RE: Barracuda Networks is at it again: Any Suggestions as to an Alternative?
I also use postini and it works really well for my current needs. <rant>I had experience with Barracuda as outbound anti-spam filters for a very large hosting provider and I won't use Barracuda again. Some of their methods for blocking spam are a tad extreme. At one point they decided to block both yahoo.com and google.com in their domain filters because neither company responded timely to their complaint emails and wanted their attention...not to mention their buggy 'spam engine' that died many times causing mail to error with 'failure to connect to 127.0.0.1'... I especially loved their tier 1's response of how the issue is on the recipients end because they couldn't telnet to mail.domain.com from their workstation...I had to first explain how mail.domain.com wasn’t the MX record for domain.com (it ironically was a postini MX record) and that it was obvious when thousands of messages sit in the inbound queue saying 'failure to connect to 127.0.0.1' meant their engine died and their 'watchdog' process failed to restart it. To me their Tier 1 unable to do the basics was pretty unacceptable. </rant> -r -----Original Message----- From: proth@cnsny.net [mailto:proth@cnsny.net] Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 11:56 AM To: Andrew Kirch; John Palmer (NANOG Acct); nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Barracuda Networks is at it again: Any Suggestions as to an Alternative? Andrew, We use and offer Postini - a front end service. Postini is a anti virus and spam filter, and can spool mail if your circuits are down. Postini is a Google company and works like a charm. If you need more information please contact me offline proth@cnsny.net Paul Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone ----- Reply message ----- From: "Andrew Kirch" <trelane@trelane.net> Date: Sat, Apr 9, 2011 10:39 am Subject: Barracuda Networks is at it again: Any Suggestions as to an Alternative? To: "John Palmer (NANOG Acct)" <nanog2@adns.net>, <nanog@nanog.org> John, My suggestion isn't _QUITE_ an appliance, but it works very well and I've been exceptionally happy with it. It's a distribution of linux controlled via a web interface that does far more than just mail filtering (at which it is both flexible and adept). Take a look at http://www.clearfoundation.com/Software/overview.html. The hardware requirements shouldn't be too insane, and the rules updates/subscriptions for the various services are all month to month, and not a bucket of insane. Andrew On 4/8/2011 11:51 PM, John Palmer (NANOG Acct) wrote:
OK, its been a year since my Barracuda subscription expired. The unit still stops some spam. I figured that I would go and see what they would do if I tried to renew my subscription EXACTLY one year after it expired. Would their renewal website say "Oh, you are at your anniversary date", and renew me for a year?
No such luck: They want me to PAY FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR for which I did NOT receive service and then for the current (upcoming year). Sorry - I don't allow myself to be ripped off like that. Sorry Barracuda - you get no money from me and I'll tell everyone I know about this policy of yours.
I posted an article about this unscrupulous practice on my blog last year at http://www.john-palmer.net/wordpress/?p=46
My question is - does anyone have any suggestions for another e-mail appliance like the Barracuda Spam Firewall that doesn't try to charge their customers for time not used. I should be able to shut off the unit for a year or whatever and simply renew from the point that I re-activate the unit instead of having to pay for back-years that I didn't use.
Thanks
I wonder if there's a filter for top-postings in list that have a bottom-posting rule? This thread is very operationally interesting to me but I've lost the plot :( http://www.nanog.org/mailinglist/listfaqs/generalfaq.php?qt=convent refers. PS: I know that some devices actually prevent bottom-posting by default. Workarounds are possible and are evident in other recent posts to this list. Additionally, may I suggest you file a bug report with your vendors or switch to a device that you can control properly :) -- CTRL-d
gord wrote:
I wonder if there's a filter for top-postings in list that have a bottom-posting rule? This thread is very operationally interesting to me but I've lost the plot :(
http://www.nanog.org/mailinglist/listfaqs/generalfaq.php?qt=convent refers.
PS: I know that some devices actually prevent bottom-posting by default. Workarounds are possible and are evident in other recent posts to this list. Additionally, may I suggest you file a bug report with your vendors or switch to a device that you can control properly :)
It makes the thread very hard to follow.
Why not?
Please don't top post!
I used to have this available for a 'signature', but, with a few exceptions, it seems to fall on blind eyes these days.<sigh>
From: "Michael Painter" <tvhawaii@shaka.com> Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 23:11:44 -1000
gord wrote:
I wonder if there's a filter for top-postings in list that have a bottom-posting rule? This thread is very operationally interesting to me but I've lost the plot :(
http://www.nanog.org/mailinglist/listfaqs/generalfaq.php?qt=convent refers.
PS: I know that some devices actually prevent bottom-posting by default. Workarounds are possible and are evident in other recent posts to this list. Additionally, may I suggest you file a bug report with your vendors or switch to a device that you can control properly :)
It makes the thread very hard to follow.
Why not?
Please don't top post!
