[A6] New host?!?

[UnderTow]

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 CikiraMidi at aol.com wrote:

> >Keep Yahoo out of it.
>
> >Seconded.
>
>
> Argg, Michael and Marshall!
>
> Yahoo accounts don't receive spam if a person setting up an account
> ("profile") bothers to deselect Preference options for various sorts of contacts from
> them.

Entirely agreed. I own my own domain so I set up email accounts so that I
know who is selling my addresses on to spammers. An example of this is my
Yahoo CakeWalk group forum account. The email address I gave was
yahoo-cakewalk at my.domain. I have NEVER ever received any spam on that
addresss. (Having been on the net for more than 10 years, I receive ALOT
of spam so this says alot).

> They don't force you to open an account to subscribe to a group; you can do
> so directly, bypassing profile-making, but naturally they don't make a big deal
> out of this, any more than they do about opting out of default Preferences
> settings.

Again agreed. I don't have any Yahoo email adresses but I am a member of
many Yahoo groups. No spam on any of those addresses.

> Yahoo Groups work slick as a whistle if you know a few things in advance, and
> if there's a group moderator who approves new member subscriptions. This is
> not a big deal, and a group moderated in this way won't have spam. When you
> want to subscribe to a moderated group, you have to write a sentence that tells
> the moderator you're not a spambot. Moderator approves you, and that's all
> "moderation" needs to consist of.

Agreed again.

> Their ads are indeed intrusive if you try to read messages at the Yahoo site.
> That's why having a Yahoo "dummy" account for email is so important. You
> don't have to make public any info. about yourself, and you can change your email
> mode quickly between individual mails, digest mode and the no-email settings.
> I'm subscribed to 46 (!) Yahoo groups, and switch modes according to what's
> going on of interest to me.

46? Wow. :) Do you have a life besides email. ;) Just teasing! :)

> One thing I do for SynthSights' 200+ members is save group digest mails, edit
> out ads and headers, and upload zipped batches of them as text files to the
> group's Files section. If people want to visit the web page and catch up with
> the group, they can bypass Yahoo's messages altogether. As Evil Moderatrix I'm
> gonna help folks beat that damned ad system, whatever it takes. I do that
> every 20 digests, and it's not a lot of work.

The only adverts I seem to see is the short Yahoo "advert" at the end of
each email but hey, every properly managed mailinglist (including the a6
list) adds footer messages to emails to tell people where to unsubscribe
etc. That is normal.

> SynthSights members have set up a separate info. site. In principle I think
> this is a good idea, in case the group wants to bail on Yahoo at a later time.
> As soon as Yahoo pisses me off, we're outta there. But there's no reason not
> to take advantage of a system that's already in place and can offer a lot of a
> dvantages if you work it right.

Entirely agreed. There is nothing wrong with Yahoo groups as far as I can
tell [1]. Actually, personaly ran mailinglists tend to generate more spam.
That is usualy because alot of mailinglist managers are not as aware of
setting up proper private archiving with membership moderation as could
be. This isn't the case with the A6 list and I think it would be the same
if it was a Yahoo group. So again my question, what is the problem with
Yahoo groups?

I'll say again that I prefer independant setups out of principal but the
arguments against Yahoo need to be solid, not just whimsical, or they are
not valid.

If Justin and Will can spare the bandwidth, I'm all for staying on their
server. But if that is an issue, lets at least contemplate the
alternatives without prejudice.

[1] I've been drinking champagne, old Italian wine and 25 year old rhum
for about the last 9 hours so I might be drifting a bit. :) Aaaah the
wonders of quality BBQs ....

UnderTow