I got up at 4:30 this morning to clean up the second wave of folks
who were offended by the barrage of e-mail that resulted from moving
the OpenDTV list to FreeLists.org.
Here is a synopsis of some of the problems I have uncovered.
The original source of many of these problems was with Topica. Some
of this may have been the result of the fact that some people were
"subscribed" in a mode where they did not receive messages, yet their
address was included in the list of addresses I imported to create
the list at FreeLists.org.
And some of this was due to the "Black Hole" problem at Topica. As we
saw in some of the posts yesterday, a significant number of
subscribers to the list at Topica.com simply stopped receiving
messages. Some of these people re-subscribed using a different e-mail
address. Some people have changed e-mail addresses without deleting
the old address. Or worse, they did not change the address used to
subscribe to the list when their address changed; their local mail
server kept forwarding messages to the new address, but the new
address could not be used to delete the old address.
After scrolling through the subscriber list for hours, I have seen
multiple addresses for some of you. If you are now receiving multiple
copies of the same message it is probably because you have multiple
addresses on the Freelists.org list. Some people use more than one
address so that they can receive a separate digest - this is no
longer necessary, since you can configure an address using the
"Digest2" flag, which send both individual messages and a digest.
If you are among those with multiple address problems, please send me
an e-mail (OFF LIST PLEASE) with the address you want to keep using,
and any additional addresses you want me to delete. I will configure
you account including the proper flag to receive individual messages,
a digest, or both.
To make matters worse, a number of irate people followed my
instructions on unsubscribing, yet were not unsubscribed. This one
took a little digging to unearth the problem.
The list WAS configured in a manner that required confirmation of the
unsubscribe request. They received the confirmation message, but it
did not tell them the important next step - to reply to the message
to complete the unsubscribe request. I have debated this morning
whether to maintain the confirmation for unsubscribe requests. After
observing how the FreeLists servers slow down during the day I have
elected to make it easy to get off the list - no confirmation will be
required. However, a two step subscribe process, using e-mail
confirmation, will be used to slow down the spammers.
Finally, I have determined an easy way to unsubscribe from the list.
I am adding this to each message for now to assist those who are
still trying to escape. You will see this in the footer to this and
all future messages. If there is any additional information that you
would like added to the footers, send your suggestions to the list so
we can discuss them.
That's all for now.
Regards Craig AKA "Sleepless in Gainesville" You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
