Sharon, I¡¯m assuming from all I have read is that this service is on a firm
footing and will be ¡°permanent.¡± Is that right? That is certainly the intent. One can legitimately question whether the planning and execution within Groups.io as an organization will accomplish that intent. For the current situation, Mark has said in off-list conversations that Groups.io has start-up funding sufficient to operate "for several years", even if income were zero. He also says that his projections show that the sale of Premium and Enterprise group services will remain sufficient to operate in the black even while supporting the Free services. That's the good news. I¡¯ve been referring a lot of organizations that need a comprehensive
storage and communications site. They need to be able to depend on
for decades and expand into as their files and feature needs grow. The thornier issue is "key man" vulnerability. Until his organization grows a bit it is entirely dependent on him for all operations. That of course is not sustainable in the long run. I would expect that anyone purchasing Enterprise level services would need to explore the issue further with Mark as well as make their own contingency plans. Shal
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I¡¯m assuming from all I have read is that this service is on a firm footing and will be ¡°permanent.¡± Is that right? It seems like a much better business model than other services which are add-ons.
I¡¯ve been referring a lot of organizations that need a comprehensive storage and communications site. They need to be able to depend on for decades and expand into as their files and feature needs grow.
Sharon
----
Sharon Villines, Washington DC
Where all roads lead to Casablanca
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Re: turn off spam filtering
On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 08:40 am, Xaun Loc wrote: From: Lena
I run my own mailserver and wrote spam filters for it by myself
I didn't make a Spam folder. My mailserver either places a message in Inbox
or refuses to accept it from the sender, so the human sender gets a descriptive
rejection message about that. Spammers never read rejection messages. You're right that spammers never read rejection messages, unfortunately the
people whose address was spoofed as the sender get to read thousands of
those rejection messages. No because I don't cause backscatter: instead of accepting spam and after that sending NDR (new emails / bounce messages) my sever refuses to accept what it classifies as spam. The refusal is an one-line error message beginning with 5 (the code for permanent error). If the message classified by my server as spam was sent by a human with authentication, the sender's "SMTP-server" makes a bounce message (including my server's error message). Spambots don't do that, they move to next recipient. Shal Farley wrote: I have an extremely negative opinion of email services which
reject, greylist, or blackhole messages based on RBL information.
I quit using Verizon as my ISP several years ago in part because I
learned their RBL use was causing list messages I wanted to go missing. Blackholing is evil except in very few cases. But there are hundreds of various RBL black and white lists (enter your "SMTP-server"'s IP-assress at ). Depends on which RBLs to choose and how to use them. When I designed my mailserver's rules of spam filtering, my main goal was prevention of false positives. I use local and external whitelists, and use most of carefully selected by me blacklists for selective greylisting instead of rejecting. Selective greylisting means that if the sender is in some RBL or otherwise suspicious, my mailserver responds with a "try again later" message for 3 min after the first attempt. Real mailservers do retry later (usually 10-40 min later). Most spambots can't retry with the same combination of sender's IP-address and sender and recipient email addresses, they don't retry at all or retry with another spoofed sender email address. Common mistakes are period of greylisting longer than 3 min (useless and destructive), non-selective greylisting, not whitelisting some large email providers which may retry from another IP-address. Without some use of RBLs, you'd drown in spam. But different RBLs give various rates of false positives, and it's possible to use RBL for measures other than rejection. BTW, I don't use "scoring" system for spam-filtering.
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Sharon, Another question ¡ª when are digest(s) sent? Does the first one go out
after 12 messages are received? I don't think any of that has changed: a digest is sent whenever there's 12 (was 25) new messages to send, or when there is at least one new message to send and it is 10pm U.S. Pacific time (UTC-08:00). Note, if the member is using the advanced subscription options this should be read as "messages to send to this subscriber". The advanced options allow the member to receive fewer than all messages in their digests. Shal
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Another question ¡ª when are digest(s) sent? Does the first one go out after 12 messages are received?
Sharon
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On Jan 30, 2017, at 5:26 PM, Shal Farley <shals2nd@...> wrote:
Sharon,
What happens to the rest of the messages? A second digest message? Yup, plus one to start a third. Assuming that many come in over the course of the day.