I used to have this available for a 'signature', but, with a few exceptions, it seems to fall on blind eyes these days.<sigh>
I put nearly identical text in response to top-posted messages and, if it was not too difficult, move the top-posted response to the end, before my response. Of late I have started to get responses from people (not even the person who top-posted) saying that I should f*** off and that they would post however they wanted. Very hostile and even threatening. I even manage to bottom post from my iPod. With cut and paste, it's really not hard, but I guess it's just beyond the capacities of some and somehow offensive to others. **Sigh** -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634 Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4 EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 8:21 AM, Kevin Oberman <oberman@es.net> wrote:
Of late I have started to get responses from people (not even the person who top-posted) saying that I should f*** off and that they would post however they wanted. Very hostile and even threatening.
My wife complained once that my responses are hard to read and that I should "just put at the top like the rest of the Internet." I fear I have been passed by... -- Regards... Todd "It is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." "You might be a skeptic if you have pedantically argued the topic of pedantry."
It's really impressive how insular a bunch of old timers can be. Coming up next: rants about HTML mail! R's, John In article <BANLkTi=v11TghFGmxStjxscJTGpB6CTwUQ@mail.gmail.com> you write:
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 8:21 AM, Kevin Oberman <oberman@es.net> wrote:
Of late I have started to get responses from people (not even the person who top-posted) saying that I should f*** off and that they would post however they wanted. Very hostile and even threatening.
My wife complained once that my responses are hard to read and that I should "just put at the top like the rest of the Internet." I fear I have been passed by...
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>
It's really impressive how insular a bunch of old timers can be.
Coming up next: rants about HTML mail!
I never thought I'd say this about John, but PDFTT, folks. :-) Cheers, -- jra
On Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:15:33 -0000, John Levine said:
It's really impressive how insular a bunch of old timers can be.
Coming up next: rants about HTML mail!
Vern Schryver once pointed out that a multipart/alternative with a text/plain and text/html was *always* incorrect - if the semantic content was the same, the html coipy was superfluous and shouldn't have been sent, and if the semantic content was different because the html added to it, the text/plain was therefor misleading and shouldn't have been sent.
Call me and old 'hard case' - but I prefer that when I get information via email, that if possible, the relevant information show up immediately. Call me lazy I guess - but I would expect that most folks on this list have also understood good user interface design, and that the least amount of work that needs to be done for the receiver to be able to get their information is frequently the best solution. On the other hand - I must admit that I do often top post and note 'see inline' with heavy use of snipping in order to shorten what has turned into a long topic in order to make it a shorter and more concise topic. I absolutely agree with anybody (or everybody), that wants mailing list archives to be readable. Fortunately we have things called 'computers' that do that quite well - and reorganize the email correspondence on mailing lists back into standard chronological order. I am also not adverse to changing formats - I just think that it is just inefficient. - mike On Apr 11, 2011, at 11:15 AM, John Levine wrote:
It's really impressive how insular a bunch of old timers can be.
Coming up next: rants about HTML mail!
R's, John
In article <BANLkTi=v11TghFGmxStjxscJTGpB6CTwUQ@mail.gmail.com> you write:
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 8:21 AM, Kevin Oberman <oberman@es.net> wrote:
Of late I have started to get responses from people (not even the person who top-posted) saying that I should f*** off and that they would post however they wanted. Very hostile and even threatening.
My wife complained once that my responses are hard to read and that I should "just put at the top like the rest of the Internet." I fear I have been passed by...
On 12 Apr 2011, at 07:33, Michael DeMan wrote:
Call me and old 'hard case' - but I prefer that when I get information via email, that if possible, the relevant information show up immediately.
Call me lazy I guess - but I would expect that most folks on this list have also understood good user interface design, and that the least amount of work that needs to be done for the receiver to be able to get their information is frequently the best solution.
Well indeed, top-posting is just so much more efficient given the volumes of email most of us probably see each day. Back when receiving an email was an event, and your xbiff flag popping up was a cause for excitement, taking time to scroll/page down to the new bottom-posted content in the reply was part of the enjoyment of the whole 'You have new mail' process. But I'm afraid times have changed; bottom-posted email is now an annoyance to most just as a slow-loading web page would be. Tim
I really don't think anybody is concerned about how fast the email downloads anymore. Rather it is more of a matter of how long it takes us humans to process the incredible volume of information we are expected to process. I have no problem either 'top posting' or 'bottom posting' - but I agree it would be good for the NaNog list to decide on a policy. I say we all vote. The ultimate question on email etiquette is naturally how to properly identify inline commentary. Top-post is definitely the most efficient for that. For instance, if I have a lengthy correspondence with a peer who may or may not speed English, the top-post is always respected, and from there it is quite easy (because it is in the top) to note that other commentary is inline - and (as I mentioned before) - to remove unnecessary material while leaving short portions of material relevant. To get back on topic about using email efficiently and get away from peoples personal preferences, I will say the following. #1) I have no disagreement about whether to top-post or bottom-post on this list or any other - given that there is a policy in place. Maintaing communications is the most important thing. #2) I still do not understand how 'bottom posters' reference material from prior e-mails in their replies? Perhaps I am just ignorant. I often have lengthy business and technical communications which some times require a bit of snipping here and there - the best way to notify somebody you have <SNIPPED> the prior conversation is to say it right up front? #3) These kinds of things become even more important when working with non-native English speakers. #4) I still seem to believe (maybe I am wrong) - that 'bottom posters' thing that an individual email to list is supposed to be an 'archive' - I wholly disagree. On Apr 11, 2011, at 11:49 PM, Tim Chown wrote:
On 12 Apr 2011, at 07:33, Michael DeMan wrote:
Call me and old 'hard case' - but I prefer that when I get information via email, that if possible, the relevant information show up immediately.
