Posting problems

[Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

On Sun, Sep 04, 2005 at 08:54:44PM -0500, Mike Miller wrote:
> On Sun, 4 Sep 2005, Brian Dessent wrote:
> 
> >Have you considered that the reason your subject flagged the off-topic 
> >filter was because of the presence of 'xterm' and not 'rxvt'?
> 
> Yes.  That may be true, and if that is how the program works, why doesn't 
> it tell me??  When it says it is "off topic" I think "spam blocker."  How 
> hard would it be to have the thing reply by recommending either the xfree 
> list or the http://cygwin.com/cygwin/lists.html web page.  It's current 
> behavior is unhelpful.  Your reply was also unnecessarily insulting.

Please take this to the talk list.

I'd like to repeat the fine example someone sent:

> Date: 4 Sep 2005 19:39:51 -0000
> From: MAILER-DAEMON@sourceware.org
> To: mbmiller@taxa.epi.umn.edu
> Subject: failure notice
> 
> Hi. This is the qmail-send program at sourceware.org.
> I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
> This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.
> 
> <cygwin@cygwin.com>:
> Sorry, your message has been denied due to keywords found in your
> subject.  This is probably due to an off-topic post.
> See <http://sourceware.org/lists.html#sourceware-list-info> for mailing list
> info for this site.
> Contact cygwin-owner@cygwin.com if you have questions about this. (#5.7.2)
> 
> --- Enclosed are the original headers of the message.
> 
>         [ Part 2: "Included Message" ]
> 
> Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2005 14:39:44 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Mike Miller <mbmiller@taxa.epi.umn.edu>
> To: Cygwin List <cygwin@cygwin.com>
> Subject: xterm and rxvt titles and icon names
> 
> (Body suppressed)

It says specifically keywords in the subject.  It links to
the sourceware list info page which contains the following pertinent
details:

1. A hint that non-subscribers may find it helpful to add themselves
to the global allow list if they receive a spam bounce message

and 

2. A link to http://sourceware.org/cygwin/lists.html, which has a very
short readable description of the cygwin list, notably saying:

    There are a few exceptions to the "all things cygwin" nature of
this list:

    * Questions about the Cygwin/X project (or any X-related questions for cygwin) should go to the cygwin-xfree mailing list (see below).

It shouldn't take a great deal of work to associate this with the mention
of keywords in the bounce message and the presence of "xterm" in the
subject.

And even if this doesn't connect, there's the cygwin-owner address to
ask at.

But since you are apparently not even receiving the bounce messages, it's
hard to see how "improving" them would help you.

On another subject, remember that emails are just text and don't convey
the emotions of the writer in the same way that speech does.  Brian's
reply was objectively *not* insulting; you are reading into it more than
the medium can convey.

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