Shal
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Sharon, What happens to the rest of the messages? A second digest message? Yup, plus one to start a third. Assuming that many come in over the course of the day. Shal
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Re: Group Members Marking Group Messages As Spam
On Jan 28, 2017, at 4:27 PM, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...> wrote:
I'll have to disagree that this is not a user education issue. Automatic spam classification is not new. You'd think by now people would know about the need to declassify messages automated as spam or to whitefish in their email access method, but many don't. Most email users just use it. They read the messages they receive, respond or send a new message. Yesterday I had to explain to a person who had been using email for 20 years that messages from the inbox and trash had to be emptied or messages would keep bouncing. I remind me list users to ¡°trim your tails¡±. Some people still didn¡¯t. When I spoke to one in person, they said they didn¡¯t know how. I had to explain how to select and delete. I think the only way to deal with this would be to have a page of links to instructions for each of the email services. If Groups.io tries to keep its own instructions it gets difficult to revise whenever Yahoo or Gmail changes a setting. But a link to a help page would be helpful. Sharon ---- Sharon Villines, Historic Takoma Park, Washington DC Where all roads lead to Casablanca
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On Jan 29, 2017, at 12:14 AM, Shal Farley <shals2nd@...> wrote:
o CHANGE: Changed the max number of messages in a digest from 25 to 12. What happens to the rest of the messages? A second digest message? Sharon ---- Sharon Villines, Historic Takoma Park, Washington DC Where all roads lead to Casablanca
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Re: turn off spam filtering
Xaun Loc, You're right that spammers never read rejection messages,
unfortunately the people whose address was spoofed as the sender get
to read thousands of those rejection messages. That kind of Backscatter was a big problem early in the heyday of the spambots. Not so much any more: the receiving email services have generally gotten a lot smarter about handling messages with spoofed From fields. (email) Lena will no doubt speak for herself, but I would bet there's significance to her choice of words: "... so the *human* sender gets a descriptive rejection message..." (emphasis mine). Shal
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Re: turn off spam filtering
From: Lena I run my own mailserver and wrote spam filters for it by myself
I didn't make a Spam folder. My mailserver either places a message in Inbox
or refuses to accept it from the sender, so the human sender gets a descriptive
rejection message about that. Spammers never read rejection messages. You're right that spammers never read rejection messages, unfortunately the people whose address was spoofed as the sender get to read thousands of those rejection messages.
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Re: Group Members Marking Group Messages As Spam
I moved to Groups.io and after that I invited all the bouncing members again. Almost 3200 members were moved and ca 500 bounced. About 30 of them joined us again on io and I guess that the rest of the mail addresses were indeed abandoned. Before we moved I sent out various messages to the group explaining what we were doing and after we moved I put a message on the homepage on Yahoo telling everyone that we have moved and blocked it for posting. I intend to keep the Yahoo group for another 6 months and then remove it. Cheers Ary -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: [email protected] [mailto: [email protected]] Namens Louise via Groups.Io Verzonden: zondag 29 januari 2017 11:03 Aan: [email protected]Onderwerp: Re: [GMF] Group Members Marking Group Messages As Spam I have considered getting a very large yahoo group transferred to io. The group has been in existence for nearly 2 decades so includes many members who are no longer active. I think my attempts to remove bouncing members in the past may have been misguided so no longer do that. The nature of the group means that there are many who never or rarely post but from time to time let me know they read every post. I suppose what I'm saying is that it is difficult to know exactly who really wants to be included. One issue for me is how to transfer a group to io without risking that a sizeable proportion of members are surprised to suddenly get posts from an address they don't recognise. It sounds as though the mere act of transferring a list membership to io, even if you attempt to warn and educate all members beforehand, is creating the likelihood that many posts will be marked as spam. On the very rare occasions that I send something as a special message there are always members who unsubscribe as a result. Not necessarily because they object to my message but because that had forgotten they were members and just reminded they no longer needed the group. Equally there are usually members who write in saying they are pleased to be reminded the group is still there as a resource. So the surprise element of finding a message from io may well provoke some to mark messages as spam and in some numbers if it is a large group. I have too many members in my group to sign up individually to an io group or to get individual informed consent about moving them across. The idea of a new group where every member chooses to be included is tempting. However, a wealth of experience from our archives would be lost in the process. I also wonder about the ethical implications of moving archives to a place where their original owners can no longer access them, even those members who have unsubscribed at one point. Louise Sent from my iPad On 29 Jan 2017, at 08:50, Fortney, James T <Fortney@...> wrote:
The bottom-line is that we as list administrators must work together to manage this problem. If we each insure that our lists only contain recipients that want to be included, and if we make it clear to our members that unwanted messages distributed by the list are to be reported to the list administrator or moderator rather than marked as SPAM, then the whole process will work better for all of us.
