[conspire] (forw) Re: Missing linuxmafia list mail

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from Fred Brockman <fbrock at att.net> -----

Date: Tue, 10 May 2022 00:17:44 -0400
From: Fred Brockman <fbrock at att.net>
To: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
Subject: Missing linuxmafia list mail
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9

   Dear Rick,
   I was having a good time chewing through accumulated e-mail, at this
   moment Linux Mafia, when I realized that about two weeks or so was
   missing: roughly 2/15/2022 to 3/1/2022.
   So hey, I lose stuff about every 30 minutes. Checked:
   1) Online AT&T Yahoo AOL Verizon Oath backup folder where for about
   12-18 months Inbox e-mail has been transferred instead of deleted. At
   1% of storage quota so it's OK. No notable gaps for that period but no
   To: linuxmafia.com either. The web client search was set to search all
   folders.
   2) Online AT&T ... Oath Spam folder gets checked every day because they
   will gladly put e-mail from entered contact addresses there. Added
   conspire at linuxmafia.com to contacts just in case it looks at To:
   headers.
   3) Filters on my POP e-mail client had a glitch so e-mail was misfiled?
   Eudora has exemplary search capabilities and found no wayward e-mail
   including in the 3 Trash for aging mailbox that contains the last 12
   months of deletions.
   So I figured I'd pester you and see if you had any ideas. Seeing as how
   a picture is worth a thousand words, instead of describing the evidence
   please find attached a screen shot of the Linux Mafia mailbox sorted by
   date.  [RM: omitted from this copy]
   Hope all is well with you and Dire Red. Thank you for your help.
   Fred
   PS: Probably should have sent this to the server but other list servers
   I subscribe to really frown on posting circulation problems directly to
   the list . . .



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

Date: Tue, 10 May 2022 11:57:05 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: Fred Brockman <fbrock at att.net>
Subject: Re: Missing linuxmafia list mail
Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.

Quoting Fred Brockman (fbrock at att.net):

> Dear Rick,
> I was having a good time chewing through accumulated e-mail, at this
> moment Linux Mafia, when I realized that about two weeks or so was
> missing: roughly 2/15/2022 to 3/1/2022.

Hi, Fred!

Hmm, investigating anything on the server end from February is going to
be difficult-to-impossible, because the server keeps only about the most
recent two weeks of log files:  A cron process called "log file rotation" 
runs each night that deletes the oldest ones to save disk space.

>    So hey, I lose stuff about every 30 minutes. 

Err.... does this mean you failed to receive a mailing list posting
about every 30 minutes between about Feb. 15th and March 1st, or do you
mean this is still occurring?  

I see from your attached PNG that you're talking about postings to
Conspire.  (OK, at least I know _what_ to look at.)  And I note that
suspicious-looking gap between Akkana's Feb. 15th posting and Elise's
March 1st posting.  Time to look at the mailing list archives!

http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2022-February/date.html

And there's your answer:  Nobody had anything to say on-list for the
latter half of February.  It happens!


There's a remaining mystery, and I'm not entirely sure what the answer
is.  If you look at the March portion of the cumulative archive
(http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2022-March/date.html), 
you'll see that there are (apparent) mailing list postings such as
Elise's from March 1st that are not in the mailing list archive on
linuxmafia.com.  I'm not sure how that is even possible, since the only
way for _you_ to get a mailing list posting is for GNU Mailman to
receive it first.  Perhaps this was offlist mail from Elise.  I cannot
tell from your PNG whether it was on-list or offlist.

As you will see from the archived March postings, much of the
discussion was over pacbell.net/att.net/attglobal.net having blackholed
my IP address for no discernable reason, and then -- after I politely
asked for an explanation -- some days later removing that blackholing
with no explanation or reason.

At that time, I gave my opinion to Conspire subscribers that AT&T is no
longer competent to run SMTP, and should not be used.

You mention "Verizon Oath".  That would be the _other_ major mail
operation that I consider no longer competent to run SMTP, and to be
avoided as a customer.

By your leave, I'll post this brief conversation, as I think it may be
of broad interest.  If nothing else, I want to remind subscribers that
they can & should check the cumulative archive, in the event of them
being unsure of getting subscriber postings.

ALso, when in doubt, it's often useful to subscribe to, then send test
postings to, the test at linuxmafia.com mailing list -- which exists for
that purpose.  http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/test


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