Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 21:00:18 -0700
Reply-To: Jim Arnott <jr.arnott@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jim Arnott <jr.arnott@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: ADMINISTRIVIA - Reply from AT&T/BellSouth Part I
In-Reply-To: <97be2f910805191644q7860bef4g395bd7e828ce11c1@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
Robert, etal;
I apologize for not replying sooner.
Allow me to explain my position in all this....
In my capacity as "List Admin" I have very limited access to
gerry.vanagon.com. How limited? I can approve or deny subscription
requests. I can add, moderate or remove folks from the list. I can
query to determine the status of a subscriber. I can change the
status of a user. All commands that are interpreted by LISTSERV. What
I cannot do is access any of the gerry.vanagon.com server functions.
I do not have access to the web pages, the operating system, or any
of the back end stuff. Nor do I have access to the hardware. Most
importantly I have no access to any of the logs. I simply cannot
provide what is necessary to further troubleshoot this issue.
Immediately prior to when I volunteered to "take over" the admin
duties, Tom Carrington was bemoaning the cost of providing the
bandwidth necessary for gerry. Since I am employed by an ISP with
server shelf space and bandwidth to spare, it was my understanding
that gerry was going to be moved to my engine room and Tom was going
to move on to other things. At that time, I would then have the
necessary tools to actually administer gerry.vanagon.com. (Like
PHYSICAL ACCESS!) This has not happened. All that has happened is
that Mr. Carrington apparently no longer receives my requests for the
occasional "laying on of hands" in that to actually get something
done I have to either email or call a fellow listmember who lives in
the same general area as the server is located and ask that that
member attempt to contact Mr. Carrington. For the past year or so,
this has been a hit or miss proposition. (Hence the outage a couple
weeks ago.... Someone forgot something and gerry.vanagon.com was
unavailable for a few days.)
IMHO, this situation is becoming a mess for lack of a better term.
We have the vanagon.com domain owned by Ron Lussier who has had
little to do with the list for a number of years, hosted on a box in
Sausilito pointing to gerry.vanagon.com, hosted on a box that lives
on the east coast in a guy's closet who is rarely available running
mailing list software administered by a guy who lives in Oregon and
takes most of the heat. Any piece of it breaks and, as Jeff Dunham
says, all I can do is run to the end of my chain and bark.
Legally, this mailing list belongs to Ron Lussier. Historically it
has belonged to the listmembers (we bought the hardware and
software.) I have my thoughts as to how this ought to be resolved,
but frankly, it's managed to stumble along as is for seven or eight
years so I really don't expect that much will change. Truth be told,
I getting burned out because all I can do is tier one support. I do
not have the tools or the access necessary to actually fix the
problems or update the site. I don't even have a direct line to tier
two support. I just have to leave a note and hope that someone will
get back to me. Just like you.
I'll open this non-vanagon discussion to all in that I believe that
this directly affects all list members. Let's hear your thoughts on
hpw to proceed.
Sorry to bitch publicly and sorry that I can't help solve the root
problem.
I remain,
At your service,
Jim Arnott
On May 19, 2008, at 4:44 PM, Robert Fisher wrote:
> It's not limited to those .net domains listed; I talked to a tech
> at my ISP
> (Mediacom cable) which is mchsi.com, and he said they are essentially
> 'piggybacked' on or 'downstream' from the AT&T trunk, so anything
> that AT&T
> does to block spam on their networks also blocks spam on the
> networks of
> those that use them for their internet connection, so to speak. He
> said the
> site administrator could write to AT&T and ask them to remove the
> site from
> the blacklist, however it turns out that you have to send that
> email from
> another domain as you would obviously get caught in a catch-22 as your
> request email would also be treated as spam.
>
> I sent a note to Jim with this information, but I never received a
> reply.
>
> As I recall, I stopped getting email on my mchsi.com account
> shortly after
> somebody did in fact spam the list. The last day I got regular list
> mail on
> that account was July 27th, 2007.
>
> Cya,
> Robert
| 
