Thread: Re: 9442-92C3-C7E6 : CONSULT from pgsql-announce (post)
Here we go again.
Can we ban these people now?
Cheers,
David.
On Mon, Aug 02, 2010 at 05:52:23PM -0300, pgsql-announce-owner@postgresql.org wrote:
> __
> The following request:
>
> "(post to pgsql-announce)"
>
> was sent to postgresql.org
> by "Eero Teerikorpi" <eero.teerikorpi@continuent.com>.
>
> The request requires your confirmation for the following reason(s):
>
> The author ("Eero Teerikorpi" <eero.teerikorpi@continuent.com>)
> is not a member of any of the restrict_post groups.
>
>
> To accept or reject this request, please do one of the following:
>
> 1. If you have web browsing capability, visit
> <http://mail.postgresql.org/mj/mj_confirm/domain=postgresql.org?t=9442-92C3-C7E6>
> and follow the instructions there.
>
> 2. Reply to majordomo@postgresql.org
> with one of the following two commands in the body of the message:
>
> accept
> reject
>
> (The number 9442-92C3-C7E6 must be in the Subject header)
>
> 3. Reply to majordomo@postgresql.org
> with one of the following two commands in the body of the message:
>
> accept 9442-92C3-C7E6
> reject 9442-92C3-C7E6
>
> 4. If you know the administrative password for the pgsql-announce list,
> all pending requests can be managed by visiting
> <http://mail.postgresql.org/mj/mj_wwwadm/domain=postgresql.org/pgsql-announce?func=showtokens>
>
> If you do not respond within 7 days, this token will expire,
> and the request will not be completed.
>
> Date: Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:51:15 -0500
> From: Eero Teerikorpi <eero.teerikorpi@continuent.com>
> To: pgsql-announce@postgresql.org
> Subject: Webcast - MySQL Zero-Downtime Operations - Thursday July 29 at
> 10AM PDT
>
> Tungsten Webcast - MySQL Multi-Master Replication
> Thursday, August 5, 2010 at 10:00 AM PDT/ 1:00 PM EDT
> https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/403285096
>
> Multi-master replication is necessary when applications needs to write to the same database server in more than one,
oftengeographically dispersed, places.
>
> Tungsten allows multiple replication services to write into a single database server. To use these capabilities
customerapplications must avoid creating conflicting updates, as Tungsten currently cannot handle these and will simply
stopwhen a conflict causes a SQL failure..
>
> Click to register here!
> https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/403285096
>
>
> Who Should Attend
> CTOs, VP Operations,
> VP Engineering, IT Directors,
> Database Administrators
>
> Date and Time
> Thursday
> August 5, 2010
> 10:00 AM PDT/ 1:00 PM EDT
>
> Speaker
> Robert Hodges, CTO
> Continuent, Inc.
>
> For more information, visit us at www.continuent.com | sales@continuent.com | (866) 998-3642
>
> If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please simply click on the following link:
> http://pages2.continuent.com/UnsubscribePage.html
--
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 Mon, 2010-08-02 at 13:58 -0700, David Fetter wrote: > Here we go again. > > Can we ban these people now? Dave Page and I are already in direct communication with them. I believe we will continue the education our fine sponsors rather than ban them. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- 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, 2010-08-02 at 13:58 -0700, David Fetter wrote: > Here we go again. > > Can we ban these people now? I have received a response from them that is quite blatantly NSFW. They are quite contrite on this and are working to resolve the issues. 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, Aug 02, 2010 at 02:06:08PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > On Mon, 2010-08-02 at 13:58 -0700, David Fetter wrote: > > Here we go again. > > > > Can we ban these people now? > > Dave Page and I are already in direct communication with them. > > I believe we will continue the education our fine sponsors rather > than ban them. That sounds like an excellent idea! What are your criteria for success in this endeavor, and what are the criteria for taking more decisive action? People in our community have been "talking to" these folks for a lot of years, thus far without effect, so I'm curious what makes you think this time will be different, and more specifically, when you will decide that "talking to" them is insufficient. We need clear criteria here. Will one more list spam do it? Ten? A thousand? Their track record makes it seem likely that they'll cross each of those thresholds sooner rather than later. Getting the criteria super clear and enunciated in advance will help a lot when we do things broadly to mail from a domain. We'll need to do this sometime, even if Continuent isn't the first we need do it to. Or are we going to sell spamming licenses? That seems to be the alternative. What are they going to cost the first time? The tenth? How long will they be good for, and do we hit people up for automated subscriptions? I'm really curious as to how we're going to set this up. 