Call me lazy I guess - but I would expect that most folks on this list have also understood good user interface design, and that the least amount of work that needs to be done for the receiver to be able to get their information is frequently the best solution.
Well indeed, top-posting is just so much more efficient given the volumes of email most of us probably see each day.
Back when receiving an email was an event, and your xbiff flag popping up was a cause for excitement, taking time to scroll/page down to the new bottom-posted content in the reply was part of the enjoyment of the whole 'You have new mail' process. But I'm afraid times have changed; bottom-posted email is now an annoyance to most just as a slow-loading web page would be.
Tim
On Tue, 12 Apr 2011, Michael DeMan wrote:
The ultimate question on email etiquette is naturally how to properly identify inline commentary.
It's not a problem. Inline is done by trimming lines that are not needed and quoted text is prefaced by a > sign. So if the email you're reading doesn't have a few lines of > followed by text, the sender doesn't know how to properly quote/trim and answer inline and most of the time their text is not worth reading anyway. -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se
On Tue, 2011-04-12 at 00:08 -0700, Michael DeMan wrote: Rather it is more of a matter of how long it takes us humans to process the incredible volume of information we are expected to process.
I have no problem either 'top posting' or 'bottom posting' - but I agree it would be good for the NaNog list to decide on a policy.
There is a policy already in place - in the NANOG General Mailing List Posting Convention. I linked to it when I first commented that I couldn't follow the flow about filtering ops for large-scale mail queues. For anyone has trouble accessing the internet at http://www.nanog.org/mailinglist/listfaqs/generalfaq.php?qt=convent here's what it says.. "Format When posting to the NANOG list please avoid: 1. Top-posting, i.e., putting your reply right on top of the message you're responding to ....." Pedants will note, before it causes yet another war, that I haven't quoted it with " > " because it is a body of text not a previous email contribution to the list. Sadly, my initial observation in the thread has prompted 3 rather obnoxious off-list emails. Those ASs can now whistle if they expect anything from us, operationally or otherwise. Sad. I found the thread particularly hard to follow once top-posting had started because I scan the NANOG list for operational issues and requests, not spamtools, so I was unfamiliar with some of the sales terms passed about, even though I have run BSD-based systems for several high-volume streams in a ISP environment myself. I wasn't pedantic or impolite enough to suggest that it was off-topic here (which, technically, it is), simply saying that it was doing my head in (because of the top posting breaking the flow) to follow it all when I could only give it 10 seconds (max) per post. gord -- Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
On Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:17:54 +0100 gord <gordslater@ieee.org> wrote:
I wasn't pedantic or impolite enough to suggest that it was off-topic here (which, technically, it is), simply saying that it was doing my
Actually, I don't think it is off-topic. Meta-discussions about the list are considered on-topic for the list. This is a discussion about whether the rules for the list should be changed and so is on-topic. -- D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@druid.net> | Democracy is three wolves http://www.druid.net/darcy/ | and a sheep voting on +1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082) (eNTP) | what's for dinner.
On Tue, 2011-04-12 at 07:58 -0400, D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:17:54 +0100 gord <gordslater@ieee.org> wrote:
I wasn't pedantic or impolite enough to suggest that it was off-topic here (which, technically, it is), simply saying that it was doing my
Actually, I don't think it is off-topic. Meta-discussions about the list are considered on-topic for the list. This is a discussion about whether the rules for the list should be changed and so is on-topic.
I was referring to my initial post/comment that started all of this, _that_ thread was technically off-topic when referring to software methods, though that's largely irrelevant and I personally couldn't give a hoot. http://www.nanog.org/mailinglist/listfaqs/topicfaq.php?qt=offtopic&q=all refers. Now I sound like a bookthumper :) What I was originally saying was "I'm confused - this is a bottom-post list by the list convention, but top-posting is happening to my detriment" Stepping back from it, I think I'll take a break from this for a weeks - contact by phone/irc and noc@ only please. If you don't have the numbers, well, tough. gord --
Tim Chown wrote:
Well indeed, top-posting is just so much more efficient given the volumes of email most of us probably see each day.