I suggest that each list administrator read this message twice. ;-)
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Re: Group Members Marking Group Messages As Spam
JimF, I hope you heard my key point that most items that end up being
rejected as spam, or in (ISP created) spam folders, are only there
because someone marked the distribution server as a source of spam. What makes you think I mightn't have? I simply asserted that you've missed other parts of the discussion. What we do need to teach them is that blocking messages from lists is
not the correct way to solve list spam problems. You're preaching to the choir. The only thing I recall being questioned was how far one might try to take this user education. In today's world most ISPs do not create spam folders for what they
consider spam, they simply reject it or outright block it. Excuse me? ISPs may not, and I'll admit it has been a while since I've used ISP-based email, but go back and read the entirety of this thread, and those at beta@ which I've cited. The major email services used by our group members do provide Spam folders for their users, and direct messages they deem to be spam into those folders rather than the user's Inbox. That fact has been central to several aspects of this discussion. That said, those same email services do reject or drop (into a black hole) what might be an even larger number of messages that originate with unauthenticated sources. Starting a decade or more ago these authentication techniques brought an end to the heyday of the spambots (thank goodness). As you have stated, Users who have chosen to have spam folders for
items with a marginal score need to take the responsibility to review
them for Non-spam items and mark them accordingly. I didn't say anything about this being the user's choice. It is not. Once the email service has classified a deliverable message as spam the user has at best three choices for its disposition: delete unseen, deliver to the Inbox or another folder, or (the default) deliver to the Spam folder. Based upon the "FBL mechanism", only a period of not receiving spam
reports about the individual IP will clear it from the lists. You have confused FBL (FeedBack List) for RBL (Real-time Black List). FBLs are not based on IP addresses, they are confidential (contract-based) communications from an email recipient to an email sending service. In our case, Groups.io has registered to receive FBL reports from several of the major email services. I have an extremely negative opinion of email services which reject, greylist, or blackhole messages based on RBL information. I quit using Verizon as my ISP several years ago in part because I learned their RBL use was causing list messages I wanted to go missing. I encourage you to research how the "FBL mechanism" operates. I know what I need to know about RBLs. I suggest you go read up on what an FBL is. Shal
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Re: Group Members Marking Group Messages As Spam
Shal (et all) -
You commented:
- The [spam management] problem may seem simple if you
only take it that far. However there is a key point of this discussion
that is missing here. And that is the disposition of messages that land
automatically in the spam folder.
I hope you heard my key point that most items that end up being
rejected as spam, or in (ISP created) spam folders, are only there
because someone marked the distribution server as a source of
spam.
The spam problem is large and trying to tell users what spam rules they
apply at the local level is probably inappropriate.? What we do need
to teach them is that blocking messages from lists is not the correct way
to solve list spam problems.
- One line of argument is the assertion that it is not enough to teach
list subscribers not to mark messages as spam; that they must also be
educated to routinely groom their spam folder and mark as Not Spam as any
list messages which may appear there.
This is 100% true if the spam detection is being done by the users
application or is being performed by the ISP based upon marginal spam
scores.? In today's world most ISPs do not create spam folders for
what they consider spam, they simply reject it or outright block
it.? As you have stated, Users who have chosen to have spam folders
for items with a marginal score need to take the responsibility to review
them for Non-spam items and mark them accordingly.? Typically
however, this will only stop their ISP from marking the item as spam and
will not have an immediate effect of removing the distribution IP from
the list of spammers.? Based upon the "FBL mechanism",
only a period of not receiving spam reports about the individual IP will
clear it from the lists.???
- Another part of the discussion is about the list service's response
to being told (via the FBL mechanism) that a subscriber has marked a
message as spam, or (in some cases) has failed to mark as "Not
Spam" a message that was automatically delivered to the Spam
folder.
I encourage you to research how the "FBL mechanism"
operates.? II believe you will find it is primarily a macro
operation (creation of lists of non-compliant IPs) and only a relatively
small portion of it operates at the micro level (screening of individual
messages).? There are just too many messages to manage.
