On 15 Jan 2009 Jackie King wrote: > Roots has not been the most reliable in the past year. All you have to > do is note all of the problems being reported in the Listowners-L list > on Rootsweb about non-delivery of email since before Christmas on some > lists, and sporadic delivery on others.
Like Mike Fry, you are making some statements that are incorrect and others that don't relate to all RootsWeb's lists. The problems RootsWeb experienced from Christmas to yesterday were only on one server (Lists-9) and these were due to a high level of spam reaching this server (but *not* going to the subscribers). This unusual level of spam caused the server to crash and then a backup recovery sent many very old messages on their way to members a second time. The volumes have also caused valid messages to be delayed. > The list problem has gotten so bad that the moderator there has told > the listowners to just quit complaining since they can't do anything > about it anyway until rootsweb figures it out. Again, this is incorrect. This had nothing to do with "the list problem has gotten so bad"! The LO admin said that the complaints were off-topic for the listowners (LO) mailing list because their fellow list admins couldn't do anything about it. At least this shows that RootsWeb's lists are being monitored by their administrators and off-topic threads are ended, as you indeed know. > The WashDC list and APG list are two that I am subscribed to that have > reported more problems with it in the past several days and this note > this morning from the National Coordinator of the Tombstone > Transcription Project. These are on the Lists-9 server and were affected by this same single problem. > I doubt you would get quite that deluge from the Legacy list since > according to its archives it doesn't seem to be all that active. RootsWeb's Legacy mailing list is on the List-3 server which has had no problems. Problems with spam on RootsWeb's mailing lists (and all others including this one) are exacerbated by uneducated web builders who place unprotected links for these mailing lists on their web pages. If anyone, including Millennia, is going to place mail-to links on their web pages then they need to ensure that those links are encrypted to discourage harvesting by spammers. Another cause of high levels of spam being sent to a few RootsWeb's mailing lists is list administrators that respond to spam messages instead of discarding them. This response only results in telling the spammer that a live address has been reached, then even more spam will be received! Hopefully RootsWeb's Legacy list administrator doesn't do this. Cheers, -- Dave N. Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