Top posting works in conversations you are having with someone, usually just one person, because you are aware of what's been said. If one comes into a conversation with many people and reads the top post, there is no reference to what that applies to unless you've been following the conversation from the beginning. I wonder if anyone actually took the time to read the relevant links on the NANOG page gord referred to? http://www.tux.org/lkml/#s3-9
On Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:49:17 +0100 Tim Chown <tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
Call me and old 'hard case' - but I prefer that when I get information via email, that if possible, the relevant information show up immediately.
Right. And the most relevant information is the snippet being replied to in that email - or that part of the email.
Well indeed, top-posting is just so much more efficient given the volumes of email most of us probably see each day.
Indeed. It lets us filter out people who don't understand the protocol and probably have less useful information for us.
Back when receiving an email was an event, and your xbiff flag popping up was a cause for excitement, taking time to scroll/page down
Back then we also trimmed the text so that we didn't have to page down a few screens to see the reply. Then, like now, if someone can't be bothered to compose a message properly I just move on. Also back then we still read lots of messages. We just used Usenet instead of email. Now that email has supplanted Usenet for many discussion groups (a good thing IMHO) we get more mail. I find that the amount of time spent reading discussions has been pretty steady over the years. It's just the number of groups that has decreased as has the medium. The way I see it, I read many orders of magnitude more messages than I send. That tells me that the bulk of the work involved should be in composing. The work composing is multiplied by 1. The work reading can be multiplied by many thousands.
changed; bottom-posted email is now an annoyance to most just as a slow-loading web page would be.
It's only an annoyance if you try to repeat the entire thread in each message. The basic rule is not "you must bottom post." It is "you must trim and bottom post." For more detail we have archives. -- D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@druid.net> | Democracy is three wolves http://www.druid.net/darcy/ | and a sheep voting on +1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082) (eNTP) | what's for dinner.
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 2:49 AM, Tim Chown <tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
Well indeed, top-posting is just so much more efficient given the volumes of email most of us probably see each day.
That's true... if you're adding a trivial thought to an already concise thread. If you're adding complex argument or information, or if the thread has wandered into a wide topic, a top-posted message is often incomprehensible. Without the context provided by posting inline, the reader can't immediately tell what point or points you're responding to. That's why in lists like this one we intermix new thoughts with the information they're responsive to. More, bottom-posting is just a subset of inline posting in which we're only responding to one element.
But I'm afraid times have changed; bottom-posted email is now an annoyance to most just as a slow-loading web page would be.
Then you're doing it wrong. You're supposed to trim the original down to just the context that clarifies your response. That's the other problem with top-posters... nobody trims, so if I want to understand what they're attempting to say I have to scroll down, read all the previous messages and then guess which part they're replying to. Usually the lazy top-poster hasn't said anything worth that much effort. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
On 12/04/11 6:47 AM, William Herrin wrote:
But I'm afraid times have changed; bottom-posted email is now an annoyance to most just as a slow-loading web page would be. Then you're doing it wrong. You're supposed to trim the original down to just the context that clarifies your response. That's the other
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 2:49 AM, Tim Chown<tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote: problem with top-posters... nobody trims, so if I want to understand what they're attempting to say I have to scroll down, read all the previous messages and then guess which part they're replying to.
Usually the lazy top-poster hasn't said anything worth that much effort.
An even bigger problem is that the lazy top-poster often misses critical issues that either clarify the post they are replying to (making their reply irrelevant) or forgets to reply to something critical in the quoted text. I run into this often at $dayjob, where I can't ask more than one question in an email because the top-posted reply generally only addresses the first question. The people who top post see this as a feature - they get their reply composed and sent off faster and can then move on to other things. They don't understand why they fail to thrive in their jobs as co-workers start to route discussions around them and then ultimately they are the first to be laid off because they aren't seen as an essential part of the team. jc
On Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:49:17 BST, Tim Chown said:
Well indeed, top-posting is just so much more efficient given the volumes of email most of us probably see each day.
http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=129565913825601&w=2 Go read that thread. 115 messages and counting. Read *all* of them. Then think how much longer it would have taken if everybody had top posted. Second note in the thread - new text is: RIP to this guy, won't be missed :) You *really* want to have read the context on that before reading the comment. If top-posted, it leaves you thinking something entirely different ;)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net>
Subject: Re: Top-posting
Of late I have started to get responses from people (not even the person who top-posted) saying that I should f*** off and that they would post however they wanted. Very hostile and even threatening.
I even manage to bottom post from my iPod. With cut and paste, it's really not hard, but I guess it's just beyond the capacities of some and somehow offensive to others.