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 Mon, 2010-08-02 at 14:20 -0700, David Fetter wrote: > That sounds like an excellent idea! > What are your criteria for success in this endeavor, and what are the > criteria for taking more decisive action? People in our community > have been "talking to" these folks for a lot of years, thus far > without effect, so I'm curious what makes you think this time will be > different, and more specifically, when you will decide that "talking > to" them is insufficient. When there is obvious intent to defraud our community in some way. Ignorance, being busy and making mistakes doesn't imply that in any way. > > We need clear criteria here. Will one more list spam do it? Ten? A > thousand? Their track record makes it seem likely that they'll cross > each of those thresholds sooner rather than later. Well honestly, I don't really care about the announce spam. I know where these guys are coming from and I feel for them. -announce is one address our of likely a hundred thousand they are sending. If they have a legacy database, or are using a service (which they are) it could be very easy to have multiple points of failure. > > Or are we going to sell spamming licenses? That seems to be the > alternative. What are they going to cost the first time? The tenth? > How long will they be good for, and do we hit people up for automated > subscriptions? I'm really curious as to how we're going to set this > up. Well to me we are solving a non-existent problem. It may be a problem in the future but again, they aren't subscribing to lists and posting. They send an email to our moderated announce list. It got rejected. They aren't sending twenty a day or even one a day. hitting ctrl-r, typing reject just doesn't take that much bandwidth. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- 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, 2010-08-02 at 13:58 -0700, David Fetter wrote: > > Here we go again. > > > > Can we ban these people now? > > Dave Page and I are already in direct communication with them. > > I believe we will continue the education our fine sponsors rather than > ban them. While you are communicating, it seems they continue spamming. I will not acccept any continuent's message to announce list until everybody on the announce list aggree to accept them. -- Tatsuo Ishii SRA OSS, Inc. Japan English: http://www.sraoss.co.jp/index_en.php Japanese: http://www.sraoss.co.jp
On Mon, Aug 02, 2010 at 02:25:23PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > On Mon, 2010-08-02 at 14:20 -0700, David Fetter wrote: > > > That sounds like an excellent idea! > > > What are your criteria for success in this endeavor, and what are > > the criteria for taking more decisive action? People in our > > community have been "talking to" these folks for a lot of years, > > thus far without effect, so I'm curious what makes you think this > > time will be different, and more specifically, when you will > > decide that "talking to" them is insufficient. > > When there is obvious intent to defraud our community in some way. That's a bold and unprecedented policy you just invented. Until now, putting up something irrelevant has been plenty of reason to reject any individual submission for the web site, and too-often-repeated submissions, even when 100% relevant, have been enough to get someone banned. I can name at least one recent company name if you insist. If we're going to institute this, "it's only a spam if it's a scam" policy, we need to get super clear as to what the effects of such a policy will be. That's probably a topic for a separate thread, though, and probably consensus of -core, too. It's really that big a change. > Ignorance, being busy and making mistakes doesn't imply that in any > way. Excellent point. We need to develop the criteria for judging when the assumption of good will has run out. You may think it's further away than I do, and that's why we need to get those criteria clear and in advance. I'd like to humbly recommend that we *not* abandon our extensive records, which we'd be doing if we were to start from a blank slate now. > > We need clear criteria here. Will one more list spam do it? Ten? > > A thousand? Their track record makes it seem likely that they'll > > cross each of those thresholds sooner rather than later. > > Well honestly, I don't really care about the announce spam. I know > where these guys are coming from and I feel for them. They've made choices, among them the choice to borrow money. Are *we* supposed to take responsibility for the choices they've made? > -announce is one address our of likely a hundred thousand they are > sending. If they have a legacy database, or are using a service > (which they are) it could be very easy to have multiple points of > failure. Yes, there are points at which we'll have to judge that they failed and take action, even if we assume it's all a terrible mix-up. It's those points I'd like to help clarify. > > Or are we going to sell spamming licenses? That seems to be the > > alternative. What are they going to cost the first time? The tenth? > > How long will they be good for, and do we hit people up for automated > > subscriptions? I'm really curious as to how we're going to set this > > up. > > Well to me we are solving a non-existent problem. I'm pretty sure you're alone in that. 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 8/2/10 3:00 PM, David Fetter wrote:
> Until now, putting up something irrelevant has been plenty of reason
> to reject any individual submission for the web site, and
> too-often-repeated submissions, even when 100% relevant, have been
> enough to get someone banned. I can name at least one recent company
> name if you insist.
It's all a matter of degree. The company we banned was not a supporter
of the project, was posting unacceptable content to our site several
times a week, and was not working on improving ... instead they were
*arguing* that we were wrong to censor them. And *did* have allegations
of fraud, even though those were unproven. And, in fact, when they
eventually mended their behavior we allowed them to post again, although
they seem to have gone out of business in the meantime.
Continuent, on the other hand, is a supporter of PostgreSQL.org with
both time and money, has only a few off-topic posts, and has been
profusely apologetic about their lack of list control. I, for one,
value their contributions to the PostgreSQL community above their spam
issues.
As was earlier today pointed out to me about *individual* contributors,
should always be very cautious and hesitant to censure any contributor
who makes a mistake.