Another thought, maybe it is appropriate to start a new Thread when the
direction of the discussion changes.
ENJOY,
- JimF
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On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 12:01 pm, Jeff Powell wrote: Our home page is *FULL* of duplicate photos. All the time. Changing the order didn't help. Jeff, The duplicates are due to emailed responses (namely, Groups.io does not clip the prior photo). The reason changing the order of the emailed photos page helps is to aid in *removal* of those duplicates. Before the change, they were nearly impossible to find (in order to delete them) because they, unlike the home page, were not displayed in reverse chrono order. At least now the order matches the home page order so you can find the photos and delete them. I still think the duplicates problem needs to be fixed. Mark was considering nuking the entire home-page photo display (which some, including me, were in favor of, especially if the duplicates problem can't be fixed). J?
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On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 11:19 pm, Xaun Loc wrote: I typically visit the Gmail web interface about once a year just to see what
they have done to screw it up since my last visit (such as NOT letting me turn
off their spam filtering) Part of Gmail spam filtering can be turned off: in Gmail web-interface the gear icon - Settings - Filters and Blocked Addresses - Create a new filter - in "Doesn't have" type a long string of random letters - "Create filter with this search" - check "Never send it to spam" - "Create filter". A more specific filter (don't send group messages to Spam): in the search field at the top type: list:* then click the small triangle at the end of the search field, "Create filter with this search" - OK - check "Never send it to spam" - "Create filter". This doesn't affect messages which Gmail refused to accept because "too spammy" or from IP-address with too bad reputation. Else you'd drown in spam. I run my own mailserver and wrote spam filters for it by myself I didn't make a Spam folder. My mailserver either places a message in Inbox or refuses to accept it from the sender, so the human sender gets a descriptive rejection message about that. Spammers never read rejection messages. -- Lena
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On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 09:16 pm, Shal Farley wrote: Hi all,
This week's change log:
/g/beta/message/12766
Feel free to reply to this topic if you'd like to comment on the
changes. Or better yet, if you expect a lot of discussion start a new
topic (or rejoin an existing one) about a specific change.
I have only one comment... :) o CHANGE: Changed the default order of the Emailed Photos album to most
recent first.
This will probably help out those who've been plagued with duplicates
and other dysfunction in the list of Recently Posted Photo section of
your group's home page.
Our home page is *FULL* of duplicate photos. All the time. Changing the order didn't help. Ours is a conversation group. Reply to all happens a lot, and no one seems to bother trimming, so every reply has the same photos attached. Again. And again. And again. The number of duplicates in the photos section can be really large, as a result. This change is, effectively, invisible to me as a fix for the duplicate issue. No visible change in the behavior of our home page as a result. --jeffp
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Re: Group Members Marking Group Messages As Spam
Louise, ? ? ? ? ? In your case, why could you not send a message out to the existing group notifying the group of your intent to move? ? As a part of that message you might (I don't know what mechanisms are available) ask people for some sort of response (perhaps to a poll) as to whether they wish to remain on the group or not. ?If people are actually constantly reading, but not posting (that is, they're lurkers), then they should still respond that they wish to be carried over. ?For anyone who responds no or does not respond, cull them from your group. ? ? ? ? ? ?I would also include information about where the new group is located on Groups.io and information on how to subscribe, too. ?If someone is infrequently checking their e-mail and were culled, this allows them to resubscribe of their own volition when they realize the group's been moved in their absence. ? ? ? ? ? ?I don't understand why there should be any impact on an archive. ?That should be ported in its entirety, if that's possible. ?Current membership in a newly established Groups.io group is not necessary to keep old posts from former members in an archive. ?They stay there if the member drops out, don't they? ?I've never seen an archive purge former members' posts (without cause, that is).
