[GreenKeys] greenkeys moderation -- final version

[gil smith]

Hi folks:

What started as a quick email this morning took until now to get past the 
greenkeys spam filters.  It does not happen too often, but when a post 
bounces back for spam reasons, you get no indication what caused it.  There 
is a secret collection of words and phrases that trigger these 
filters.   After dividing my message down in a binary-search fashion, I 
finally found that the offending 2-word phrase was:
"replicatedxxxx todayxxxx"   (remove the xxxx)

Once I changed replicatedxxxx to accomplished..., the message posted.

Another offending 2-word phrase we found some time back was:
"accountxxxx managerxxxx"   (remove the xxxx)

Crazy stuff.

ps:  greenkeys seems to be pretty hosed today, as I have been receiving no 
emails, and have had to look at the archive web page to see if my test 
messages were posting.

So now I will try to post my message in its entirety:

---------------------------
Let me answer a couple of questions posed to me about greenkeys moderation:

Some folks are wondering how this whole flame thing happened yesterday 
since we are on a "moderated" list.

The only messages that currently require my moderator approval are those 
posted from email addresses not subscribed to greenkeys.  Most of this is 
spam you never see.  Quite a bit actually, and this is after the automated 
spam removal performed by the mailman system (which is quite 
effective).  But some of these bounced messages are from you good folks, 
who happen to be posting from a different email address -- I then contact 
you and set you up with whatever configuration of normal and post-only 
addresses you need.

I have NEVER enabled the "moderate-every-message" feature.  If I did that, 
I would be censoring the list, as some of you have implied, and I do not 
want to do that (plus it would be a crapload of extra work for me).  It 
also destroys the psuedo-realtime nature of everyone's posts.  And, we are 
all supposed to be big boys, right?  Yet yesterday I think I would have had 
better restraint from my second-grade cub scouts.  I feel I was within my 
rights as moderator to preserve the spirit of the list, and the will of the 
majority, to stop this in its tracks.  Yet it didn't stop (and it may not 
be done yet).  I could have just censored everyone, and shut it all off, 
but I think the list should be able to police itself.  I was pretty 
disappointed yesterday.

We lost a total of seven greenkeys members yesterday and today.  If they 
were list contributors, I emailed them to try to get them back;  if they 
never posted, I didn't really care.

A controversial post is bound to happen from time-to-time;  I even started 
one myself once.  Nobody's perfect.  I just hope we can snuff these things 
out quickly, without stepping on feelings and stuff too much.  There's a 
great bunch of folks here on greenkeys, and I have enjoyed conversing with 
most of you over the last eight or so years.  The events of yesterday are 
really insignificant when you look at the big picture.

There are only about 300 folks on greenkeys.  That's the bulk of the folks 
in the world who give a crap about these machines.  And, to be frank, a lot 
of the list is getting up there in years.  I feel that greenkeys plays a 
vital role in preserving the history of the equipment, and the discussions 
and insight on equipment restoration go into the archives and will be the 
main source future generations have for keeping this equipment running 
(besides surviving manuals).

So I, for one, have a vested interest in keeping greenkeys alive, and to 
keep adding our posts to the historical record.  Have something about a 
machine to add?  Please do!  TTY machines are one of the very few 
technologies that have a chance of actually remaining functional for many, 
many years.  This is due to the awesome engineering talent that went into 
developing these machines, the incredibly-robust design of the systems, and 
the superb manufacturing quality of the day.  This could not easily be 
accomplished today, certainly not with the crap built offshore these days.

But I think I will take the advice of a friend on the list who is taking a 
week off.  I have eye surgery on Friday, and one of my cub scout moms found 
out this week that she needs a heart transplant.  So I can do without this 
extra stress.  I'll check back in a few days when hopefully things are quieter.

gil




Vaux Electronics, Inc.
480-354-5556
(fax: 480-354-5558)
www.vauxelectronics.com