Standard threaded (IE: not top-posted) replies have been the standard for technical mailing lists on the net since I first joined one. In 1983. Anyone who has a problem with it can, in short, go bugger off. Really. (And like you, Keith, because my current MUA, Zimbra, is moronic, I too have to rethread myself by hand, quite a lot of the time. And I do it, because -- like you -- I believe in The Commons) Cheers, -- jra
--As of April 11, 2011 3:11:15 PM -0400, Jay Ashworth is alleged to have said:
Of late I have started to get responses from people (not even the person who top-posted) saying that I should f*** off and that they would post however they wanted. Very hostile and even threatening.
I even manage to bottom post from my iPod. With cut and paste, it's really not hard, but I guess it's just beyond the capacities of some and somehow offensive to others.
Standard threaded (IE: not top-posted) replies have been the standard for technical mailing lists on the net since I first joined one.
In 1983.
Anyone who has a problem with it can, in short, go bugger off. Really.
--As for the rest, it is mine. I've found my mail has fallen into three basic categories over time: 1) Mailing list, technical or otherwise. 2) Personal discussions. 3) 'Official' work email, of one form or another. Of the three, #1 almost always is either bottom posted, or fully intermixed. #2 I often introduce people to the idea, but once they get it they like it. In both of these it is more important what is replying to what, and what the *current state* of the conversation is. Either one I can rely on the other participants to have the history (or at least have access to it). Top-posting in either context is non-helpful. #3, is always top-posted, and I've grown to like that in that context. The most current post serves as a 'this is where we are right now, and what needs to be done', while the rest tends to preserve the *entire* history, including any parts I was not a part of initially. (For instance: A user sends an email to their boss, who emails the helpdesk, who emails back for clarification, and then forwards on that reply to me. At that point it's often nice to know what the original issue was, or to be able to reach the user directly instead of through several layers of intermediary.) It has different strengths and weaknesses, and can be useful in it's place. Mailing lists are not top-posting's place. ;) Daniel T. Staal (As for HTML email... I've yet to meet an actual human who routinely used HTML-only emails. They are a sure sign of a marketing department's involvement.) --------------------------------------------------------------- This email copyright the author. Unless otherwise noted, you are expressly allowed to retransmit, quote, or otherwise use the contents for non-commercial purposes. This copyright will expire 5 years after the author's death, or in 30 years, whichever is longer, unless such a period is in excess of local copyright law. ---------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Staal" <DStaal@usa.net>
--As of April 11, 2011 3:11:15 PM -0400, Jay Ashworth is alleged to have said:
Nope; I really said it. :-)
Standard threaded (IE: not top-posted) replies have been the standard for technical mailing lists on the net since I first joined one.
In 1983.
Footnote: Maybe that was more Usenet, that early. :-)
Anyone who has a problem with it can, in short, go bugger off. Really.
--As for the rest, it is mine.
I've found my mail has fallen into three basic categories over time:
1) Mailing list, technical or otherwise. 2) Personal discussions. 3) 'Official' work email, of one form or another.
Of the three, #1 almost always is either bottom posted, or fully intermixed. #2 I often introduce people to the idea, but once they get it they like it. In both of these it is more important what is replying to what, and what the *current state* of the conversation is. Either one I can rely on the other participants to have the history (or at least have access to it). Top-posting in either context is non-helpful.
Well put.
#3, is always top-posted, and I've grown to like that in that context. The most current post serves as a 'this is where we are right now, and what needs to be done', while the rest tends to preserve the *entire* history, including any parts I was not a part of initially. (For instance: A user sends an email to their boss, who emails the helpdesk, who emails back for clarification, and then forwards on that reply to me. At that point it's often nice to know what the original issue was, or to be able to reach the user directly instead of through several layers of intermediary.)
I sorely hate to admit it, but you're right. I tried doing traditional quoting on emails in my last position (as IT director in a call center), and everyone else's heads came off and rolled around on the floor; my boss, the controller, actually *asked me to stop*.
It has different strengths and weaknesses, and can be useful in it's place. Mailing lists are not top-posting's place. ;)
We clearly agree, here. Hopefully, we've clarified the reasons why, for anyone who was on the fence.
(As for HTML email... I've yet to meet an actual human who routinely used HTML-only emails. They are a sure sign of a marketing department's involvement.)
I have. No, not necessarily. Cheers, -- jra
interleaved posting is considered harmful. /bill On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 08:05:51PM -0400, Jay Ashworth wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Staal" <DStaal@usa.net>
--As of April 11, 2011 3:11:15 PM -0400, Jay Ashworth is alleged to have said:
Nope; I really said it. :-)
Standard threaded (IE: not top-posted) replies have been the standard for technical mailing lists on the net since I first joined one.
In 1983.
Footnote: Maybe that was more Usenet, that early. :-)
Anyone who has a problem with it can, in short, go bugger off. Really.