Lena, ? ? ? ? ? ? I actually agree with the banning of members if: - if the welcome message to a group explains the issues with spam marking/unmarking, whitelisting, and how to use the Groups.io "Mute this Topic" mechanism
- it can be determined that the user actually performed the act of marking a group message as spam (as opposed to an e-mail filter outside their control doing so)
- they have received a single counseling from a moderator/owner after having manually marked one, perhaps thoughtlessly, and do so again
I have repeatedly said, and I will say it again, that users of any medium can and should be expected to understand the features, constructs, and limitations of that medium. ?They cannot be expected to divine these and need direct guidance and education. ?If, however, they refuse the guidance and education their membership should be terminated. Groups are just that, groups, and when the actions of a single member are disruptive or risk damaging the larger group in a substantial way, they've been warned, and they persist in their behavior(s) then banning is the appropriate response. ?There seems to be a set of owners who believe that "membership count" is the ultimate metric for a group; it isn't. ? I've watched groups die because either they were entirely unmoderated and a small group of troublemakers arrived and polluted the group with so much garbage that it was no longer worth the effort or they were moderated but the moderator resisted removing problem members even after being repeatedly petitioned to do so. ?When you've got a member that is clearly driving other members crazy and not contributing anything of value on a routine basis they're not worth having in the group. Brian?
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Re: Group Members Marking Group Messages As Spam
I have considered getting a very large yahoo group transferred to io. The group has been in existence for nearly 2 decades so includes many members who are no longer active. I think my attempts to remove bouncing members in the past may have been misguided so no longer do that. The nature of the group means that there are many who never or rarely post but from time to time let me know they read every post. I suppose what I'm saying is that it is difficult to know exactly who really wants to be included.
One issue for me is how to transfer a group to io without risking that a sizeable proportion of members are surprised to suddenly get posts from an address they don't recognise. It sounds as though the mere act of transferring a list membership to io, even if you attempt to warn and educate all members beforehand, is creating the likelihood that many posts will be marked as spam. On the very rare occasions that I send something as a special message there are always members who unsubscribe as a result. Not necessarily because they object to my message but because that had forgotten they were members and just reminded they no longer needed the group. Equally there are usually members who write in saying they are pleased to be reminded the group is still there as a resource.
So the surprise element of finding a message from io may well provoke some to mark messages as spam and in some numbers if it is a large group.
I have too many members in my group to sign up individually to an io group or to get individual informed consent about moving them across. The idea of a new group where every member chooses to be included is tempting. However, a wealth of experience from our archives would be lost in the process. I also wonder about the ethical implications of moving archives to a place where their original owners can no longer access them, even those members who have unsubscribed at one point.
Louise
Sent from my iPad
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 29 Jan 2017, at 08:50, Fortney, James T <Fortney@...> wrote:
The bottom-line is that we as list administrators must work together to manage this problem. If we each insure that our lists only contain recipients that want to be included, and if we make it clear to our members that unwanted messages distributed by the list are to be reported to the list administrator or moderator rather than marked as SPAM, then the whole process will work better for all of us.
I suggest that each list administrator read this message twice. ;-)
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Re: Group Members Marking Group Messages As Spam
Louise, I think it depends on the technology you use. Sometimes it¡¯s not so
easy. I can only move emails out of spam to the relevant inbox when
using my iPhone or I can delete them if they really are spam. I can¡¯t
mark any as Not spam. When I look at those same emails on my macbook
they appear in my inbox where I¡¯ve moved them in brown type and can
be marked from there as Not spam. Interesting. Does the brown type have a documented meaning. Is that, for example, the color of all the messages in your Spam folder? I haven¡¯t discovered a way of doing this on my phone. I suppose there
are people who do not have access to a computer for mail and rely
entirely on their phones or tablets for email? That's too bad. I think you're right that there are some, probably even a growing number, who never or seldom see their email through a desktop interface. Shal
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Re: Group Members Marking Group Messages As Spam
James, I would like to offer a couple of additional thoughts on this subject
because I believe the problem is being made much more difficult than
it actually is.
...
The solution is to insure that only users who want to be on a list are
included (use verification messages or sign-up forms), and educate
your users (and everyone else you can) that messages distributed by
list servers (like Groups.IO) SHOULD NEVER BE MARKED AS SPAM (I think
that was the original suggestion. Hopefully all now understand
why.). The problem may seem simple if you only take it that far. However there is a key point of this discussion that is missing here. And that is the disposition of messages that land automatically in the spam folder. One line of argument is the assertion that it is not enough to teach list subscribers not to mark messages as spam; that they must also be educated to routinely groom their spam folder and mark as Not Spam as any list messages which may appear there. Another part of the discussion is about the list service's response to being told (via the FBL mechanism) that a subscriber has marked a message as spam, or (in some cases) has failed to mark as "Not Spam" a message that was automatically delivered to the Spam folder. The rest of the conversation is about whether any of this is necessary or effective. Shal
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Shal Farley
Lena