much better solution would be for the mail servers involved to comply with the applicable RFCs and record the IP that they received the email from. If the parser can identify the individual machine an email comes from then it won't identify the mail server used to send the email as a source of spam. If the admins of the mail server are going to hide the true source of emails coming out of their mail server then they should be prepared to suffer the consequences when someone uses their policy decisions to abuse others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spambo Posted June 7, 2004 Share Posted June 7, 2004 spam filters simply don;t work, you still have to either ignore your junk folder or plough through it for false positives, which is no better than sorting through the InBox Maybe your filters don't work, mine do - and I don't have any 'junk folder' to sort through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turetzsr Posted June 7, 2004 Share Posted June 7, 2004 <snip> First, there are many places where there are a very limited choice of ISPs. The Solomon Islands may be an extreme, with one ISP with a legal monopoly, but many places have, for reasons of government policy, geography or local economic conditions, far fewer choices than the USA. The choice may be even more limited in practice if you need a high quality broadband service. The usual advice given on these boards to people whose ISPs are having their IP addresses listed by Spamcop is to try to persuade the ISP to change its ways (clearly proposed by those who have never had to deal with a government-run telecoms company) or to change their ISP (something which in many parts of the world is a complicated, expensive, and time-consuming activity even if it is possible). When it comes to the Solomons ISP the first of these suggestions is likely to be pointless, the second not possible. ...That is unfortunate but not something the rest of us are responsible to resolve. We have our share of frustrating government-run monopolies here in the US, too, so even we Yanks can understand. <g> Can I suggest that in this instance the perminant removal of the Soloman Islands IP adddress from the blocklist is unlikely to damage materially the fight against spam. ...Yes, of course you are welcome to suggest anything you want. But I wouldn't hold out too much hope of getting any support from the "regulars." You certainly won't get support for this idea from me! <g> Secondly, we have again had the situation where a new arrival is given a very hard time by regulars on the boards. As I have said many times before, this is not an approach that will win Spamcop friends. I am aware that you are volunteers, and I know that there is a lot of information provided on the site that in an ideal world people would read and digest before posting. In practice, however, you have to understand that many people coming to this site are not experts in Internet computing. Also the site is very hard to navigate, and newcomers can easily miss much of the available information. When this happens brief, polite posts providing the relevent links are the most useful approach. ...Yes, I agree in principle but I don't often see in these fora the "very hard time" to which you refer, especially as distinguished from the usual harsh greetings on the newsgroups. Also, a lot of what some people seem to feel is a "very hard time" is actually just the necessary request for information needed to help resolve the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 7, 2004 Share Posted June 7, 2004 we have again had the situation where a new arrival is given a very hard time by regulars on the boards Again, I don't have a clue why you keep harping on this. Do you have some other way to make the statement "without the IP in question, there is no way to look anything up to see what's going on" .... without getting into your "giving folks a hard time?" You obviously have some other clue available to "force" people to read things before posting, what is it and why don't you pass it on? the site is very hard to navigate Hard to agree with that, as there isn't much but moving the mouse (or tabbing) over something, and clicking (or pressing the Enter key) to get from "here" to "there" .... But on the other hand, I see no offerings from you on my request for input in reconfiguring this thing. If by "navigate" you really mean something along the lines of "find my answer" .. well, can't argue there, even the search engine in this thing sucks, but please read what I'd just typed. "We" don't control the titles given to Topics when users post their queries, though more helpful titles might help others to "see" that their issue has already been discussed. In the IE6 Microsoft newsgroup (also a peer-to-peer support thing), if one took the last 1,000 posts on any given day ... 700+ deal with a hijacked browser, but you'd not know that by reading the Subject Lines 100+ deal with "red x's" instead of pictures, but again, the Subject Lines run the gamut, only a few actually stating the actual issue 100+ deal with IE opening, then closing or crashing, but it's amazing the different ways that this simple set of failure modes can be described 50+ are user can get to only unsecure sites or user can get to only secure sites - you flip the coin Toss in the few programmer's having issues, those with 0-bit encryption issues, IE always opens into a small window, and a handful of other repeated issues .... This gets you the daily routine of a handful of "volunteers" using the cut/paste of the "standard answer block for this question" and posting a response .... Now granted that some of these users are coming from some broken garbage Microsoft provides as a web-based interface into the newsgroup, and there allegedly is a search machine there, but ... obviously not used, and newsgroup postings do "die off" ... Thus far, this web-based thing has not