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A short recap and some new information:<br><br>
Over 2 years ago when eGroups (which was just archiving JavaScript list
postings) was bought out by Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo, _without my
permission_, basically usurped the list, made it appear that it was being
hosted by Yahoo/eGroups. Yahoo also did not give me any access to my own
list on the Yahoo side. So if any of the 900+ members of the JavaScript
list that were on the Yahoo side of the list had any problems with their
list membership, I could never be of help to them.<br><br>
I repeatedly tried to get Yahoo to fix the situation. Finally I got
someone to respond last week. They gave me access to the usurped side of
the list. However, they now turned it back to mirroring and so all the
people that had signed up to the list and were able to post via the Yahoo
side (which was forwarding their posts to the real list address), were no
longer able to post to the list. There was no way for me to send out a
post to them to let them know what was happening (yes, I tried). I
unsubscribed those that looked to have their membership disabled because
of too many bounces. And then merged the two membership halves together.
And then deleted the Yahoo side (since the older parts of the archives
were being deleted by Yahoo anyway as the archives on Yahoo has a 64 MB
limit, thus the archives of the list on its real home server contained
more posts now).<br><br>
Two problems occurred: <br><br>
1) there were 6 bad addresses that just bounced and bounced and kept on
bouncing like some perpetual ping pong machine. I got over 2,000 bounced
messages. Took me forever to get through those (I needed to check as many
as possible to make sure I was catching all the bad addresses causing the
problem so I could unsubscribe them). My apologies for that. I figured
there'd be some bounces, but not 2,000. Why those 6 bad addresses didn't
have a bad bounce history on Yahoo! Groups is beyond me.<br><br>
2) Unfortunately, since I was unable to access the usurped side for over
two years, some folk had set their accounts to nomail and they forgot
about the list, or at the company they worked at they were given the
email address of a previous worker (a few companies do that, believe it
or no) who had signed up to the list unbeknownst to the new owner of the
email address, or maybe someone else signed them up without their
knowing. My apologies to those people.<br><br>
This email I'm sending out will be a test. The list is on emergency
moderation so all bounces to the list should be blocked from getting to
the list and just pile up in my box only.<br><br>
If there is no problems, I will be putting the list back to unmoderated
tomorrow morning and will monitor it constantly throughout the
day.<br><br>
On top of this all, LA Tech has upgraded the list serv software, and I'm
working on learning the new features and functions and
settings.<br><br>
Thanks to the folks who sent me mature, civil and even supportive emails.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the positive emails outnumbered
the negative ones almost 3:1. I believe in the importance of this
list, I am not doing this for money, and any time administering is out of
my spare time and so I never intend to cause grief for the members, or to
forcibly/secretively sign up people to the list (what would that gain for
me? I get no money from having new members, and a larger list means more
of my spare time to administer). <br><br>
For the others who were very hateful and juvenile in their emails to me,
sometimes despite all good efforts, bad stuff happens in life. The list
will stand back up from this trip, and be the useful and important
resource to JavaScripters that it has been for these many years. I now
can help all members of the list, and not just half of them, and I've
learned even more about list administration and so you've gotten an even
more experienced list administrator because of all this.<br><br>
TTFN,<br>
David Merchant<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Director of Integrated Technology <br>
CATALyST<br>
Louisiana Tech University <br>
Carson Taylor Hall, Rm. 130<br>
Adams Street<br>
(PO Box 3179)<br>
Ruston, LA 71272 <br>
Tel: (318) 257-4772 <br>
Fax: (318) 257-3852<br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u>projectlife.latech.edu<br>
c3.latech.edu<br>
catalyst.latech.edu</font></u></html>