--As for the rest, it is mine.
I've found my mail has fallen into three basic categories over time:
1) Mailing list, technical or otherwise. 2) Personal discussions. 3) 'Official' work email, of one form or another.
Of the three, #1 almost always is either bottom posted, or fully intermixed. #2 I often introduce people to the idea, but once they get it they like it. In both of these it is more important what is replying to what, and what the *current state* of the conversation is. Either one I can rely on the other participants to have the history (or at least have access to it). Top-posting in either context is non-helpful.
Well put.
#3, is always top-posted, and I've grown to like that in that context. The most current post serves as a 'this is where we are right now, and what needs to be done', while the rest tends to preserve the *entire* history, including any parts I was not a part of initially. (For instance: A user sends an email to their boss, who emails the helpdesk, who emails back for clarification, and then forwards on that reply to me. At that point it's often nice to know what the original issue was, or to be able to reach the user directly instead of through several layers of intermediary.)
I sorely hate to admit it, but you're right. I tried doing traditional quoting on emails in my last position (as IT director in a call center), and everyone else's heads came off and rolled around on the floor; my boss, the controller, actually *asked me to stop*.
It has different strengths and weaknesses, and can be useful in it's place. Mailing lists are not top-posting's place. ;)
We clearly agree, here. Hopefully, we've clarified the reasons why, for anyone who was on the fence.
(As for HTML email... I've yet to meet an actual human who routinely used HTML-only emails. They are a sure sign of a marketing department's involvement.)
I have. No, not necessarily.
Cheers, -- jra
I sincerely On Apr 11, 2011, at 5:12 PM, bmanning@vacation.karoshi.com wrote:
interleaved posting is considered harmful.
Disagree. Owen
/bill
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 08:05:51PM -0400, Jay Ashworth wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Staal" <DStaal@usa.net>
--As of April 11, 2011 3:11:15 PM -0400, Jay Ashworth is alleged to have said:
Nope; I really said it. :-)
Standard threaded (IE: not top-posted) replies have been the standard for technical mailing lists on the net since I first joined one.
In 1983.
Footnote: Maybe that was more Usenet, that early. :-)
Anyone who has a problem with it can, in short, go bugger off. Really.
--As for the rest, it is mine.
I've found my mail has fallen into three basic categories over time:
1) Mailing list, technical or otherwise. 2) Personal discussions. 3) 'Official' work email, of one form or another.
Of the three, #1 almost always is either bottom posted, or fully intermixed. #2 I often introduce people to the idea, but once they get it they like it. In both of these it is more important what is replying to what, and what the *current state* of the conversation is. Either one I can rely on the other participants to have the history (or at least have access to it). Top-posting in either context is non-helpful.
Well put.
#3, is always top-posted, and I've grown to like that in that context. The most current post serves as a 'this is where we are right now, and what needs to be done', while the rest tends to preserve the *entire* history, including any parts I was not a part of initially. (For instance: A user sends an email to their boss, who emails the helpdesk, who emails back for clarification, and then forwards on that reply to me. At that point it's often nice to know what the original issue was, or to be able to reach the user directly instead of through several layers of intermediary.)
I sorely hate to admit it, but you're right. I tried doing traditional quoting on emails in my last position (as IT director in a call center), and everyone else's heads came off and rolled around on the floor; my boss, the controller, actually *asked me to stop*.
It has different strengths and weaknesses, and can be useful in it's place. Mailing lists are not top-posting's place. ;)
We clearly agree, here. Hopefully, we've clarified the reasons why, for anyone who was on the fence.
(As for HTML email... I've yet to meet an actual human who routinely used HTML-only emails. They are a sure sign of a marketing department's involvement.)
I have. No, not necessarily.
Cheers, -- jra
On Mon, 2011-04-11 at 19:39 -0400, Daniel Staal wrote:
who top-posted) saying that I should f*** off and that they would
Of late I have started to get responses from people (not even the person post
however they wanted. Very hostile and even threatening. Too many Outlook users. With just about any other email client it is very easy to bottom post. To those who wish to post as they want demonstrates a certain something about being a professional and an additional personality component that need not be mentioned. Richard Golodner
On 4/11/2011 21:22, Richard Golodner wrote:
Too many Outlook users. With just about any other email client it is very easy to bottom post. To those who wish to post as they want demonstrates a certain something about being a professional and an additional personality component that need not be mentioned.
The issue with outlook/exchange is there is no way to use another client with it. I cannot even force plain text to the internet, the server send it as quoted printable even if I strip all formatting. The outlook email client does not support wrapping text at a given line length either. -- Bryan Fields 727-409-1194 - Voice 727-214-2508 - Fax http://bryanfields.net
On Apr 11, 2011, at 8:59 PM, Bryan Fields <Bryan@bryanfields.net> wrote:
On 4/11/2011 21:22, Richard Golodner wrote:
Too many Outlook users. With just about any other email client it is very easy to bottom post. To those who wish to post as they want demonstrates a certain something about being a professional and an additional personality component that need not be mentioned.
