Joan, The answer, to me, is obvious. Rather than not doing the job properly for all your lists, reduce the number of lists you admin so that you can do the job properly Regards, Ian MARR at 38° 24' 01.299" S by 142° 34' 11.9094" E; 11m above sea level This message can be considered to be in the public domain. The home of SW Victorian Cemetery indexes: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~marr/ Allansford Weather (10 min updates): http://home.vicnet.net.au/~marr/Weather/ Remember, to EVERY question in life, there is MORE than ONE correct answer. ----- Original Message ----- From: JYoung6180@aol.com To: ian_marr@bigpond.net.au ; listowners@rootsweb.com Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 9:54 AM Subject: Re: [LO] ADMIN NOTE: Ian- It was getting so that it would take me at the minimum 2 to 3 HOURS every day just to delete all the spam in pending requests. The setting to DISCARD is NOT discarding "anything that suits me" -- it is discarding 100% SPAM. There was NEVER a legit message there asking for help. I still get the accidental subscriber post that lands in pending requests for a variety of reasons and the moderated list member posts...those I'm more than happy to handle -- but the non-subscriber spam being DISCARDED is the setting I and many other admins CHOOSE (as long as we are not moderating the gateways) AND if RootsWeb had any qualms with admins setting non-subscriber posts to DISCARD they wouldn't have created this option specifically so we CAN have the spam discarded. That is why this option was created! I can do my "job" as admin MUCH better if I have that extra 2-3 hours a day to help people and tend to actual list functions than if I were to devote that time to deleting spam from more than 100 list pending requests. Joan In a message dated 7/31/2012 7:35:20 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, ian_marr@bigpond.net.au writes: Joan, I've sat back for a while while you laud the concept of just "discarding" anything that doesn't suit you, and can't help wondering why you are a list administrator at all. I admin many lists which vary from very slow to relatively busy. There are many aspects to being an admin, and I try to do each justice. Welcoming new members, being sure I respond quickly to queries, publishing a list etiquette fact sheet, monitoring the messages, processing incorrectly addressed messages, dealing with the "pending" list and anything else that may come along. I regard each of these as an integral part of the job. They say any job worth doing is worth doing well. I just can't see how this is achieved if any of us decide we won't do certain aspects because it doesn't suit us. Regards, Ian MARR

Ian, I'm curious about why you consider reading SPAM sent by someone who isn't one of your subscribers to be part of your admin job. It follows, I suppose, that the people sending those offers to enlarge body parts one doesn't own expects people to read the offer, but I don't see why anyone who has been on-line more than a week expect anyone else to. Cheryl Ian Marr wrote: > Joan, > > The answer, to me, is obvious. > > Rather than not doing the job properly for all your lists, reduce the number of lists you admin so that you can do the job properly > > Regards, > Ian MARR > at 38° 24' 01.299" S by 142° 34' 11.9094" E; 11m above sea level > > This message can be considered to be in the public domain. > > The home of SW Victorian Cemetery indexes: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~marr/ > Allansford Weather (10 min updates): http://home.vicnet.net.au/~marr/Weather/ > Remember, to EVERY question in life, there is MORE than ONE correct answer. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: JYoung6180@aol.com > To: ian_marr@bigpond.net.au ; listowners@rootsweb.com > Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 9:54 AM > Subject: Re: [LO] ADMIN NOTE: > > > Ian- > > It was getting so that it would take me at the minimum 2 to 3 HOURS every day just to delete all the spam in pending requests. The setting to DISCARD is NOT discarding "anything that suits me" -- it is discarding 100% SPAM. There was NEVER a legit message there asking for help. I still get the accidental subscriber post that lands in pending requests for a variety of reasons and the moderated list member posts...those I'm more than happy to handle -- but the non-subscriber spam being DISCARDED is the setting I and many other admins CHOOSE (as long as we are not moderating the gateways) AND if RootsWeb had any qualms with admins setting non-subscriber posts to DISCARD they wouldn't have created this option specifically so we CAN have the spam discarded. That is why this option was created! > > I can do my "job" as admin MUCH better if I have that extra 2-3 hours a day to help people and tend to actual list functions than if I were to devote that time to deleting spam from more than 100 list pending requests. > > Joan > > In a message dated 7/31/2012 7:35:20 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, ian_marr@bigpond.net.au writes: > Joan, > > I've sat back for a while while you laud the concept of just "discarding" > anything that doesn't suit you, and can't help wondering why you are a list > administrator at all. > > I admin many lists which vary from very slow to relatively busy. There are > many aspects to being an admin, and I try to do each justice. Welcoming new > members, being sure I respond quickly to queries, publishing a list > etiquette fact sheet, monitoring the messages, processing incorrectly > addressed messages, dealing with the "pending" list and anything else that > may come along. I regard each of these as an integral part of the job. > > They say any job worth doing is worth doing well. I just can't see how this > is achieved if any of us decide we won't do certain aspects because it > doesn't suit us. > > Regards, > Ian MARR

On 8/1/2012 9:34 AM, singhals wrote: > Ian, > > I'm curious about why you consider reading SPAM sent by > someone who isn't one of your subscribers to be part of your > admin job. > > It follows, I suppose, that the people sending those offers > to enlarge body parts one doesn't own expects people to read > the offer, but I don't see why anyone who has been on-line > more than a week expect anyone else to. > > Cheryl Cheryl: Regardless of how one goes about it, I think we can (or at least should) agree that how we manage our lists has three intended results: 1. We deal with legitimate problems our subscribers are having, in a reasonable amount of time. 2. We pass on to our lists messages that (in our individual opinions as admins) are valuable to our subscribers but for one reason or another did not reach the list directly. A 100% accuracy record is not required, in my opinion. 3. We do not pass on to our lists messages that are, or appear to be, malicious or inappropriate. There is a *LOT* of latitude in those 3 points. None of them requires actually "reading" the SPAM or other crud. There are ways of dealing with that stuff that can help us maintain what sanity we still have left. My way works for me; if yours works for you, then I am all for your way, for you. I do think it is possible for an admin to be so loathe to deal with the crud *at all* that he or she sets up a system (filters, for example) that causes them to miss -- meaning, never see or deal with -- messages that would *based on their own criteria* have been sent to the list if they *had* been seen (point 2). If you are comfortable that your method avoids too much of that, then I repeat: I am all for your way, for you. Darrell