At 8:09 AM -0400 10/3/00, Werner Reisberger is rumored to have typed:

BTW: It seems to me that there are more questions from webhosting customers looking for support at this list. I like to give support but I don't like to support webhosting companies who are making money with free software and delegating the support to lists like these.

I'm with you. Obviously, we can't punish the poor people who have been suckered in by their webhosting providers, but I'm beginning to think it's about time we forward copies of these people's messages to their host provider's support address(es), as well as recommending to these people that they find providers who actually give support. (It's annoying but simple to figure out who their webhost companies are with a couple of simple whois lookups. Like EASYHOSTING.NL hosts Jelmer Jellema's site; in their defense, they don't seem to be touting a mailing list server on their "Specificaties" page, though. Hum...maybe we should copy the upstreams as well, since most of these folks are resellers or single-host leasors at server farms?)

I've helped out a couple of people now who have completely clueless but different web host providers, who have this same "control panel" which occasionally forgets to write the pipes to flist to the .procmailrc file, and it's getting frustrating. (My guess is that this "control panel" is actually a freeware, shareware, or low-cost package as well, since I've seen the exact same one on two different providers, both mom-and-pop outfits, and have heard at least one other person reference something that sounds like the same thing.)

Of course, from the _user's_ point of view, they are doing the right thing since their provider is _telling_ them to ask their questions here; so the provider is effectively pushing off their support problems onto us. Like I said, it ain't the user's fault, and the user shouldn't be punished, but I too am getting a little tired of acting as an unpaid employee of these unscrupulous outfits.

Charlie

Jelmer;

First off, a "unix expert" should know better than to quote an _entire_ message to the mailing list when replying. Please edit your quotations for context, to save bandwidth and space in mailboxes.

At 11:11 AM -0400 10/3/00, Jelmer Jellema is rumored to have typed:

I do not think it was right of you to name my provider etc. in your message.

This is hardly "secret" information; anyone who knows how to do a "whois spininhetweb.com@whois.dotster.com" (or "whois -h whois.dotster.com spininhetweb.com" depending on the implimentation) can easily find it. It's _designed_ to be easy to find. It's like having a listing in the telephone directory - it's public information. Get over it. Feel free to research who my provider is. (HINT: Since I'm providing my own DNS, you'll need to check the ARIN database for my upstream.)

They will realy like it that you named them.

I doubt they'll care one way or another, frankly.

If you forward all mails from people who use the list at an ISP to that ISP will have the following consequences:

First off, I specifically said the users shouldn't be punished. What you seem to be missing (assuming you have been on the list for a while; if you haven't, you probably shouldn't be chiming in on this topic) is the number of people over the last few weeks who have asked questions prefaced by, "My ISP supplies the software but doesn't support it." These ISPs (actually IPPs) are specifically shifting their support costs to those of us who do this out of the goodness of our hearts.

The point I am trying to make, and I think Werner is as well (although I do not claim to speak for him), is if they (the IPPs in question) keep this crap up, those of us who know SmartList far better than those users (and apparently you, as well, based on the level of your question) will stop replying since our time is valuable as well.

I don't mind helping other people. On the other hand I have no intention of acting as an unpaid support person for some mom-and-pop IPP who wants to advertise "Mailing List Server Software!" as one of the benefits of signing up to their service, then refuses to support it, instead sending the users to those of us on this list.

So please: I just asked a question I need a solution to. What do you care if I'm at my own box or if i'm hiring the space?

I don't. I _do_ care if your IPP is providing the software, and then telling you you have to ask US for help since they won't help you. You may not like it much, but that's just plain wrong.

(To directly reference the question you asked, you didn't supply nearly enough information for us to even hazzard a guess at a solution. What is listed in the log? Did you set "VERBOSE=yes" in rc.custom and then run a bounce to see what additional information you could receive in the log? Did you check the out-bound email to see where the bounce would go in the first place? Since there's no bounces/ directory, it doesn't sound like flist is even getting the mail, or at least not sending it to rc.request, which implies the problem is outside SmartList, but you can easily verify that hypothesis by checking the log file and supplying us at least that much information.)

I guess you will now try to figure out my social security number as well

(*sigh*) Why would I attempt such a thing? There's a difference between public information and private information. Your provider is public information which you cannot (and SHOULD NOT) obfuscate. Deal with it and move on, huh?

NO provider told me to look here. I had a hard time finding it myself. Since i'm not welcome, I will unsubscribe in a while, read the archives and feel unwelcome to respond.

You are, of course, welcomed to take my comments personally if you choose. Considering I was replying to Werner and not to you, about a number of posts over the past few months and not yours specifically, it would probably be a mistake. But I can't much stop you from sulking if that's your choice.

And I say again, the problem isn't the poor users who come here thinking SmartList was designed for use by people who have never used un*x before, the problem is the IPPs who have recently begun to install the thing and then shift their support costs onto this list. I have _never_ complained about the users, and have helped many more than my share. (Go ahead...ask around. I may be a curmudgeon, but I'm a helpful one. On the other hand, the only posts I can find from you seem to be today's. Of course, I only went back in my archives to January of this year, so you might have posted helpful replies before that.)

At 11:13 AM -0400 10/3/00, Jelmer Jellema is rumored to have typed:

BTW. As I got it right, this control panel thing is quite expensive. You have to rent it. It sucks, but so does the smartlist docs so it helps to use it first, and then go ahead and vi the rest.

If you are a "unix expert," why use the "control panel" at all? Good grief, it's simple enough to do everything you need to do without it using X-Commands. (And the docs do not "suck;" they should be easily understandable by any "unix expert" with a passing familiarity with the workings of email. Not being a self-proclamed expert, and only an old programmer with asperations of guru-hood, though, I wouldn't know.)

Charlie

At 1:27 PM -0400 10/4/00, David W. Tamkin is rumored to have typed:

Interesting typo, Mr. Summers. Most aspirations do come with asperities.

No...but it's pretty safe to say that my comments to Mr. Jellema were stated with asperity. Consider it my Malapropian slip showing.

At 1:55 PM -0400 10/4/00, David W. Tamkin is rumored to have typed:

Another SmartList list member was kind enough to alert me to the error. Of course I meant "collaborating."

It is certainly appreciated that you corroborate my earlier misterm by collaborating on a new one.

And to quote my favorite famous literary character, "Rats."

Charlie (_not_ Brown, who will now remove his tongue from his cheek)