The issue with outlook/exchange is there is no way to use another client with it. I cannot even force plain text to the internet, the server send it as quoted printable even if I strip all formatting.
The outlook email client does not support wrapping text at a given line length either. -- Bryan Fields
727-409-1194 - Voice 727-214-2508 - Fax http://bryanfields.net
Ewe bad memmories. Can we clean up our language on this list a bit. Throwing words out like Exchange and Outlook make my teeth grind. Thanks for considering my request.
On Mon, 11 Apr 2011 22:58:11 EDT, Bryan Fields said:
The issue with outlook/exchange is there is no way to use another client with it. I cannot even force plain text to the internet, the server send it as quoted printable even if I strip all formatting.
If the entire body part is expressible in US-ASCII, then the case can be made that using quoted-printable *anyhow* is a bug because it's using an un-necessary encoding..
The outlook email client does not support wrapping text at a given line length either.
Except for RFC2045, section 6.7, which addresses this: A body which is entirely US-ASCII may also be encoded in Quoted-Printable to ensure the integrity of the data should the message pass through a character-translating, and/or line-wrapping gateway. In other words, "since we can't wrap at anyplace sane, we're worried that a line pretending to be a paragraph will hit the 998-octet SMTP linelength limit."
On Apr 11, 2011, at 7:58 PM, Bryan Fields wrote:
On 4/11/2011 21:22, Richard Golodner wrote:
Too many Outlook users. With just about any other email client it is very easy to bottom post. To those who wish to post as they want demonstrates a certain something about being a professional and an additional personality component that need not be mentioned.
The issue with outlook/exchange is there is no way to use another client with it. I cannot even force plain text to the internet, the server send it as quoted printable even if I strip all formatting.
I have used Evolution and IMAP with exchange servers in the past, so, I'm not convinced this is an entirely accurate statement.
The outlook email client does not support wrapping text at a given line length either.
I'll skip the obvious conclusion about the quality of the product in question. Owen
On Apr 12, 2011, at 12:42 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
I have used Evolution and IMAP with exchange servers in the past, so, I'm not convinced this is an entirely accurate statement.
And in fact, I'm posting this message in plain-text via the OSX Mail.app connected via native Exchange protocols to an Exchange server. There's even a plug-in for Mail.app in order to make inline posting easier. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Roland Dobbins <rdobbins@arbor.net> // <http://www.arbornetworks.com> The basis of optimism is sheer terror. -- Oscar Wilde
I am top-posting to show that this entire thread is retarded. I certainly could have bottom-posted, because I don't use Outlook for this list, but the point here is -- is this what the NANOG list has really become? Really? So sad. - ferg On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 10:55 PM, Dobbins, Roland <rdobbins@arbor.net> wrote:
On Apr 12, 2011, at 12:42 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
I have used Evolution and IMAP with exchange servers in the past, so, I'm not convinced this is an entirely accurate statement.
And in fact, I'm posting this message in plain-text via the OSX Mail.app connected via native Exchange protocols to an Exchange server.
There's even a plug-in for Mail.app in order to make inline posting easier.
-- "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson Engineering Architecture for the Internet fergdawgster(at)gmail.com ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/
Hi Paul, Your point is taken - but actually this is a bit of a conundrum, at least for me. Generally what I see is that younger people who grew up using email when they were children desire to bottom post or post inline whereas folks that originally utilized email primarily to communicate technical information only generally prefer to top-post. I believe that top-posting is fine and that have also found use for (what do they call it, reverse-hugarian or reverse-polish) notation for doing things like naming and structuring software packages to also be immensely useful. Either way, I ultimately agree with you - except with the possible exception that possibly if the NaNog list really care - they could setup a survey of all list members, have everybody vote, then we know on this list that when we ask questions where we expect timely answers we can expect the answers to possibly be buried in a myriad of text. Another problem with bottom-posting is the <SNIP> of anything above, etc. Cheers - and sorry for having a little late night fun bothering everybody with noting something that I have seen mostly as a social change on how people communicate via email over the past 30 years. - Mike P.S. - meanwhile, for an email list like NaNog - I am still hoping that most folks want efficiency on answers to questions - and if the need old data are clever enough to realize that there are plenty of ways via HTTP to find those 'weirdo top-post commentors' listed with their posts in chronological and/or relevance level - with prior commentary properly sorted. - mfd On Apr 11, 2011, at 11:06 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:
I am top-posting to show that this entire thread is retarded.
I certainly could have bottom-posted, because I don't use Outlook for this list, but the point here is -- is this what the NANOG list has really become? Really?
So sad.
