[Mailman-Users] Mistaken assumptions and unwanted ridicule

[Ken Manheimer]

Upon investigating a bit, it looks like frank tiplett was receiving the
mailman-users list via another distribution list which someone else
subscribed to mailman users, unknown to (and, clearly, unwanted by)
frank.  In assuming that frank did what he did not do (and ridiculing
him, besides!) you reacted in ways you mistakenly accused him of doing -
you needed more facts to jump to those conclusions, and in fact you were
wrong.  Being mistaken is no sin - but calling names and ridiculing
someone, even if they were wrong, is almost always unnecessary and
harmful.  Don't do that!-)

We were able to track down the intermediate address via the headers of
one of the offending messages.  It's possible the relay is some
legitemate thing that frank was not informed about - but it looks a
whole lot more likely that it was some kind of mischief.  People who
administer mailing lists have to watch out for this sort of thing -
email's intrinsically distributed nature means noone has complete
control, and it's not always the case that the intermediate steps are
traceable.  Ultimately it takes good cooperation - sometimes even in the
face of nastiness - to make this sort of thing work well.

I'm hoping that this issue will not see more flamage - it might be best
to respond directly to me, unless you have more light to shed that
everyone *needs* to see.  Please think twice before flaming, in any case
- the ass you singe may be your own.

Ken Manheimer
klm at digicool.com