[conspire] (forw) Mailing list that's not a mailing list

[Rick Moen]

Don't be that guy.

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Thu, 7 May 2020 14:14:46 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: Ruben Safir <mrbrklyn at panix.com>
Subject: Mailing list that's not a mailing list

It appears that I no longer have in my main mailbox, /var/mail/rick, 
a copy of your mail to me where, when I asked, you explained why you did
_not_ create "docs at mrbrklyn.com" as a Mailman mailing list, but rather
as some sort of alias (/etc/aliases entry?) and put me and others on it
without consulting me or asking my approval.  Your justification was
something about broken Unicode support or something like that.

I need to talk about that for a minute.

Mailing list software, in addition to furnishing a means for me to come
and go at my option and at my leisure, also provide standard SMTP
headers that mark postings as from MLM software.  Locally, I use simple
and standard .procmailrc rules to autofile mailing list mail in one or
another of a couple of specialised mbox files in ~rick/inboxes/ .  Why?
Primarily to make sure they don't clog up /var/mail/rick .

/var/mail/rick is supposed to be for mail to my personal, immediate
attention, not for group discussions.  It's a place I keep sparse so I
don't miss important mail.  It's important that nobody be able to junk
it up with, e.g., discussions.  I take ruthless actions against spammers
and others who abuse my personal mbox.

What you did amounted to assaulting my personal mbox with a barrage of
group discussion, without my consent.  I have a problem with that.
I've been in danger of missing important direct mail because of it.
_And_ you didn't even tell me you were doing it.  I had to figure out,
after a few days, that all of this blather was reaching me because it
was (usually indiretly) addressed to something called
'docs at mrbrklyn.com' that I'd never even heard of.

WTF, Ruben?

I just now had to study the "docs at mrbrklyn.com" messages, trying to find
a consistent header I can tell procmail to look for, to tell it to file
such mail into ~rick/inboxes/lists instead of /var/mail/rick .  Guess
what?  There _isn't_ a single consistent header.  I'm just now _trying_ to
see if two separate procmail recipes suffice:  One looks for "To:
docs at mrbrklyn.com" or "Cc: docs at mrbrklyn.com", and the other looks for
"Resent-To: docs at mrbrklyn.com".  

:0
* ^TO()_*docs at mrbrklyn\.com*
$HOME/inboxes/lists

:0
* ^Resent-To: docs at mrbrklyn\.com
$HOME/inboxes/lists

I actually hate having to craft custom procmail recipes, because the
process is prone to errors, and procmail's failure mode if it dislikes a
recipe is for my LDA process to die, so I get no mail until I debug my
error.  So, I end up having to not only craft the recipe, but then
babysit the procmail logfile watching for errors.  And I really have
_lots_ of other things to do, right now.

In short, (1) I don't accept your semi-coherent explanation about why
you didn't use MLM software to implement an MLM-type discussion forum,
and (2) I don't accept your serious rudeness in adding people (including
but not limited to me) to your /etc/aliases-based (or whatever) group
discussion without permission.  _That's fucking rude_, Ruben.  For
crying out loud.

So, no, I'm not demanding you remove me from your
whatever-the-hell-it-is "docs" forum.  I'll figure out how to correct
its local delivery mode using procmail.  But I resent the need for me 
to make custom recipes to remedy your fsck-up -- _and_ I'm telling you
you should never do anything like that to me or anyone else again.

For heaven's sake, surely you know better.

-- 
Cheers,
Rick Moen                        "The first rule of Dunning-Kruger club is
rick at linuxmafia.com              you don't know you're in Dunning-Kruger club."
McQ! (4x80)                           -- @drankturpentine (Dennis Detwiller)

----- End forwarded message -----