ASL-Forums Reconstruction Update

Nat Mallet

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ASLers,

The ASL-Forums.net website is back online, but it's not fully operational yet. I'll post reconstruction progress here, so please check back often.

ASL-Forums.net update for April 17th 2004

Up and Running

- The Forums

Work in progress (with ETA)

- Welcome Page (April 17th 2004, late day)
- ASL Mailing List (April 23rd 2004)
- OARS (May 14th 2004)

If you run into any problems, please email me at Webmaster@asl-forums.net

Nat
 

Nat Mallet

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There seems to be some weirdness in where the posts are going. A post in announcements is showing up under the Perry Says forum.

I'm working on that one.

Nat
 

Johnny Canuck

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My understanding is that the site was shut down by your (former?) ISP as a result of the AOL complaint.

If so, I wouldn't mind a getting a hold of their email address.
 

kerneld

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atuline said:
My understanding is that the site was shut down by your (former?) ISP as a result of the AOL complaint.

If so, I wouldn't mind a getting a hold of their email address.
I also would like to see details of this sufficient for me to make a complaint to AOL and/or the WebHosting company over thier handling of the situation.

It is ludicrous to me that someone could subscribe to the ASL-ML and not recognize the posts as being a result of that.

If someone has a tiny mail quota and gets swamped by the mailing list traffic, they should not take it out on the list. That is just juvenille.
 

Jazz

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kerneld said:
It is ludicrous to me that someone could subscribe to the ASL-ML and not recognize the posts as being a result of that.

If someone has a tiny mail quota and gets swamped by the mailing list traffic, they should not take it out on the list. That is just juvenille.
Problem is, they very well might not have been subscribed to the ASLML.

In the past I have recieved bounced messages informing me that a message that I sent contained a virus. Funny thing is, I never sent those messages. I suspected some connection to ASL as many (not all) of these messages had distribution lists with at least one name/address that I recognized from the ASLML. Other than these familiar names/addresses, I recognized none of the destinations on the returned messages. Some (but not all) of these familiar address/names were people that I had not personally communicated with. Unfortunately, there was no pattern or consistency as to what names/address were on these messages.

One of the latest hacker stunts is to get into an account's e-mail address book and configure questionable messages to look like they were sent by some address in that address book. I'm thinking that someone's e-mail account got hacked and that someone had the ASLML address in their address book?

This is the biggest reason (other than preservation of the delete key on my keyboard) that I only read the list from the web access. Unfortunately, I was not subscribed to the list when these messages were sent, so that is not a fool-proof solution to the problem.

Not a comment as to how appropriate or inappropriate the response of the ISP is. Just a theory as to just what happened.

Jazz
 

da priest

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"I'm thinking that someone's e-mail account got hacked and that someone had the ASLML address in their address book?"

Nope, I was on the List during the debacle and no errant non-List post came thru...was a straight AOL issue and the dummy who complained, if ever ID'd, should never have an ASL playing partner again...
 

da priest

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On the recon of the forum issue, as I was typing the above post, the "Topic Review" had that 404 error in it. Didn't effect the reply, and didn't appear as I was doing this, so whatever...
 

Jazz

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da priest said:
"I'm thinking that someone's e-mail account got hacked and that someone had the ASLML address in their address book?"

Nope, I was on the List during the debacle and no errant non-List post came thru...was a straight AOL issue and the dummy who complained, if ever ID'd, should never have an ASL playing partner again...
Actually, that is not a good indication.

It is not the list that would have gotten the questionable messages. It would be some other address (that in all probablity has nothing to do with ASL or the list) that would be getting a questionable message that would be configured so that it looked like it came from the list.

Funky, no?
 

Nat Mallet

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It is not the list that would have gotten the questionable messages. It would be some other address (that in all probablity has nothing to do with ASL or the list) that would be getting a questionable message that would be configured so that it looked like it came from the list.
No, it definitely came from the list. The subject was:

Re: [ASLML] I played ASL for the first time in a year...

and it had the right contents.

If was a hacker, what kind of crazy, sick bastard would send parts of an ASLML flame war to non-subscriber? :)

Nat
 

Nat Mallet

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Here's a quick ASL Mailing List update.

I'm having a very difficult time finding a decent hosting package for the mailing list, for many reasons

- Cost (good packages are expensive)
- Spam concerns
- Little control over the mailing list
- Outright bans on mailing lists (they're very tough on servers)

There are many companies though, I just have to sift through all of them to find one that makes sense. The ASL Mailing List will be back shortly.

Nat
 

Dragon

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admin said:
- Cost (good packages are expensive)

The ASL Mailing List will be back shortly.

Nat
Heya Nat,

firstly I want to thank you for your efforts. I am really looking forward to "lurk" the list again. :)

Concerning the costs: in other fan fora or lists, the idea of tin cupping the needed money is spreading. I would have no problems to support sites or lists I love.

What do you guys, Nat et al., think?

Regards,

Dragon
 

Aries

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Question (and yes I am serious).

I was once on the ASLML and therefore I am aware what it was is and wants to be.

But, and it is a valid but...

Why do we need it?

Ok I am sure some see some use in it, but, since I gained familiarity with using forums something like 4 or more years back, I have oft wondered, why would anyone want to use anything else, especially if it wasn't as easy to use?

I have also experienced Consimworlds concept of information distribution (or what passes for it).
Lets just say, if the information appeared on Consimworld or the ASLML, it might as well not exist at all in my view.

I use forums for a reason, they are considerably more easier to employ.
 

da priest

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Sorry Les, we once again are on opposing sides. The ASLML is much easier to use. I can reply easier with my own familiar mail client and read the stuff faster. replies are quickly done for all messages and no bouncing or slowly moving from entry to entry.

And recently I was forced to use a freaking modem for my ASL fix, God was that torture....good thing it was only for 2 weeks. The modem guys have to tie-up their phone lines for long periods of time when cruising the fora, and that s*cks big time.

No the ML is still a good thing and should be resurrected.(just had to use my stand alone spell checker--none with this interface :(...) And the reply screen froze on me--never happens with my replies to the ML..
 

WesN

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Just FYI, but the old original email list at MMP is actually still up and running. It still is slow at times etc, but is still there. I get email from it when people actually send to it.
 

Nat Mallet

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No the ML is still a good thing and should be resurrected.
It certainly is for users. Like Ron says, you can use whatever tool you'd like to access it, and it's usually much faster, since there's a lot less stuff to pull down (no images, only text).

The main reason I'm resurrecting it is for the members that have a pay-per-use Internet account, instead of an unlimited use account. They need to be able to read and post offline, and you can pretty much only do that with a Mailing List.

<RANT> If it was up to me, I'd drop the mailing lists altogether. They're very hard on bandwidth, they're unsafe thanks to idiot virus writers and they're a pain to administer and maintain, thanks to idiot spammers (not to mention a few idiot users). While email is a useful tool, I think it's overused.</RANT>

For now, there's simply too much demand for the ML to even consider dropping it.

Nat
 

kerneld

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admin said:
No the ML is still a good thing and should be resurrected.
The main reason I'm resurrecting it is for the members that have a pay-per-use Internet account, instead of an unlimited use account. They need to be able to read and post offline, and you can pretty much only do that with a Mailing List.
I find the mailing list handy because I can archive it myself and search through there really easily keeping track of what I have read etc..

Plus I manage my own email server so I have pretty good server side spam filtering and message filtering for my multiple mail clients.

Do you have some details about the bandwidth/ disk usage growth rate for the mail list?

I may be able to find a place to host for free, possibly with just the need to get a post market box to host it on very cheaply.
 
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