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Re: Details on the Email List migration: It’s a good thing
Subject:Re: Details on the Email List migration: It’s a good thing From:INKtopia Admin <admin -at- inktopia -dot- net> To:"Brian -dot- Henderson -at- mitchell1 -dot- com" <Brian -dot- Henderson -at- mitchell1 -dot- com> Date:Thu, 3 Oct 2013 10:35:35 -0500
(From Al)
Hi Everyone,
I wanted to send a note to add some information and an update. We're going
to start communicating more today and tomorrow to help with the migration
but wanted to clear up a couple questions in this thread.
I'm just going to reply to various comments inline rather than trying to
write copy to each one
>Since this is the first actual discussion list message I've received in
> two days, I was beginning to think that I would only be getting those forum
> notifications from now on (which you can turn off > through your profile
> settings BTW). Glad to see the list is still working.
>
>
The Email Discussion List run by MailMan (which will deliver this note) is
still running and everything is like it has been for the last few years. We
never officially made the cutover but were caught in between when someone
posted on the new Forums. You all have accounts there and we were in the
process of doing the final cutover including a detailed note saying what
was about to happen and what to expect when things spun out of control on
Tuesday.
We hit damage control mode on Tuesday and took a couple steps to stop the
barrage of emails coming from the new system.
First, we got Eric Ray to start working on our mail server to have it start
rejecting the out of office, not a real person emails that were hammering
everyone and we deleted a few accounts that were auto responders - this
reduced the flow notes and things relaxed around 50 minutes after
everything went out of control on Tuesday. BUT, the changes to the mail
server weren't in place AND we realized that in addition to the new email
distribution capabilities not handling SPAM as well as our old one, it also
delivered emails in a different way that seemed to confuse a lot of people.
Today, the notes have Email name via lists.techwr-l.com -- the new system
doesn't append the user name with via [list name] but appends the Subject
line of the email and if you look at the From address it shows @
techwhirl.net. This second issue made us realize that we really need to
communicate more about the changes before resuming the migration so we
turned off the Email Distribution capabilities of the new Forum. Without
getting to detailed, this is a plugin for the software and I (Al) thought
that this would turn off emailing completely, but it didn't. It just turned
off the systems ability to send the full notes and for people to reply but
sends a - username has made a comment - note.
While not great, the current state of the system and the "notifications"
aren't confusing so we've tolerated having them while we regrouped.
It's best to think of the last day and a half as us stopping the Enterprise
to inspect damage and do some repairs while keeping the engines running.
It's not surprising that our emails have dropped since Oct 1st considering
the last real conversation spun out of control.
The problems on Tuesday were unanticipated so we had to get a handle on
what happened as well as how to help everyone better understand what is
about to happen.
Here's what's coming:
- We're going to send a more detailed note tomorrow on the cutover and
what to expect (now with elaboration on what emails will look like)
- We will then cutover during the weekend when volume is low and monitor
things very closely to update our SPAM filters with new and unique out of
office copy that we weren't able to guess.
- we'll course correct when and if necessary to get things stable and
for everyone to get back to communicating rather than worrying about the
tech as soon as possible.
- We're also going to put together a survey on some policy stuff
including how to handle general members posting their articles to the forum
- it hasn't been a problem here since we've owned TechWhirl but we've
already seen an increase in this behavior in the last few days. We may
create a category for people to post and then email members can choose to
follow or not, but we really want your feedback.
> I too find the notification method of discussion to be pretty much a
> no-go for me.
>
Agreed - this is just a short term thing while we fix the problems with the
full email distribution capabilities.
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Julie Stickler
>
> I am currently not receiving comments from the forum, only e-mails that
> contain links to comments. Usability issue one, I have to click through.
>
> And the subject line in the e-mail does not include the discussion thread
> title, so I have no idea if the discussion would be one I have any interest
> in joining/following. Usability issue number two, I have to click through
> with no idea what might be on the other side.
>
> Thankfully my G-mail pretty much took care of the rash of weird e-mails in
> the past couple of days during the transition. But I'm missing the chatter
> from the old TECHWR-L list. My inbox has been too quiet this week. Are
> there actual discussions going on over on the forums that just aren't
> coming through?
>
We agree - for the record the list is still running as it always has but as
a guess, one bitten, twice shy.
We hope you're all doing well and look forward to reaching out soon to talk
more about the new system.
Take care
al
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