gotten to the point of deleting any info (though the default mode is to only look back 30 days) ... but, in general, information is live, is available, .... thus, I'm still wrestling with your "hard to navigate" phrase. As it seems you spend so much time in here, seemingly just waiting for yet another opportunity to tell "the regulars" what a crap job they're doing, how about following up on a trite phrase ... lead by example ... and show "us" how to do it right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozziegiraffe Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Secondly, we have again had the situation where a new arrival is given a very hard time by regulars on the boards. As I have said many times before, this is not an approach that will win Spamcop friends. I am aware that you are volunteers, and I know that there is a lot of information provided on the site that in an ideal world people would read and digest before posting. In practice, however, you have to understand that many people coming to this site are not experts in Internet computing. Also the site is very hard to navigate, and newcomers can easily miss much of the available information. When this happens brief, polite posts providing the relevent links are the most useful approach. ...Yes, I agree in principle but I don't often see in these fora the "very hard time" to which you refer, especially as distinguished from the usual harsh greetings on the newsgroups. Also, a lot of what some people seem to feel is a "very hard time" is actually just the necessary request for information needed to help resolve the problem. I guess when I referred to the way I was treated, I didn't feel it was a "very hard time", but rather that people thought everyone should understand acronyms and jargon, or even know about acronymfinder. I think if people are here to help newbies with problems, it would save a lot of time if they explained things properly, and didn't abbreviate. We come from all over the world, and speak different versions of English, after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ariel Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 The first couple of responses to the "Whole Country Banned" post were pretty rude.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spambo Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 The first couple of responses to the "You're blocking an entire country" post were pretty rude.... Care to post a link to the "You're blocking an entire country" post that you cited? The search engine didn't seem to find it, and the only mention of that string was in your message. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ariel Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 fixed above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spambo Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 The first couple of responses to the "Whole Country Banned" post were pretty rude.... You are incorrect. There is nothing "rude" about my post, which is included in your blanket statement. I didn't kiss the OP's a$$ but there is nothing rude either. First, SpamCop lists only IP addresses that users are reporting as the source of spam that they are receiving. I seriously doubt that an entire country is listed, but if it only has one IP address then it's possible. SpamCop DOES NOT block ANY email. If emails are bouncing then you need to take it up with the admin(s) that are refusing the emails. SpamCop has no control over them. Next, you failed to provide the IP that is allegedly listed, therefore no one can give you anything but guesses as to why the IP is listed. No insults, no name calling, just cold hard facts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turetzsr Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Secondly, we have again had the situation where a new arrival is given a very hard time by regulars on the boards. As I have said many times before, this is not an approach that will win Spamcop friends. I am aware that you are volunteers, and I know that there is a lot of information provided on the site that in an ideal world people would read and digest before posting. In practice, however, you have to understand that many people coming to this site are not experts in Internet computing. Also the site is very hard to navigate, and newcomers can easily miss much of the available information. When this happens brief, polite posts providing the relevent links are the most useful approach. ...Yes, I agree in principle but I don't often see in these fora the "very hard time" to which you refer, especially as distinguished from the usual harsh greetings on the newsgroups. Also, a lot of what some people seem to feel is a "very hard time" is actually just the necessary request for information needed to help resolve the problem. I guess when I referred to the way I was treated, I didn't feel it was a "very hard time", but rather that people thought everyone should understand acronyms and jargon, or even know about acronymfinder. I think if people are here to help newbies with problems, it would save a lot of time if they explained things properly, and didn't abbreviate. We come from all over the world, and speak different versions of English, after all. Hi, Ozziegiraffe, ...You seem to be making the incorrect (but not irrational) assumption that because there were what you considered to be "acronyms and jargon" in the answers to your post, that it was expected that you would know what they meant. Nothing could be further from the truth! It's just that, as in any field, those with experience tend to write and speak in shortcuts so as to minimize their communication effort and avoid wordy replies. Anyone is welcome, nay, encouraged, to ask for clarification of anything posted in these fora that is not clear IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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