Thread: Fwd: [pgsql-www] Forums at postgresql.com.au
On 21/11/2010, at 2:59 AM, Bruce Momjian wrote: > Magnus Hagander wrote: >> On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 14:46, Elliot Chance <elliotchance@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> forums@postgresql.com.au is pointed to a black hole so that email disappears but the mailing list gets another copy.When the mailing list gets its copy it sends a copy to the forum (because the forum is just like a subscribed user),the parser then dissects the headers to find out where the post belongs. We already know this part works. >>>> >>>> So how does one respond to the user? >>> >>> I can't explain it any clearer, your email response goes to the mailing list and that mailing list sends a copy to theoriginal person thats how a mailing list works. It also sends a copy to the forum which is parses you and that personand anyone else can see the reply on the forum. >> >> Clearly you're not understanding my point. I don't *want* it to go to >> the list. I want to write a private email to the user who made a post >> from the forum, without having to set up and use a forum account. Just >> a simple response, just the way I can do now. >> >> But I'll leave it to somebody else to attempt to explain that, since I >> clearly am unable to get it across. > > I would argue that if the person wants to use a forum, aren't they > saying they don't want to be contacted via email. I think we just throw > it only to the forum (that is the user) and leave it that. Forum users > don't get the _rich_ email experience. ;-) It does surprise me a bit that when I (or someone else) signs up to a mailing list (not postgres specifically) that thereis no fine print or agreement that says something along the lines of "Your email address will be plastered all overthe internet, guaranteed to be picked up by spiders, make sure you have a good anti-spam." This doesn't so much bother me because the address I use on the mailing list is public and already on googles index but Ibet some people don't like it, and once they realise its too late you can't remove emails from a mailing list. Forums aredesigned to act as the barrier that stops anyone from getting your address if you so choose. ----- Now to elaborate on private messages. 1. I'm not going to use the persons real email without their permission regardless of if the safe-guards of a mailing listcan be subverted. 2. It's no problem to put a line at the top of the email saying something like (I understand what you mean now Tom): "Replying to this email will be PUBLIC. If you would like to send a private response to "chancey" send your response to df62ace4@postgresql.com.au." The "df62ace4@postgresql.com.au" is a cached salted hash that stops anyone from guessing everyones username, and perhapsexpires after 30 days or something. After which they can goto the persons profile page and send the message from theirif they are desperate for a private reply. 3. That private message line will be stripped out before replies are shown on the forum since its not relevant informationto the forum. 4. The "df62ace4@postgresql.com.au" also does not go directly to the person but passes the message through the private messagesystem in the forum (which of course still notifies them.) This is what forum users would expect. In particular but in my time as a developer one thing i've learnt is you not only have to make systems ultra idiot proofbut also move all the important bits our of reach of that user. If we incorporated mailing list subscriptions with postingit will absolutely cause more problems that the benefits it brings, even if it sounds fine in *theory*. > > -- > Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us > EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com > > + It's impossible for everything to be true. +
On Mon, 2010-11-22 at 10:40 +1100, Elliot Chance wrote: > > I would argue that if the person wants to use a forum, aren't they > > saying they don't want to be contacted via email. I think we just throw > > it only to the forum (that is the user) and leave it that. Forum users > > don't get the _rich_ email experience. ;-) > > It does surprise me a bit that when I (or someone else) signs up to a mailing list (not postgres specifically) that thereis no fine print or agreement that says something along the lines of "Your email address will be plastered all overthe internet, guaranteed to be picked up by spiders, make sure you have a good anti-spam." > > This doesn't so much bother me because the address I use on the mailing list is public and already on googles index butI bet some people don't like it, and once they realise its too late you can't remove emails from a mailing list. Forumsare designed to act as the barrier that stops anyone from getting your address if you so choose. Isn't this kind of the disclaimer for the Internet as a whole? JD -- PostgreSQL.org Major Contributor Command Prompt, Inc: http://www.commandprompt.com/ - 509.416.6579 Consulting, Training, Support, Custom Development, Engineering http://twitter.com/cmdpromptinc | http://identi.ca/commandprompt
On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 10:40:34AM +1100, Elliot Chance wrote: > It does surprise me a bit that when I (or someone else) signs up to > a mailing list (not postgres specifically) that there is no fine > print or agreement that says something along the lines of "Your > email address will be plastered all over the internet, guaranteed to > be picked up by spiders, make sure you have a good anti-spam." If you imagine that not signing up for a mailing list in any way alleviates this need, I have a bridge to sell you. It connects Manhattan with Brooklyn. Cheers, David. -- David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/ Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david.fetter@gmail.com iCal: webcal://www.tripit.com/feed/ical/people/david74/tripit.ics Remember to vote! Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
On 22/11/10 07:40, Elliot Chance wrote: > It does surprise me a bit that when I (or someone else) signs up to a mailing list (not postgres specifically) that thereis no fine print or agreement that says something along the lines of "Your email address will be plastered all overthe internet, guaranteed to be picked up by spiders, make sure you have a good anti-spam." > > This doesn't so much bother me because the address I use on the mailing list is public and already on googles index butI bet some people don't like it, and once they realise its too late you can't remove emails from a mailing list. Forumsare designed to act as the barrier that stops anyone from getting your address if you so choose. Spammers routinely subscribe to mailing lists and scrape addresses out of incoming mail, so filtering archives doesn't do much good these days. As far as I'm concerned it's way past the day when hiding your email address was useful. Some PhpBB or Wordpress forum you sign up to will get cracked and a spammer will scrape the email addresses from the database. Someone you know will have a crappy webmail account cracked, or their password recovery question(s) guessed, and a spammer will scrape your address from their address book before using their account to flood out spam. Someone else will have a trojan or worm hit their machine, doing much the same thing to the addressbook and recent-recipients address lists in their rich mail client. Another spammer will get your email address along with your credit card details when they crack the poorly secured database of somewebstore.com . Someone else gets it when you sign up to the account required to actually download the software you just bought from mudbricksoftware.com when you accept the "really, we promise not to pass your address on, honest" checkbox. And so on. The only real answer is decent anti-spam software. Per-list addresses can help a little, but personally I prefer to have it all come to one mailbox. -- System & Network Administrator POST Newspapers