-- -- Josh Berkus PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://www.pgexperts.com
Josh Berkus wrote: > Continuent, on the other hand, is a supporter of PostgreSQL.org with > both time and money, has only a few off-topic posts, and has been > profusely apologetic about their lack of list control. Right, I was a bit less ticked about discovering that my personal and the pgsql-announce messages showed up again today after seeing Eero's apology. David, congratulations; I think you've finally escalated this to reach the right level now, now that the company CEO is obviously being embarrassed with each additional message that goes out. Since this looks like an outsourcing job gone horribly awry that they may not be able to confirm a fix of immediately, would it be reasonable to ask for an expected resolution date from Continuent? I think that if they can commit to a relatively soon date for "this won't ever happen again", that might be sufficient to send the angry villagers at home if it holds this time. -- Greg Smith 2ndQuadrant US Baltimore, MD PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support greg@2ndQuadrant.com www.2ndQuadrant.us
On Mon, 2010-08-02 at 19:52 -0400, Greg Smith wrote: > Josh Berkus wrote: > > Continuent, on the other hand, is a supporter of PostgreSQL.org with > > both time and money, has only a few off-topic posts, and has been > > profusely apologetic about their lack of list control. > > Since this looks like an outsourcing job gone horribly awry that they > may not be able to confirm a fix of immediately, would it be reasonable > to ask for an expected resolution date from Continuent? I think that if > they can commit to a relatively soon date for "this won't ever happen > again", that might be sufficient to send the angry villagers at home if > it holds this time. Yes I think we can probably do that. I will talk with them tomorrow. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- 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, 2010-08-02 at 13:58 -0700, David Fetter wrote: > Here we go again. > > Can we ban these people now? Dave Page and I are already in direct communication with them. I believe we will continue the education our fine sponsors rather than ban them. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- 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, 2010-08-02 at 13:58 -0700, David Fetter wrote: > Here we go again. > > Can we ban these people now? I have received a response from them that is quite blatantly NSFW. They are quite contrite on this and are working to resolve the issues. 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, 2010-08-02 at 14:20 -0700, David Fetter wrote: > That sounds like an excellent idea! > What are your criteria for success in this endeavor, and what are the > criteria for taking more decisive action? People in our community > have been "talking to" these folks for a lot of years, thus far > without effect, so I'm curious what makes you think this time will be > different, and more specifically, when you will decide that "talking > to" them is insufficient. When there is obvious intent to defraud our community in some way. Ignorance, being busy and making mistakes doesn't imply that in any way. > > We need clear criteria here. Will one more list spam do it? Ten? A > thousand? Their track record makes it seem likely that they'll cross > each of those thresholds sooner rather than later. Well honestly, I don't really care about the announce spam. I know where these guys are coming from and I feel for them. -announce is one address our of likely a hundred thousand they are sending. If they have a legacy database, or are using a service (which they are) it could be very easy to have multiple points of failure. > > Or are we going to sell spamming licenses? That seems to be the > alternative. What are they going to cost the first time? The tenth? > How long will they be good for, and do we hit people up for automated > subscriptions? I'm really curious as to how we're going to set this > up. Well to me we are solving a non-existent problem. It may be a problem in the future but again, they aren't subscribing to lists and posting. They send an email to our moderated announce list. It got rejected. They aren't sending twenty a day or even one a day. hitting ctrl-r, typing reject just doesn't take that much bandwidth. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- 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, 2010-08-02 at 19:52 -0400, Greg Smith wrote: > Josh Berkus wrote: > > Continuent, on the other hand, is a supporter of PostgreSQL.org with > > both time and money, has only a few off-topic posts, and has been > > profusely apologetic about their lack of list control. > > Since this looks like an outsourcing job gone horribly awry that they > may not be able to confirm a fix of immediately, would it be reasonable > to ask for an expected resolution date from Continuent? I think that if > they can commit to a relatively soon date for "this won't ever happen > again", that might be sufficient to send the angry villagers at home if > it holds this time. Yes I think we can probably do that. I will talk with them tomorrow. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- 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
>> Since this looks like an outsourcing job gone horribly awry that they
>> may not be able to confirm a fix of immediately, would it be reasonable
>> to ask for an expected resolution date from Continuent? I think that if
>> they can commit to a relatively soon date for "this won't ever happen
>> again", that might be sufficient to send the angry villagers at home if
>> it holds this time.
Eero says that they've stopped the email campaign until they know what's
wrong.
-- -- Josh Berkus PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://www.pgexperts.com
On Tue, Aug 03, 2010 at 11:22:08AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote: > > >> Since this looks like an outsourcing job gone horribly awry that they > >> may not be able to confirm a fix of immediately, would it be reasonable > >> to ask for an expected resolution date from Continuent? I think that if > >> they can commit to a relatively soon date for "this won't ever happen > >> again", that might be sufficient to send the angry villagers at home if > >> it holds this time. > > Eero says that they've stopped the email campaign until they know what's > wrong. That's great to hear! Let's take this opportunity to create some policy around this, now that we're not under the gun. The "hey, you're sending a little more email than is appropriate" part is pretty well covered. The "you scraped the mailing lists and sent out marketing to everyone you found" part is done a little too /ad hoc/ for my taste. Maybe some written policy about permissible behavior in this arena would help clarify. What say? 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