Re: Any other Thunderbird users have messages never post? (WAS: Hide slur?)

[Ian Kelling]

Bob Proulx <address@hidden> writes:

> I have been reading the thread about lost emails to the list.  Perhaps
> I can help communicate the goings on that happens out of sight.  This
> message is a little long.  If not interested in how email and mailing
> lists work then please feel free to skip it.
>
> Karlin High wrote:
>> Robert Schmaus wrote:
>> > > is anyone else using Thunderbird, and never having any
>> > > lost messages at all?
>> >
>> > I do, and I haven't ever lost a message to this (or indeed any) list.
>
> I doubt the problem is Thunderbird.
>
>> > > If so, is your email provider something other than
>> > It's FastMail.
>> 
>> Curiouser and curiouser. The part that bugs me the worst is when I do
>> a Reply-All and the message never appears on the list, but then the
>> other recipients of my message ALSO do a Reply-All, and have their
>> replies to my message get posted to list, making it seem that my
>
> I really don't see how that difference caused any difference at all.
> In other words I don't think that is the problem.
>
>> message delivered everywhere but to the list. Most recent example
>> here, in David Nalesnik's automatic partwriter thread:
>> 
>> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2017-09/msg00471.html
>> 
>> That makes it hard not to blame something on the GNU Lists end of things.
>
> This does look like something on either 'eggs' or 'lists' intercepted
> the message.  Probably one of the content filters there had a false
> positive hit and kicked it out.  I have forwarded the message id to
> FSF sysadmin and asked them to look for it.
>
> In any case the flow of email is that eggs receives all incoming email
> for all GNU & FSF domains.  It acts as the front end mail relay.  It
> has a layer of anti-spam that will reject or discard messages that it
> classifies as spam.  I do not have access to eggs and can't look at
> the logs there and therefore direct all problems that might be there
> to FSF sysadmin.  I have access to Mailman and some of lists.gnu.org.
> The machine eggs if it classfies a message as spam will discard the
> message there.  If not then it will forward the message over to
> lists.gnu.org where another layer of anti-spam exists.  If it gets
> through that layer then the message is handed to Mailman.
>
> At the Mailman layer if the sender address has not posted to the
> mailing before then the message will be held for moderation.  This
> only happens *once* for the *first* messages from a new address until
> the modertors approve it.  After that point messages from that address
> are no longer held for moderation.  This is due to the problem that
> spammers routinely subscribe to mailing lists and then post spam
> hoping that their message will get through because they are
> subscribed.  That is why we moderate new subscribers (and everyone)
> upon the first message they send to the list.  But after they are
> approved as a non-spammer then their messages are not held again.
>
> I don't know how many total messages are sent through lists.gnu.org
> but the total is *A LOT* and if all of those messages needed to be
> moderated by humans it would be impossible.  We count on the automated
> tools such as SpamAssassin and other checks to automatically classify
> messages as much as possible.  A description of how SpamAssassin is
> used in the lists.gnu.mailman setup is described in some detail here
> https://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/ListHelperAntiSpam/ .
>
> This means that if you change email addresses and send from a
> different location that message looks like a new user.  It will be
> held for human moderation.  Once.  Until approved.  Then there will be
> no more moderation.
>
> So where can mail get lost?  There are still several places.  One is
> that there are content filters at eggs.gnu.org that may kick out
> individual messages that trip the filter.  And effectively the same is
> true on lists.gnu.org too.
>
> Another is that DNSBLs are used to avoid mail from known locations.
> You may be using a mail relay that is also used by others that is
> sending spam and therefore blocked by sending from the same location
> as a spammer.  That block may be temporary if the sending machine
> falls into trouble but is then corrected.
>
> Sometimes mail is simply delayed.  All Mail Transport Agents throttle
> activity when the machine is overloaded.  Sometimes machines become
> overloaded becaues spammers are bombarding the system with spam where
> it gets overloaded to the point of being a denial of service.  One
> must be patient and wait for the servers to be able to process the
> mail.  Things will be delayed but will eventually get through.
>
> Another problem is that large messages are very bad for big mailing
> lists.  There are ~1600 users on this mailing list.  If someone sends
> a large image it really consumes massive bandwidth through the
> multiplication to all of the subscribers.  I think the mailing list
> server is the biggest bandwidth consumer.  Also many people are using
> metered network bandwidth plans and large images for messages they
> might not care about can cost them real money.  Therefore large
> messages are always at the least held for moderation and may be
> automatically rejected.  Please don't send large images to big mailing
> lists.  Instead upload the image to one of the many image sites and
> then simply post a link to it.  That way people who are interested can
> visit the link and others who are not can skip it and the bandwidth
> being donated to the FSF is not consumed.
>
> If you ever need help with the mailing lists such as to subscribe or
> unsubscribe and cannot use the automated lilypond-user-request address
> then write to the human helpers at lilypond-user-owner address.  You
> can see the pattern in these.  The program reads and responds to the
> -request address, just add -request to any mailing list address part.
> Humans read the -owner address, just add -owner to any mailing list
> address part.
>
> Then additionally the Gmail interface has some interesting
> interactions with mailing lists.  Gmail tags messages with Sent but
> not Inbox.  But if someone replies then the reply will bring the
> thread in because of the reply.  Its rather confusing.
>
> I have forwarded that missing email message-id to the FSF admins and
> asked them to please look for the message.
>
> Hope this helps!
> Bob

I looked into the missing mail, couldn't find it. Please report any
future missing emails. Usually we can figure it out. Bob, correct me if
I'm wrong, but they should probably first check with lilypond-user-owner
that there is a moderation issue, then report to address@hidden

-- 
Ian Kelling | Senior Systems Administrator, Free Software Foundation
GPG Key: B125 F60B 7B28 7FF6 A2B7  DF8F 170A F0E2 9542 95DF
https://fsf.org | https://gnu.org