- ferg
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 10:55 PM, Dobbins, Roland <rdobbins@arbor.net> wrote:
On Apr 12, 2011, at 12:42 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
I have used Evolution and IMAP with exchange servers in the past, so, I'm not convinced this is an entirely accurate statement.
And in fact, I'm posting this message in plain-text via the OSX Mail.app connected via native Exchange protocols to an Exchange server.
There's even a plug-in for Mail.app in order to make inline posting easier.
-- "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson Engineering Architecture for the Internet fergdawgster(at)gmail.com ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/
on 12.04.2011 08:45 Michael DeMan wrote:
Generally what I see is that younger people who grew up using email when they were children desire to bottom post or post inline whereas folks that originally utilized email primarily to communicate technical information only generally prefer to top-post.
I would say, it's just the other way round. Just my .02€ Arnold -- Arnold Nipper / nIPper consulting, Sandhausen, Germany email: arnold@nipper.de phone: +49 6224 9259 299 mobile: +49 152 53717690 fax: +49 6224 9259 333
On Mon, 11 Apr 2011, Ray Corbin wrote:
<rant>I had experience with Barracuda as outbound anti-spam filters for a very large hosting provider and I won't use Barracuda again. Some of their methods for blocking spam are a tad extreme. At one point they decided to block both yahoo.com and google.com in their domain filters because neither company responded timely to their complaint emails and wanted their attention.
Those both have pretty poor reputations for handling outgoing spam and other abuse issues. Yahoo is notorious for the "the message in your complaint did not come from our servers" response, when any idiot who can read headers can see that it clearly did come from their servers. They've gone a step beyond this recently by refusing to accept spam complaints to abuse@yahoo.com unless they're in ARF format. That raises the bar high enough that unless you have the skills to easily turn yahoo spam into ARF-compliant reports, you can no longer send them complaints when you receive spam from their servers. Google (gmail.com) is the only free-mail provider I'm aware of that hides the spammer's originating IP. All sorts of abuses seem to be tolerated there for much longer spans of time than you'd think it would take "the brightest of the brightest" to lock things down. i.e. URL redirectors used by spammers for months, phishing collectors reported to Google security, and nothing apparently done about them. Sometimes, the only way to get an appropriate reaction from an org that just doesn't seem to care about its abuse issues is to make those abuse issues cause them some pain. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis, MCP :) | I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net | _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________
I don't think they had blocked mail coming/going from yahoo.com/google.com which would have been more careless to their subscribers (especially when our outbound units were processing a few million emails a day from our customers). They blocked the domains so you couldn't have a link to google/yahoo in the body and then set that as an update for all of their devices. I believe it was something about a URL redirect on each site that spammers were using..but this was a several years ago so I don't recall exactly. -r -----Original Message----- From: Jon Lewis [mailto:jlewis@lewis.org] Sent: Monday, April 11, 2011 7:56 AM To: Ray Corbin Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Barracuda Networks is at it again: Any Suggestions as to an Alternative? On Mon, 11 Apr 2011, Ray Corbin wrote:
<rant>I had experience with Barracuda as outbound anti-spam filters for a very large hosting provider and I won't use Barracuda again. Some of their methods for blocking spam are a tad extreme. At one point they decided to block both yahoo.com and google.com in their domain filters because neither company responded timely to their complaint emails and wanted their attention.
Those both have pretty poor reputations for handling outgoing spam and other abuse issues. Yahoo is notorious for the "the message in your complaint did not come from our servers" response, when any idiot who can read headers can see that it clearly did come from their servers. They've gone a step beyond this recently by refusing to accept spam complaints to abuse@yahoo.com unless they're in ARF format. That raises the bar high enough that unless you have the skills to easily turn yahoo spam into ARF-compliant reports, you can no longer send them complaints when you receive spam from their servers. Google (gmail.com) is the only free-mail provider I'm aware of that hides the spammer's originating IP. All sorts of abuses seem to be tolerated there for much longer spans of time than you'd think it would take "the brightest of the brightest" to lock things down. i.e. URL redirectors used by spammers for months, phishing collectors reported to Google security, and nothing apparently done about them. Sometimes, the only way to get an appropriate reaction from an org that just doesn't seem to care about its abuse issues is to make those abuse issues cause them some pain. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis, MCP :) | I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net | _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________
participants (24)
-
Arnold Nipper -
bmanning＠vacation.karoshi.com -
Bret Palsson -
Bryan Fields -
D'Arcy J.M. Cain -
Daniel Staal -
Dobbins, Roland -
gord -
Jay Ashworth -
JC Dill -
John Levine -
Jon Lewis -
Kevin Oberman -
Michael DeMan -
Michael Painter -
Mikael Abrahamsson -
Owen DeLong -
Paul Ferguson -
Ray Corbin -
Richard Golodner -
Tim Chown -
Todd Lyons -
Valdis.Kletnieks＠vt.edu -
William Herrin